THE SWAY MACHINERY: News

Veteran music journalist David McGee has just inked an extensive and thoughtful piece on The Sway Machinery for his online music journal TheBluegrassSpecial.com.

The webzine, which focuses on American traditional music, featured Sway in its Gospel Set column, a wonderful departure from your usual Gospel fare!

Check it out at:

http://thebluegrassspecial.com/archive/june2008/June2008gospelset.html

We are heading up to the Montreal area this week to set to work recording our first full length album! We will be recording at La P'tite Église, the beautiful historic church that was bought by Arcade Fire and transformed into a recording studio! Many thanks to Arcade Fire for hosting us as we embark on this project!

Thanks to everyone who came to our incredible party at the Stanton Street Shul. Amazingly, the 100 year old structure is still standing despite a fire-code busting crowd and a bar sold out of liquor.

Thanks to everyone who came out to Angel Orensanz Foundation last Wednesday to see Hidden Melodies Revealed--a secret celebration of Rosh HaShana. It was a wonderful night for us in the band and for the audience, 500 strong. We look forward to seeing you all again very soon!

Copies of the Hidden Melodies Revealed EP are still available! Contact info@swaymachinery.com for info.

To add to the festivites, at our Rosh HaShana concert Hidden Melodies Revealed, we are happy to inform the public that there will be an open bar from 9:45 until 11PM on the night of the performance, courtesy of the Moet Hennesy Company.

The bar will be offering Ardbeg "the Ultimate Single Islay Malt Scotch Whiskey" and Greenpoint Chardonnay and Cabernet Shiraz from Australia. Greenpoint , founded by Moet and Chandon, is a high quality cool climate wine that is committed to ecologically friendly wine making practices.

We are very happy to have this wonderful opportunity to charge the atmosphere even further with a small but potent infusion of lubricating spirits. Thank you Moet Hennesy!

We are very happy to announce that for our special Rosh HaShana concert, Hidden Melodies Revealed, we will have both our friend Brian Chase (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) on drums, and original band member Tomer Tzur on percussion. Tomer is making a special trip over from Israel to be a part of this special event. This battery of rhythm masters is going to shoot the Lower East Side off the map and make this a new year to be remembered!

Hidden Melodies Revealed--a celebration of the lunar new year festival in song.

On September 12, 2007 at 10PM, The Sway Machinery will journey into the realm of memory and destiny fulfilled, celebrating the lunar New Year with an event that pushes the boundaries of its exploratory music. After months of touring with other projects (including Arcade Fire, Balkan Beat Box and Antibalas), the band's members are re-uniting to create their most exciting project to date. More than a concert, this event will walk the balance beam between storytelling, theater, music and mass hysteria. Taking place on Rosh HaShana and employing the musical traditions of the Jewish New Year as its jumping off point, Hidden Melodies Revealed will unleash an all-out party that is both joyful and transformative.

Hidden Melodies Revealed will take place at Angel Orensanz Foundation, an historic Lower East Side Synagogue that has since found new life as an art and event venue. A deep sense of history burns through the space. The depth of its past is especially relevant for this event, as it was in this same building that Cantor Jacob Konigsberg, the grandfather of lead singer Jeremiah Lockwood, gave his New York debut concert in 1949 when the Angel Orensanz site housed the vibrant and celebrated Slonimer Synagogue.

This event will feature the debut of a short film especially created for the night by animator Shawn Atkins (The Traveling Eye of the Blue Cat) using puppets designed by Paul Andrejco (Puppet Heap). The film takes as its subject The Akeidah, the sacrifice of Isaac. Calling upon the traditional structure of the Rosh HaShana service, which has at its center a reading from the Torah, this film will serve as the reading from Scripture for the day, connecting the performance to the epic storytelling tradition from which it derives. The film will be accompanied by live music and a narrator, performed by Yula Beeri (Nanuchka, World/Inferno Friendship Society).

Hidden Melodies Revealed will push open the gates of the spirit and spill out into the senses. This is an event that will truly reward all who bear witness.

A track of Jeremiah Lockwood performing at the recent Balkan Beat Box concert in Paris has been put up on JUMU, the French Nu Jewish Music website. Have a listen:

http://www.jumu.fr/J-Lockwood.mp3

With founding member of the band Tomer Tzur off to try his luck in his homeland of Israel, we are very pleased to announce that the drum chair will be filled at the next few shows by the brilliant Brian Chase. Check us with Brian at Makor and Black Betty this weekend, and check our Shows page for details.

We will be performing in Austin at the great SXSW music festival on March 17th, performing at a showcase produced by JDub records, sharing the stage with Balkan Beat Box and Golem! Venue address and exact times to be disclosed...

Also of interest: We are beginning work on a short documentary about the band, directed by Tatiana McCabe. More details soon to follow!

The Sway Machinery has just finished recording the incidental music for Linnea, a new play by John Regis and directed by Peter Dobbin. Linnea opens at the Storm Theater on January 6. You can hear a track from the score on our Music page. Visit the Storm Theater website for tickets and more details:

http://www.stormtheatre.com/

Click here to watch a clip of The Sway Machinery, filmed by Tatiana McCabe. from our recent show at Southpaw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTXPKHwhr6g

An interview with Jeremiah Lockwood of The Sway Machinery, was just posted on Nextbook.org, the journal of contemporary Jewish culture. Have a listen:
http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=422

An exciting week for The Sway Machinery as we return to the Brooklyn Stage, opening for Balkan Beat Box at Southpaw. The band was profiled in the Village Voice this week in a wonderful article by Buzz Poole.

http://villagevoice.com/music/0637,poole,74420,22.html

Our concert at Southpaw was also just reviewed on Dusty Wright's CultureCatch.com.


http://www.culturecatch.com/music/balkanbeatbox

The Sway Machinery heads off to England!
We will be playing on Wednesday August 23rd at the Spitz in London and then heading off to the Limmud festival in the English country side. Have a look at our Shows page for more details.

The Sway Machinery is featured on a segment of the wonderful podcast radio program The Small World. Have a listen:
http://smallworldpodcast.com/?p=444

The Sway Machinery's first photo shoot! Have a look at these beautiful and iconic images of the band, taken last week at Zebulon in Williamsburg, now up on the "Photos" page of our website.
http://scottirvine.net

The film Mendy, directed by Adam Vardy and featuring a score by The Sway Machinery has just been held over for an extended run at Cinema Village in downtown Manhattan!!!
Everyone should go see the film. It's a wonderful piece of work.
We have just put up two tracks from the score on the Music page. Please have a listen. These tracks feature bassist Sean Kupisz, as well as Stuart Bogie, Tomer Tzur and Jeremiah Lockwood.
http://mendythemovie.com

The mixing-board is still hot! Check out the music page for 3 new tunes.

Check out this web radio journal on The Sway Machinery by NPR journalist Benjamin Walker:

http://www.toeradio.org/archives/2006/04/toe_040806_sway.html