Eric Chenaux premieres the new video for “There’s Our Love”, Slowly Paradise out now via Constellation Records

FILMMAKER ERIC CAZDYN CAPTURES ERIC CHENAUX AND RYAN DRIVER IN THEIR
CREATIVE ELEMENT

SLOWLY PARADISE OUT NOW VIA CONSTELLATION RECORDS

Eric Chenaux releases a new video for the song “There’s Our Love” from his critically acclaimed album Slowly Paradise. Filmed by longtime collaborator Eric Cazdyn, the video woozily captures Chenaux and Ryan Driver as they play guitar and synth, respectively, before turning its focus onto a televised tennis match. As the camera gets increasingly close to the screen, the visuals break down into a dizzying array of digital noise that goes hand in hand with Driver’s understated yet disorienting synth lines. All the while, Chenaux’s vocals and guitar maintain a degree of human
warmth in the midst of the increasing digital blur. In true Cazdyn fashion, the video succeeds in capturing Chenaux’s sense of humour and creativity while providing visually striking accompaniment to this sublime piece of music.

Eric Chenaux Artist Statement:

“About ten years ago I recorded myself playing nylon-string guitar while watching the men’s semi-finals of the US OPEN. Thinking about Paul Bley’s Open To Love, I called it US Open To Love. The stereo microphone was placed between myself and the television so the left speaker was mostly guitar and the right mostly tennis. I listen to this recording often. I hear a looseness in this music that I wish I heard more of in some of my other music. Due to the irritating commentary I have not released this recording. I often thought of giving it another go with less florid commentary (hard to find these days) but I have not gotten around to it. The video-shoot for There’s Our Love is a trio improvisation with tennis and the album version of the song playing in the room: Me on barely audible un-amplified electric guitar, Ryan Driver on synth (as a duo we perform as “The Guayaveras”) and Eric Cazdyn on the camera.”

Drawing from Eric Chenaux’s rich history in avant-folk, post-jazz, improvisation and balladry, Slowly Paradise is a lovely collection of mostly long songs guided by soothing, buttery singing and bent, fried fretwork. This stunning new record, showcasing Chenaux’s singular voice and guitar stylings, is being celebrated as the most assured and essential solo work from this inimitable, consummate songwriter. Album info and order link

ERIC CHENAUX INTERVIEWED ON BBC RADIO 6 – LISTEN HERE:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09vld4d

Chenaux will be touring extensively across around the UK and France this spring, alongside a few other EU dates also announced – read below for the full confirmed itinerary to date.

Eric Chenaux Spring 2018 UK & EU Tour Dates
12.03.18 Biarritz, FR Librairie le Festin Nu
15.03.18 Joué-les-Tours, FR Le Temps Machine
29.03.18 Metz, FR Théâtre du Saulcy
30.03.18 Lyon, FR Le Bal des Fringants
31.03.18 Montbrison, FR Cinéma
05.04.18 Montreuil, FR Les Instants Chavirés
06.04.18 Brussels, BE AB Salon
09.04.18 London, UK The Lexington
11.04.18 Manchester, UK The Portico Library
12.04.18 Stirling, UK Tolbooth
13.04.2018 Edinburgh, UK Henry’s Cellar Bar
14.04.18 Glasgow, UK Glad Cafe
15.04.18 Bradford, UK Fuse
18.04.18 Southend, UK Twenty One
19.04.18 Hastings, UK The Palace
20.04.18 Brighton, UK Rose Hill Arts Centre
21.04.18 Bristol, UK Bristol New Music
25.04.18 Copenhagen, DK Alice
26.04.18 Aarhus, DK Tape
03.05.18 Bologna, IT AngelicA 28 Festival Internazionale di
Musica
11.05.18 Dordogne, FR Secret place
12.05.18 Dordogne, FR Secret place
13.05.18 Toulouse, FR Le Taquin
23.05.18 Berlin, DE Kiezsalon
03.06.18 Labège, FR Maison Salvan
30.06.18 Poitiers, FR Le Confort Moderne, Festival Bruisme

Slowly Paradise is arguably Chenaux’s most assured and essential solo work, expanding upon on the critical acclaim his previous releases Guitar & Voice and Skullsplitter have rightly garnered. RIYL: Richard Dawson, John Fahey, Derek Bailey, Richard Youngs, Billie Holiday

PRAISE FOR SLOWLY PARADISE:

“This is a remarkable record – it is wildly experimental and as comforting as a soft embrace. The way he takes from the singer-songwriter tradition and from the avant-garde somehow enables
him to avoid the pitfalls of both, leaving him free to sculpt his own deeply idiosyncratic vision for songwriting. The most interesting art almost always has a sense of duality, and Slowly Paradise is no different; where it radically differs is in the lack of combat between those opposing forces. Chenaux’s love for Sade, for example, in no way contradicts or confuses his love for Derek Bailey. This all-encompassing spirit coalesces on closing track and highlight ‘Wild Moon’, where Chenaux’s voice is at its most rapturous, over Driver’s restrained but romantic Hammond organ lines, all interwoven with some of the most perplexing guitar workouts on the record. This album is truly his strongest yet, and this closing song is his zenith.” – THE QUIETUS

“This voice is perhaps the funnel for this unfurling of thought, where the splay of feeling is consolidated into phrases. His tone is soft, verging on a whisper, as though straddling the boundary between inner thoughts and outward articulation. Sometimes it falls silent, allowing
stuttering stylophones or trembling guitars to carry the monologue forth, alternating between the poetry of language and that which spirals away from what the voice can express. I imagine Chenaux to be daydreaming in these moments, as these instrument solos – sometimes chiming like bells, sometimes melting like wax – paint pictures in the air, trying to enact the images that stream through the mind, vivid and beautiful, yet also fluid and unexplainable.” – ATTN:MAGAZINE

“His sixth for Constellation favours longform songs that highlight both his sweet, unfussy pop voice and its unique relationship to his experimental guitar work, with avant electronics and billowing open spaces…The 11-minute, Robert Wyatt-ish “Wild Moon” – with its woozy keys and extreme fretwork building to a quivering peak – stands out, but sensual beauty abounds.” – UNCUT

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