Juliette Commagere – The Nature of Things
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Puscifer @ the Nokia Theater – Review – antiquiet.com
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photo © Patrick Surace
“…The stage set-up was an odd one, consisting of couches set center stage around a coffee table, where friends and fans shuffled in and out of throughout the set, everyone with a glass of Maynard’s Chupacabra wine. Two television screens stood behind the furniture, in front of the vocalist platforms, broadcasting fish-bowl-distorted video of Maynard (who did a quick change and was now looking very Bald Bond in a grey suit, red tie & sunglasses) and the immensely talented Juliette Commagere, who shared vocal duties throughout the night. They literally appeared as talking heads while singing, erasing the disconnect audience members without prime perspectives usually feel when they’re forced to stare at a side monitor to see what’s happening onstage. A brilliant move, really, when you consider modern obsessions with living the “real” moment (and using as much technology as possible to do so)…”
[Read the full review at antiquiet.com] link
Puscifer @ the Nokia Theater – Gallery
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photos © Patrick Surace.
Interview – laist.com
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Interview: Juliette Commagere Talks Keytars and Her Debut Solo Album, ‘Queens Die Proudly’
Up to this point, Juliette Commagere has been best known as the keytar-playing frontwoman of the band Hello Stranger, which has opened for everyone from the Foo Fighters to Kings of Leon. And although Queens Die Proudly is her first solo outing, she’s still surrounded by friends and family in this effort—including guest performances by legendary slide guitarist Ry Cooder, his son (and Commagere’s high school sweetheart) Joachim Cooder, and her siblings, Robert Francis and Carla Commagere. LAist sat down with Commagere for dinner at Oaxacan restaurant Monte Alban to learn about the new record, how she’s bringing the keytar back and the process of creating an orchestra via Craiglist.
[Read the full interview at laist.com]
KCRW – Morning Becomes Eclectic
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Queens Die Proudly
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Queens Die Proudly – Reviews
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Juliette Commagere’s voice ranges from dusky to sharply silver, slicing through the intimate, sometimes alien orchestration of her debut solo record, “Queens Die Proudly.” An art-pop suite of 13 songs, the album was written over the course of a year as a way to fight off depression. Her energetic indie-rock outfit, Hello Stranger, formed with high schoool sweetheart Joachim Cooder on drums, wasn’t gaining momentum — despite Commagere’s inspired keytar rips – and the L.A. native, who’s contributed to songs by Puscifer and Avenged Sevenfold, was struggling with what to do next.
“I felt like the only way I would feel better is if I could create something,” she said, after a rehearsal for her Troubadour show and KCRW-FM (89.9) appearance tomorrow. “Sounds corny but it’s true…. I think everybody, artists and non-artists, has got to keep creating or else life seems pointless.”
Depression, in a counter-intuitive way, might’ve helped Commagere but there was an even more important force at play for “Queens Die Proudly” — Commagere let go of the rules, including any fuss over logistics. “It was the most relaxed I’ve ever been while writing,” she said. “Anytime I ever thought to myself, ‘I can’t put that here,’ I would remind myself that this wasn’t for anyone, this was just for me.” So, if she wanted to put in a part for horns and strings, she went ahead and did it.
The result sounds emotional but light, a combination that can be found in many of Commagere’s heroes, such as Icelandic pop mystic Bjork. Brahms and Tangerine Dream factor in too. The disparate touchstones make sense for a performer who can shape-shift quite easily. Puscifer and Avenged Sevenfold came knocking, she says, “because I’ve always attracted the goths. I guess it’s the black hair and pale skin.” Her brother, singer-songwriter Robert Francis, channels a different set of influences in his dusty folk, but with equal dexterity.
Commagere’s logistical gambles not only didn’t hamper the recording – for which she got help from Ry Cooder, Joachim’s Dad, who played slide guitar on “Nature of Things” — it also hasn’t restricted her in concert either. Commagere has assembled orchestras for live shows in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and L.A. by putting up ads on Craigslist. “Everyone’s been cool and they’re all excited to play,” she said. “Though it’s been scary to put it all together at the last minute.”
No matter what the risks have been, Commagere is keen on making another solo record that will balance the light and the dark. “The possibilities,” she says, “are more wide open.” And who knows, maybe a project with her brother, and their older sister who also sings, will come down the pike. “We’ve talked about it before … but when it’s with your siblings, you just start bickering a lot. Maybe we’d do some ranchera songs with really broken down guitar and three-part harmonies.”
– Margaret Wappler
[Pop & Hiss - The L.A. Times Music Blog] link
Juliette Commagère at the Troubadour
Lately I’ve been so knocked out hearing these great and gorgeous pop tunes created and performed by the lovely Juliette Commagère. You might know her as the Keytar-slinging, charismatic front woman for the adventurous indie-rock band Hello Stranger, which she formed with drummer Joaquin Cooder; or you might have heard her singing and playing on recent endeavors by Avenged Sevenfold and Puscifer. That varied batch of interests hints as to the unclichéd gifts of the multitalented Commagère, which are given a fuller flowering on her new solo album, Queens Die Proudly (Aeronaut Records). A vividly orchestrated pop-art project veering from the wistful and elegiac to the epic and otherwordly, Queens is like a No. 1 chart-topper from another dimension, where remarkably memorable songs are given evocative musical twists via her classically designed song structures and sensual ’70s synth stylings. On her recent cross-country residency stints, Commagère has assembled local orchestras (via Craigslist!) of strings and horns, which brings a radiant gleam to her superb material. (John Payne)
[LA Weekly - Rock Picks] link
Certain sounds are timeless, and “Where I Go” could be a hundred years old or from tomorrow. It begins with overtones from India, as Amir Yaghmai’s yali tambur and Joachim Cooder’s percussion add an instant ancient wisdom before Juliette Commagere’s exquisite voice begins singing. She immediately takes us on a dreamy excursion to the moon, sweeping into view like a vision from a Hollywood movie. There is a breathy drama that starts to unfold from the very first verse, and Commagere is definitely directing the movie. The song sounds like it was recorded on a huge old Warner Bros. Pictures soundstage, with dozens of musicians playing together as one. Meanwhile, the music feels like a cold winter night–a mystery waiting to unravel–creating a tension that never quite lifts off but instead teases us mercilessly. And like all the other great mysteries, it’s in the not knowing that the real pleasure lies. Julliette Commagere has been someone who always sounded like she was searching for something, a place she could call her own and then explore endlessly. On Queens Die Proudly, she has found it, and while “Where I Go” might be the most accessible song on the album–Enyaesque with an edge–every single one will pull you into her world and make you not want to leave–ever. Of all the albums released in 2008, none has announced a major new musical presence like this one.
— 10/29/2008
[sonicboomers.com] link
Why should Enya get all the echoey, pulsating, chiming soundscapes? Juliette Commagère, who leads the band Hello Stranger and has sung with Puscifer and Avenged Sevenfold, makes her own claim to overdubbed chorales and synthetic paradises on her solo album “Queens Die Proudly” (Aeronaut). But she’s much more approachable than Enya; Ms. Commagère saves the massed harmonies for choruses, and she sings most of the time with her sweet soprano voice fully exposed. It’s an album of lonely post-breakup songs — “There’s a cold wind blowing from the north/The emptiness has come back for me” — with their sorrows gorgeously sublimated.
[Jon Pareles - NY Times] link
Equipped with an unusual gift for ambient power balladry, Juliette Commagère employs her all-encompassing voice to sing about melancholic isolation on her first solo album, Queens Die Proudly. Not the most uplifting subject in the world, however Commagère magnificently portrays these feelings through her own unique style — which lands somewhere between Inara George’s haunting electronics and the goth-pop tendencies of Evanescence.
The instrumentals, paired with the lyricism, are what keep Commagère from falling in with the pile of overly dramatic, ethereal pop singers — as is evident on the title track when she sings, “In the morning / With famine on my lips.” On standout “Everything I Love” she laments over tribal-like drum beats, “She hates him so much / She had to let him go,” and on “Overcome,” sings of a long-distance tie, “Our distance grows and widens … I feel you most when we’re divided.”
The ultra-chilled nature is perfect for anyone who enjoys shutting themselves in for an evening to ponder their own dark, dark spells over a glass or three of wine. Commagère entrenches the room in her essence, coating the ceiling, walls, and floor; words swirl and loop, encompassing the listener in a voice tunnel of sorts, while quick-witted percussion plays into other lazily swelling instrumentals — howling, pulsing, plummeting into oblivion.
[Leah Urbom - venuszine.com] link
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Hello Stranger – Take it to the Maxx
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Hello Stranger – Take it to the Maxx
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