Patrick Watson
Cat Martino
- Mission Theater |
- Tuesday, June 12
- 7 p.m. doors, 8 p.m. show |
- $15 advance, $15 day of show |
- 21 and over
Tickets on sale now!
About Patrick Watson
Patrick Watson first broke through to audiences in 2006 with his album Close to Paradise. The album went gold in Canada and won numerous awards, including the Polaris Prize. It saw international release in September 2007 and has since sold over 100,000 copies worldwide. Watson also began to receive attention around the same time for his song "To Build a Home," which he performs with Cinematic Orchestra on their 2007 album, Ma Fleur. Fittingly, the seeds of his own band were cinematic and collaborative in nature, having begun as a multi-media project entitled Waterproof9 with Quebec visual artist Brigitte Henry. His core four-piece band of Watson (vox, keys), Mishka Stein (bass), Simon Angell (guitar) and Robbie Kuster (drums) began to take shape in the wake of the self-released Just Another Ordinary Day in 2003, and before long buzz on their live show had lead to performances with an impressively diverse group of artists, from Phillip Glass and Steve Reich, to Feist. In the summer of 2006, they were invited on a European tour with the late James Brown, just before the release of Close to Paradise.
Check out out Patrick Watson's latest album, Adventures in Your Own Backyard, on NPR's First Listen series.
His 2009 album, Wooden Arms, saw the band expand in the live setting to include a string quartet-not surprisingly, considering the lush arrangements present on all the albums. Indeed by this time Watson himself had established a reputation as a producer and composer of film scores, in addition to role as, band-leader, piano-player and singer-songwriter. The Wooden Arms tour fittingly culminated in 2011 with a collaborative performance with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, which saw the renowned symphony performing Watson's songs alongside the band.
Watson's latest offering, entitled Adventures in Your Own Backyard, is in his own words, an effort on the band's part to "make the kind of music we would want to listen to at home." The album's title is both a nod to this sentiment, and to the fact that it was recorded almost entirely in Watson's apartment in Montreal. Both Close to Paradise and Wooden Arms were recorded over long periods of time, in many different places-Wooden Arms is especially scattered in its geography, with a number of the songs having been informed by the band's extensive travels in the wake of the success of Close to Paradise.
By contrast, the tone for creating Adventures in Your Own Backyard was one comfort and proximity, which opened a number of doors. With the help of local engineer Rob Heaney, the band was able to set up a recording environment in Watson's studio that was both professional and comfortable. As Kuster explains, "Pat's studio environment allowed us to be relaxed and feel like we were in an informal space...our own. That really let us dig in to the writing and the arranging." One of the results of this is the extent to which the new album showcases bassist Mishka Stein as a prominent collaborative songwriter; he penned the foundations for a number of the songs, including the first single, "Into Giants."
The result is an album that is still ripe with the touchstones one has come to expect from Patrick Watson and his collaborators, but permeated with a greater sense of patience, and confidence. Adventures in Your Own Backyard is an attempt by Watson and the band to simplify their sights-to make music a bit more close to home, in every sense of the phrase.
About Cat Martino
Rumor has it her birth father was a guitar player from Texas; She was mouthing melodies before words. Truth is Cat Martino is a voice emerging that draws you in by its natural strength and intimacy. Cat calls her original style "Some kind of Soul". It's a little bit indie-folk-rock-experimental, born from influences diverse as Laura Nyro, The Beatles, and Bjork... Cat played her guitar, piano, and looped her voice and instruments to create layers that dream a sound all her own.
She was adopted into the Martino family of Pizza Makers on Long Island, New York. Riding in the Oldsmobile backseat, the girl was always singing harmonies to the 8 tracks from times past. She played the piano, ate pizza, and preferred making up ditties and neighborhood circuses, to sitting still.
Cat studied English and Music at Rutgers College, while finding her love for dance and choreography to paint pictures with movement. She taught herself piano and guitar, wearing out beloved mix tapes of Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding and the Pixies.
Several years back, Brooklyn songstress & dancer Cat Martino found herself in bed with a mysterious neuromuscular illness for which doctors had no name and said could not be cured. Martino one day saw her boyfriend's pedal board, and decided to put a microphone into it.
"It was so cathartic, because I was unable to move or play instruments at that time, but could instantly create layers of sound all around me that were comforting and helped me feel not alone."
Limited physically for several years, Martino made a journey of self-healing & recovery succeeded. Then, wholly Inspired by the playfulness of the pedals in her studio, and newfound life and mobility, Cat began working on her forth-coming record, Yr Not Alone.
Fast Forward. The Songstress has finished her newest record "Yr Not Alone" upon the eve of her most imminent and revealing yet, something fresh based upon her natural ear for looping harmonies and instruments live onstage, and internal body rhythms. Stay tuned to hear. Previously, she has worked on The Sea Closet, an album of piano and guitar songs, that trace the travels of her creative inner characters by boat whistles from waving waters to land.
Martino has toured internationally, opening shows for Rufus Wainwright, RIDE frontman Mark Gardener, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and more. In 2010/11 Cat hit the road far and wide when asked to tour with the bands of friends Sufjan Stevens and Sharon Van Etten, touring them respectively for their album releases which she had lush vocal contributions for on "Age of Adz", "All Delighted People" and "Epic". Cat has also enjoyed performing and recording with Joseph Arthur, Dive Index & Swedish artists Anna Ternheim, Nina Persson (The Cardigans), A Camp, Marit Bergman, and more! Other musical conspirators have been found in multi-instrumentalist/Producer Jack Petruzzelli (Rufus Wainwright, Patti Smith), Ben Kalb (Regina Spektor), Nathan Larson (Angela McKluskey, Shudder to Think.), Matt Johnson (Jeff Buckley), and Joe & Robin Bennet (of Goldrush, Dusty and the Dreaming Spires Truckfest).
Whether she plays solo or is accompanied by a full band and strings, when her voice emerges you are drawn in by its natural strength and intimacy, a sound full of unique emotion and scope. The songstress organically weaves in the use of pedals to loop her vocals, captivating the room. These layers are clearly used to serve the nature of Martino's writing, raw and poetic, holding a hope-light in the sultry night. "I had been exploring a stripped down acoustic sound that birthed songs from a deeper honesty. One day I started to play with my guitarists' pedal board through a microphone. Harmonizing is the most natural thing in the world for me, so... At first I thought I was combining opposites, but I soon heard the sounds complement each other. Besides, I love contradictions."
Stereogum has this to say about her.
- Website:
- http://www.catmartino.com
