Press
Stephanie Rearick solo
Released May 31, 2007, on Uvulittle Records.
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Democracy
"Amanda Palmer gone psychedelic and retro -- one of the rawest, most original aesthetics we've heard in awhile." -- Keyboard Magazine, August 2009.
"...a continually-shifting arsenal of styles ranging from ragtime to science fiction, all while maintaining personal awareness and a keen sense of self.
Stephanie effortlessly does with her piano what others with computers lie awake dreaming of"
- WomensRadio.com review
"You hear intimate confessions that balance winsome and anguished singing in an ongoing dialogue with her keyboard, which alternates rock 'n' roll drive, boogie-woogie bounce and a dark severity that recalls classical etudes and the brooding fire of avant-garde jazz master Cecil Taylor.
...Rearick's balance of "happy accidents" and deliberate form shows artistic maturity, even as she grows increasingly expressive. She has shorn some precious techno-baroque effects and cranked up emotional resonance.
Her protective weapon is music, loaded with creative energy, vision and hope."
- Capital Times album review
Capital Times companion article
"Like Elliott Smith, Rearick can take piano chords and turn them into a dream. Her mastery of the keyboard isn't just technical, it's emotional.
She conjures otherworldly feelings right from the start of Democracy. The opening track, "Flyboy," is pure childhood innocence, wrapped in the whirling excitement of carnival music.
From there the album gets edgy and nervous, referencing the macho arrogance of the president: "And if you had a market for a category hurricane, you'd rev up the motorcade and show 'em what you've got."
On "Birthright," Rearick openly confronts our collective acquiescence in a not-so-new world order:
"You taught your children to breathe free and now they're gasping/If they could get the air to speak they'd be asking/Where were you, when you knew?"
...Democracy is good enough to stand in the company of the best independent music being made right now. By all measures, it deserves to find its way to Pitchfork and to Seattle's tastemaking KEXP radio."
-Isthmus
...read the whole article
Here are links to the others so far:
Isthmus/The Daily Page MadTracks Feature
Maximum Ink Review
Dane 101 Review
Sea of Tranquility Review
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Stephanie Rearick solo
Released April 12, 2005, on Uvulittle Records.
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Star Belly
Stephanie Rearick is slowly, carefully tweaking her recorded personality as a solo pianist and singer/songwriter who makes use of a variety of sometimes daring enhancements. Star Belly, her 2005 set of songs, seems not remarkably different then previous sets such as The Bucket Rider. Her vocal overdubbing and harmonizing are marvelous, bringing forth a multitude of possibilities as organically as a fistful of hollyhock seeds. The piano continues as a stronger and stronger element, left-hand parts tromping out a framework that a weaker player would have to wheedle out of a rhythm section. Both piano and vocal come in and out of a production treatment in which aspects move from large, sometimes obscuring amounts of processing to the purest of simplicity. When this takes place during the course of a single song, it is as if the listener has fallen asleep in an antique auction and woken up alone, back in his own bedroom. Several pieces such as "Twilight Fog" have memorable melodic lines, allowed an amazing breadth through the subtlest of production, the performer confident enough to practically ignore her own strengths. Rearick also presents interesting cover versions of pieces by Tom Waits, Brian Eno, and David Bowie. - Eugene Chadbourne at itunes
For Madison's Stephanie Rearick, labels like 'classical' and 'arty' don't do justice to the genre-bending music box of sound that comes from her upright piano. It's by turns adventurous and accessible, ancient and futuristic, comforting and scary. On her 2005 album Star Belly, sounds from an old west barroom mingle with high concept cabaret and psychedelic distortion. -- The Onion
Rearick's a genre-bounding vocalist, keyboard player and trumpeter who takes great care bringing together things indie with her classical and art-music influences. The gorgeous multitracked vocal chorale on the otherwise simple piano piece "Hymn" sets the hook here, and then Rearick is off to the races, jangling through mind-expanding psychedelia on the title cut, herking and jerking along in madcap material that bears the stamp of English dancehall ditties ... Rearick's no imitator, and frankly, the city's lucky to have such an adventurous singer-songwriter in its midst. -- Isthmus
Star Belly, the oddly titled third album by a singer/songwriter who succinctly describes her sound as "piano-based classical/cabaret/pop," opens with what might be the prettiest four minutes and eight seconds of music I've heard all year. Stephanie Rearick's angelic (and layered) voice blends with a simple piano melody on "Hymn" for a surreal, mesmerizing and prayerful effect that actually gives me chills every time I hear it. - Sea Of Tranquility
There's nothing average or mainstream about Stephanie Rearick... She's funky, out there, odd, and most of all a very talented musician. This is more artsy than pop, however this is her most pop-ish release of her three. -- Collected Sounds
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Stephanie Rearick solo
Released June 20, 2003, on Uvulittle Records.
More about
The Bucket Rider |
The Bucket Rider
From soothing instrumentals to ethereal pop to dark ditties to witty excursions, Rearick delivers a cornucopia of aural moods, all via her upright piano and occasionally her trumpet. -- Goldmine
Don't waste time trying to categorize what you hear on Stephanie Rearick's latest release, The Bucket Rider. Enjoy her lyrics and her expertise on the ivories for the journey it takes you between the dynamic classics of the past and the experimental sounds of the future with a little jazz and pop thrown in for good measure. -- Circle Magazine
Imagine Tom Waits reincarnated as Debussy, playing Joni Mitchell versions of Edgar Allen Poe poems on a 1920s era piano, and you get an approximate sense of the influences singer/pianist Stephanie Rearick channels on the way to making her very unique, idiosyncratic art pop.
-- Berkshire Eagle
As much an art music disc as it is a pop recording, The Bucket Rider moves from aggressively modernist fare like the evocatively sung My Lizard to Brecht-Weill inspired work like the woozy title track. Throughout, Rearick's trilling pipes and sophisticated digits piece out some very sophisticated music. -- Isthmus
Ms. Rearick is truly an original voice and this recording is a daring achievement -- Midwest Ursine
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Stephanie Rearick solo
Released Sept. 11, 2001, on Uvulittle Records |
The Long Picnic
[Rearick] has sharper instrumental skills than most... she's not afraid to shut up and play an instrumental. The Man Who Stole Tomorrow is almost too lovely -- but her writing also displays a grim loopiness she'd do well to cultivate, and on Not Another Minute she sounds like the love child of Tori Amos and Robyn Hitchcock. -- The Chicago Reader
...perfectly organic..., a mixture of folk, classical music and experimental pop that glides smoothly into the deepest waters we know -- the mysteries of death. -- Cleveland Free Times |
The Coma Savants
Released April 19, 2002 on Uvulittle Records |
Coma Savant
This band's debut release is simply delightful. Pianist and vocalist Stephanie Rearick establishes that she is no slouch with the opening track, the band's theme song. Her performance invites comparisons to Nina Simone, a situation that most players would subsequently exploit at great length. The Coma Savants have the courage to keep the length of the piece down to barely more than a minute. Then the band is off somewhere else on a track called "Bloan." In fact, such a wide range of musical styles are brought in, and the arrangements are so well executed as well as cleverly devised that the listener may be surprised to realize that only a quartet is involved. It sounds at times like an octet. In terms of setting an instrumental tone for this bigger-than-life band, Rearick is most out front, her vocals mixed as if a fruit juice smoothie was being made and her acoustic piano setting up the kind of vibe that should appeal to teenaged girls with pierced navels as well as the older generation. She sings in tune, and with an attention to detail that can at times overwhelm. Sections where her singing is contrasted with one or more of the male voices also singing or talking sound a bit like overwrought Bongwater. The Coma Savants' subjects are more abstract than the Ann Magnuson banalities, but the electric guitar madness of Jon Hain will appeal to anyone who enjoys new twisted takes on psychedelia. There is also jazzy, folky, and cabaret material here, generally played with both the precision of a well-practiced band and the flair of the creatively driven lunatic. The rhythm section of bassist Joey Zarda and drummer Jason Socha are just as responsible for the satisfactory state of things as Hain and Rearick. While they all push too hard at times, there are a plethora of bright moments and the potential, interest, and obvious ability for further creations of high quality from the members of this Madison, WI, ensemble.
-- Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide
Listen to Stephanie on NPR Open Mic.
Listen to Stephanie's interview on Sunday Journal with Stuart Levitan, on Madison's92.1 The Mic, or download the podcast.
Listen to Stephanie's Across the Universe on Coverville #329.
Read a 2003 interview with Cosmik Debris.
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