swing out sister details
Swing Out Sister – Beautiful Mess
A chance meeting at Manchester’s now legendary Hacienda club brought Andy Connell and Corinne Drewery together. Andy had proved his musical capabilities with Factory’s A Certain Ratio, meanwhile Corinne, after graduating from St Martin’s School of Art in London, found her musical interests had eclipsed her fashion career. Along with ex-Magazine drummer Martin Jackson they combined their diverse influences to produce demos which were to define the future sound of the band.
Swing Out Sister was formed, and a long term working relationship with producer Paul Staveley O’Duffy was established. Their unique blend of cinematic jazz pop earned them several chart singles, including Breakout, Surrender and Twilight World resulting in their debut album, It’s Better to Travel, hitting the number one spot in the UK charts. Success followed throughout Europe, the United States and the Far East, including Japan.
Eight studio albums, two live albums and over a decade of live shows have gained Swing Out Sister international success, along with themes and scores for television and Andy’s composition for short films proving their versatility. After sell-out dates of Japan, the USA and the UK in 2005, the band are set to tour throughout 2008, kicking off in Japan in March.
Beautiful Mess, the band’s ninth studio album, and the first to be produced by Andy, exposes a more intimate sound. Corinne’s voice has a more mature timbre, supported by Andy’s unusually restrained, rhythm-heavy backdrop, yet still interwoven with their signature string and vocal arrangements. Gina Foster features on these, and also collaborated on the writing of three of the songs, Something Every Day, Butterfly and My State of Mind. Here Swing Out Sister celebrate the eclectic cultural mix of the UK’s constantly changing music scene, with a sound that owes as much to hip hop, dub and jazz as sixties pop with its well crafted arrangements and a hint of electro along the way. A Beautiful Mess indeed.
Swing Out Sister Discography:
It’s Better to Travel (1987)
Kaleidoscope World (1989)
Get in Touch With Yourself (1992)
Live at the Jazz Cafe (1993)
The Living Return (1994)
Shapes and Patterns (1997)
Filth and Dreams (1999)
Somewhere Deep in the Night (2001)
Where Our Love Grows (2004)
Live in Tokyo (2005)
Beautiful Mess (2008)
