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Maroon: Who the Sky Betrays
by Celeste Sunderland
Framed by burgundy velvet curtains, Hillary Maroon’s crimson dreadlocks glowed in the red gels at Tonic one evening last month. After a few adjustments on her vocal effects box, she and her quartet gently launched into a Radiohead tune, “The Tourist,” one of a handful of pop/rock covers that appear on Maroon’s second studio release, Who The Sky Betrays. Mimicking Tom Yorke’s grudging, impassioned vocals, Hillary and her band, co-founder/keyboardist Benny Lackner, drummer Lance Carter, and bassist Derek Nievergelt, established ...
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by John Kelman
In a world populated with a plethora of female jazz singers whose focus is to interpret, reinterpret and interpret, yet again, the Great American Songbook, it is refreshing to hear Maroon, whose latest disk, Who the Sky Betrays combines jazz improvisation, a strong pop sensibility and contemporary grooves into a wholly unique experience.
The influences here are clear: take a dash of M-BASE ("When the Storm Comes"), a pinch of ambient (Radiohead's The Tourist"), a taste of modern jazz balladry ...
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by Dan McClenaghan
Maroon's not playing it safe. Who the Sky Betrays is the Brooklyn-based group's sophomore effort, and by pushing hard at the boundaries of the blend of contemporary rock/traditional jazz themes laid down on their debut, Migratory, these players have created a stunningly sophisticated and hugely successful work of art.Keyboardist Benny Lackner and vocalist Hillary Maroon co-lead Maroon, co-writing six of the disc's forward looking compositions. Maroon's sound sizzles and pops with with a distinctive energy, with edgy harmonics ...
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by Dan McClenaghan
Think back to the time you heard a song out of the blue--on the radio, say, or at a friend's at a wee hours listening session--that sounded so fresh and new that it stunned you. Sounds that seemed to sparkle out of the speakers like something from the Fourth of July. Something like Elvis on Sun; Dylan's new electricity in '65; Joanie Mitchell claiming to be raised on robbery; Hendrix howling about the Watchtower; Billie Holiday lamenting the strange fruit.
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