Jo Schornikow - Altar - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Secret Weapon is Australian songwriter Jo Schornikow (and keyboardist in Phosphorescent)'s stunning tag debut. It's a devastatingly beautiful indie-pop album that eddies into dreamy nooks, while staying firmly rooted in strong melodies. It's a quiet record, adorned with subtle swells of synths and shimmering washes of guitars. Jo's calm, assured voice is that of a touring musician who's spent much of the past 10 years on the road in Phosphorescent and The Shivers and is now very much at home in this world. She's been the secret weapon to other songwriters, but now she's stepping out and sharing these gorgeous songs. While her partner Matthew Houck's band Phosphorescent carves a wide swath through cosmic country, Jo's songs thrive in a dusk-lit territory neighboring pop, shoegaze, and ambient experimental music. These are very much folk songs, but translated through the tools Jo Schornikow has at hand.

Jo Schornikow's new album ALTAR is the perfect counterweight to 2019's Secret Weapon. While that album was bare and scrappy bedroom folk, this new album is a joyful announcement of synthy indie-pop. From Melbourne, Australia, Jo's first job at 17 was as a church organist, a job she's picked up again now in Nashville, where she lives with her husband Matthew Houck of Phosphorescent and their two children. She's played keyboard in that band for over 8 years now, touring heavily all over the world as a full band, and ducking into BBC to record a duo session on their grand piano. Rolling Stone called her last album Inchexcellent,Inch Pitchfork calls her piano playing InchsensitiveInch and Inchimpressionistic,Inch and Gorilla vs. Bear describes her songwriting as Inchgorgeous and smouldering.Inch But the songs on ALTAR take all of that a step further. There are still those moments of quiet beauty, but they are exploded through with joy. There are windows-down, anthemic pop moments on InchVisionsInch and InchLose Yr Love.Inch Jo Schornikow is a songwriter flexing her craft and sharing songs that have a special charm that allow them to somehow feel honest, open, intimate and funny at the same time.

Young soprano Rosa Feola captured international attention as a treble prize-winner at the Plácido Domingo World Opera Competition (2010). Attributed 'blazing star potential' for her sensitive phrasing and imaginative coloring of words (Telegraph), she brings her feel for text to this celebration of music and Italian poetry, in which master orchestrator Respighi paints Tuscan folk scenes and woodland deities and the virtuoso Liszt is inspired by Petrarch.