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Jo Gabriel is best known for her intuitive control of the piano, her ethereal voice and the unique depth of her songwriting. Often assumed to be classically trained, Jo is completely self taught. Her music stands in the genre of ambient gothic/neo-classical and is often compared to the likes of Kate Bush, Harold Budd, Tori Amos, Joni Mitchell, the Cocteau Twins, Tim Story, Laura Nyro, Lisa Germano, Eric Satie and Hannah Fury. Jo has established herself as a poetic artist whose otherworldly performances have captured her audiences at major New York City venues, such as CB's Gallery, Meow Mix, Brownies and many other well trafficked clubs. Jo's very first live performance was actually at Tischman Auditorium she was the opening and closing performer for an internationally covered Women/Limbs Journey. The stage is the very stage that James Lipton interviews all the greats on "Inside the actors Studio" and Jo admits that she always feels a sense of inner pride and becomes privately weepy when ever she watches the show. Jo's 1995 debut album Lying in the Evidence of Love was voted top indie pick in the July 1996 issue of Modern Musician Monthly; "this style seems so natural to Gabriel that I bet she was doing it well before Amos was around" (Rich Lupescu). Her music can be heard on MTV's Real World and Making The Band. Jo won several awards for her emotionally evocative film score which was featured in With One Voice: The Battle Against Breast Cancer on Long Island a documentary which aired on PBS in the fall of 2000. Her music can be heard in film shorts such as Radical Raw Voice , an interview with world-renowned poet Sonia Sonchez, and Janeen Ilardo's remarkable short film Predicate Thinking . Her last two albums were Tinderbox and The Unreachable Sky, released through the independent label Faith Strange. Originally recorded live to a television audience, Tinderbox showcases the incredible musical interplay between Gabriel's inimitable piano style and voice with long time partner Linda Mackley on drums. The Unreachable Sky is a surreal atmospheric canvas of piano-infused instrumentals dispersed among her ghostly vocal pieces, originally constructed on her "Traveling Mothlight Theatre" 4-track studio. With both these albums Gabriel has also emerged not only as Singer/Songwriter but as a powerfully visionary producer as well. Her affiliation with composer, ambient guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and producer/engineer Mike Fazio , well know for the unique approach he brings to his ebow and electronically processed Pedal Steel guitars. Fazio has performed with and appeared on albums with such notable NYC bands as Black 47, Chill Faction and has toured with Copernicus. His two musical projects; orchestramaxfieldparrish, has been compared to VidnaObmana, David Sylvian, and Robert Fripp and his other, God's Of Electricity, a collaborative effort with master percussionist Thomas Hamlin, has been compared to the more esoteric sides of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Isao Tomita. Gabriel and Fazio's musical collaboration have created two very beautifully unique master works, Tinderbox and The Unreachable Sky . Both albums have received critical acclaim from such sources as Wind and Wire where Bill Binkelman writes " the Unreachable Sky is an intriguing album, her voice is raw human emotion with a multi-octave range... Gabriel shares Tim Story's idiosyncratic approach to titling songs, a style intensely intimate and like Harold Budd... there are also avant garde elements and a bit of Projekt -type goth/shoegazer." She has been reviewed by such websites as Collected Sounds and a full featured interview on the wonderful website Musical Discoveries. For her upcoming release on Kalinkaland Records, Jo recorded at Coney Island Studio in Madison, Wisconsin with engineer and studio owner Wendy Bugatti. Bugatti, a versatile singer, songwriter, guitarist and engineer, spent many years at Smart Studios in Madison (where the Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana recorded) alongside producer and engineer Mike Zirkle and Butch Vig of Garbage. For the Kalinkaland release, Jo brought in the cello work of Matt Turner who is regarded as one of the world's leading improvisational avant garde cellists. Turner studied with Dave Holland and Geri Allen He is featured on more than twenty recordings with such artists as Marilyn Crispell and Joseph Jarman. Wendy Bugatti's incredibly edgy electric guitar work is also featured on the album. Gabriel and Mackley plan on touring to promote her upcoming release through Kalinkaland Records. There is also talk between Gabriel and Hannah Fury about future performances on the East Coast together and a possible collaborative single in the works. Jo is currently working in her studio on very personal projects The Amber Sessions , The Last Drive In and Silence... A Fable. All 3 albums are predominantly instrumental and will be released during 2005-2006. These works are completely self-contained streams of consciousness entirely recorded on Gabriel's 4-track, using keyboard, electronic samples and experimental recording techniques.
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