Black Eyed Dog
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Black Eyed Dog

Band Folk Acoustic

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"New Music / Black Eyed Dog"

Black Eyed Dog is the project of Fabio Parrinello, a singer-songwriter from Varese, in northern Italy. His second album, Rhaianuledada (Songs To Sissy), brims with a brooding intensity, referencing the best British folk ballads of the past. Rhaianuledada (Songs To Sissy) was recorded at Vicolo Recording Studio in Sicily by Fabio Genco and was mastered by Luca Martegani in Varese. Listen to the track Honeysuckle Gal. - www.lostateminor.com


"Malheureux comme les pierres, un Italien se prend pour Cohen"

Sur sa page MySpace, Fabio Parrinello apparente sa musique au fait de tomber amoureux. La comparaison est valable, à condition de vivre la chose comme le point de départ d’une tragédie, Rhaianuledada étant un album irrémédiablement triste et désolé. Adressé à une certaine Sissy, dont on espère pour son salut mental qu’elle n’est ni une poule mouillée ni une impératrice, ce deuxième effort sous le nom d’emprunt Black Eyed Dog succède au tout aussi festif Love Is a Dog From Hell et voit à nouveau son auteur chasser sur les terres arides de Leonard Cohen et Mark Lanegan, empruntant au premier ses arrangements efflanqués et au second ses accents de loup-garou abattu. En découlent onze chansons comme autant pincements au cœur, de la country hantée d’Honeysuckle Gal à la ballade crépusculaire All for You en passant par une foule de piano-voix d’où surnagent un accordéon ou un harmonica, exercice de prédilection de ce songwriter italien (avantageusement) trop longtemps privé de Juvamine. - Les Inrockuptibles


"Black Eyed Dog, solitaire et d’exception..."

C’est une conjugaison, une juxtaposition de fantasmes, de hautes espérances et, comme il est d’usage, de désillusions amères. Il est question d’amour et d’un songwriter solitaire, outrageusement doué et maudit par procuration : Fabio Parrinello, italien de trente ans, qui a pris les armes (guitares acérées en l’occurrence, d’abord) à la découverte de Nevermind, a réalisé ses rêves d’Amérique et d’Angleterre, avant de revenir s’installer en Sicile et de faire son poète loin du monde, en apaisant ses mélodies et en adoucissant ses arrangements.

En multipliant également les raisons de s’enthousiasmer et les prétextes à frissonner : en quelques chansons et au gré d’instrumentations fluctuantes (piano jazzy soft, harmonica strident, accordéon démodé, violon langoureux ou guitare folk rassurante), on se prend déjà à l’addiction, tous écrins ne servant finalement qu’une voix exceptionnelle, déjà éraillée ou douée à le prétendre, malléable à souhait et capable de tout chanter s’il le fallait, la country la plus débraillée comme le métal le plus violent.

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Black Eyed Dog - Rhaianuledada (Songs to Sissy)

En s’abritant derrière un nom de groupe, emprunté à une chanson de Nick Drake, Fabio Parrinello fait son Smog, son Palace ou son Katamine : un passeur de frissons et d’emballements nobles, d’atmosphères propres au recueillement passionné et à la génuflexion… A une différence près, majeure, l’absence d’austérité dans ses compositions. Les chansons de Rhaianuledada (Songs To Sissy) , son deuxième album, sont tristes, désabusées, fortes (ou faibles) d’un amour inconditionnel déclaré, mais luxuriantes à leurs façons. Elles pourraient inspirer de la pitié, elles forcent le respect plutôt, l’élégance et la noblesse du jeu, et elles s’offrent une redoutable ligné en comparaison : Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, mais aussi Mark Eitzel ou même Tom Barman… Certaines ("Salina’s" et "Lazy.B", deux choix subjectifs) se permettent de la grandeur et une impressionnante hauteur de vue, une érudition propre à certains Italiens de goût (on devra un jour écrire sur les Têtes de Bois, qui reprennent judicieusement Léo Ferré), mais toutes n’ont pas ce charme et il faut, hélas avouer que l’album entier n’est pas de cet acabit, son cœur étant juste simplement très appréciable. Des promesses magnifiques en entrée, une trilogie poignante en conclusion, Black Eyed Dog devra s’exercer au centre et rafler ensuite d’autres louanges garanties… - www.blogotheque.net


"BLACK EYED DOG – Rhaianuledada (songs to sissy)"



I was just about to write a review on “Bryter Layter” when I saw this – and since the project name Fabio Parrinello chose to release his songs under is taken from a Nick Drake song I decided differently. There is little of Nick Drake in the music of Black Eyed Dog by the way, aside from an overall melancholy and world weariness – his singing style is mostly pressed, throaty and stark, very much like Mark Lanegan or Guy Kayser (of Thin White Rope), with the same vibrato, too, while the songs range from jazzy late night acoustic ballads to singer / songwriter folk of the best sort, very much like the stuff that Sub Pop releases these days. Interestingly, in the info sheet it says that Parrinello started playing guitar as a teenager after hearing “Nevermind”, the most famous record almost but then not released on Sub Pop.

The eleven songs collected on “rhaianuledada (songs to sissy)” are basically in a low, late at night tempo. Their most outstanding feature are their tonality and the range of the singer, both of which spark with emotionality and sincerity, of someone who has something on his mind that he needed to say for a long time. In this vein Parrinello does not shy away from writing lyrics such as “to know you is to love you” (“Honeysuckle Gal”) or to ask his girl to marry him right here and now. Mostly his attempts are a lot more poetical and a little mysterious as well.

As a songwriter Parrinello is not prone to overdoing his stuff. He rather lets a song stop quite shortly after its beginning, when obviously he has received the feeling that all that should have been said inside the song has been done. A very favourable trait in his talent. There is no lingering on feelings, no unnecessary drawing out of emotionality and no dragging of time to stretch songs into the open.

Striking is also the production, which is crisp clean, offers strings, background choirs and big arrangements as well as intimate, close settings with acoustic guitar and piano, and has everything needed to accentuate the songs without ever overpowering them. Once there is even a harmonica doing its part.

Apart from a few pronunciation mistakes the whole album sounds as straight from the prairie as possible and therefore sets itself well in the long line of alternative country albums in the broadest sense of the word that come from Italy, taking its cue from bands such as Franklin Delano, Morose or Minmae. Scandinavia, by the way, is another interesting place to find great bands that revel in the mysteries and beauty of epic prairie music, such as Midnight Choir, White Birch or some dozen others.
Actually, I believe that Fabio Parrinello moved from electronic tinkering to songwriting, realizing that honesty and openness doesn’t lie somewhere in the dark heart of a digital box but somewhere in the swinging of openly picked strings or in a piano played with passion. I might be completely wrong with this assumption, there is a full band playing on most of the songs by the way, but there are also some digital production tricks perused on here. But anyway, for the basic theory about true emotion needing true music, the final song on here, “Angel Eyes”, is the best example of this. An intimate, passionate verse sung in a deep voice directly asking the focus of his love is alternated with an almost desperate wailing chorus in a higher voice, and the song ends on an open chord with more harmonica. Just so much of wonderful that you are able to stand it. - www.monochrom.at


"Review BLACK EYED DOG – Rhaianuledada (songs to sissy)"

Nemmeno due anni dopo l’esordio con "Love Is A Dog From Hell", che lo aveva sorprendentemente segnalato come autentica rivelazione, Fabio “Black Eyed Dog” Parrinello concede il bis con un album ancor più ispirato, intenso e ricco di sfumature, figlio di un approccio cantautorale anglo-americano - con i migliori insegnamenti delle due “scuole” avvinti in un tenero ma saldo abbraccio - che prevede trame morbide ma anche a loro modo sofferte e atmosfere certo non solari ma neppure opprimenti, il tutto sviluppato in un songwriting dalla grande forza suggestiva ed emotiva. Un gioco di contrasti non stridenti ma, anzi, complementari, qui esaltato da undici episodi assieme fragili e solenni, basati ora sulla chitarra e ora sul piano e intonati con voce profonda e malinconica, per un folk intimista che non si ferma in superficie ma scava, con prepotente delicatezza, fra le pieghe dell’anima; e un disco di caratura superiore, non solo per il panorama nazionale, che mostra tante (nobili) influenze senza dichiararne espressamente alcuna. La speranza è che Black Eyed Dog trovi il coraggio di affrancarsi dal nostro piccolo ghetto indie e confrontarsi con i suoi maestri a casa loro, con ottime possibilità di sostenere la sfida.

Federico Guglielmi - Il Mucchio - Italy


Discography

“Love Is A Dog From Hell” 2007, LP – Ghost Records

“Rhaianuledada (Songs To Sissy)“ 2009, LP – Ghost Records

Radioairplay Italy: rotation on alternative stations and webradios
Radioairplay US: Reported to CMJ’s Top 200 charts by KRUA, WARC and WCYT. Bearcast Radio, CKUT, KALX, KCSB, KCSU, KHNS, RLC, WFDU, WKDU, WMPG, WMUH, WMVL, WRAS, WRPI, WRSU, KAMP, KRNL and WSYC

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Bio

Black Eyed Dog is the music alias of Fabio Parrinello, a 30 year old songwriter who was born in Varese, northern Italy, travelled around the globe and now lives in Palermo, Sicily.

Black Eyed Dogs's debut album "Love Is A Dog From Hell" (Ghost Records/Audioglobe) was recorded at Ghost Record Studio in Varese and La Sauna in Varano Borghi and was mastered at Noise Studio in Miami, Fl (U.S.A.), by Kramer (Galaxie 500, Yo La Tengo, Low). Fabio is a crooner and his deep and warm voice gives his songs a melancholic feeling and you can easily relate to his lyrics about love and long lost feelings.

Black Eyed Dog’s second album “Rhaianuledada (Songs To Sissy)”, due to be released on January 22nd 2009 is a major leap forward musically, in a progression that is surprising and unique. Whereas his debut album “Love Is A Dog From Hell” was a sparse and stripped-down album, which allowed plenty of space for Fabio Parrinello to show off what fantastic condition his voice is in, “Rhaianuledada (Songs To Sissy)” sees Parrinello coming into his own as a songwriter, with songs that are as instantly accessible as they are brimming with love and brooding intensity.

“Rhaianuledada (Songs To Sissy)” gained a great attention of the international specialized media, such as Les Inrockuptibles in France and Lost at E Minor in the US.