Marley Daemon
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada | SELF
Music
Press
Marley Daemon is one of those people who can make you feel like an underachiever. Not that she does it on purpose, but it's hard not to feel like your half-hearted attempt to learn the guitar was fairly lacklustre after browsing the Victoria-via-Mayne Island singer-songwriter's musical resume: started piano at six and guitar at 11; studied classical and jazz piano in her teens and recently completed a three-year jazz diploma in voice and piano from the Victoria Conservatory of Music; about to launch her debut record, Heart to Sky, featuring all original tunes - and all at the tender age of 21.
“My mom's a musician and a lot of my family members are musicians as well,” Daemon says of her early musical upbringing. She's not kidding - Daemon's a member of the Iredale clan, which counts talented folks like Fish and Bird's Adam Iredale-Gray (who appears on Heart to Sky and will be playing in her band at Saturday's CD release party) and Meg “O'mally” Iredale-Gray among it's ranks. So why the new musical moniker?
“Mostly because I thought Marley Iredale didn't sound very good,” she says. “My full name is actually Marlies Iredale, but I didn't want to be Marlies, so I don't know. Daemon is just a word I've liked a lot. It means guardian spirit in Celtic Mythology.”
In addition to the jazz and folk elements on Heart to Sky, there are a few moments where sounds of the far east sneak in. Daemon attributes that to her time spent studying music in India a couple of years back.
“My grandma is a Hindu and she has a lot of connections to India and my parents have travelled there. I was really interested in the spirituality of India and the music there, so I was studying formally for a couple of months and then traveling for the rest of the time,” she says, adding that it's a place she'd like to return soon to study voice (she was focusing on tabla and sitar on the last trip). “I was definitely very influenced by those Indian melodies and scales.”
The liner notes of Heart to Sky read like a who's-who of Victoria's vibrant roots music scene. Produced by the Bills' Adrian Dolan, the disc features Kelby MacNayr on drums, Oliver Swain on bass, some banjo and vocals by Fish and Bird's Taylor Ashton and some of Daniel Lapp's trumpet work on the closer “Vacancy.”
“I was really lucky to get Daniel Lapp in for that one track,” says Daemon. “Adrian is good friends with him and he just got him to pop by one night and have a few beers and jam and was like, 'Hey, you want to try recording on this track?' and he said sure.”
Given Daemon's impressive sound, we think it's safe to say luck had very little to do with it.
To win tickets to Marley Daemon's CD release, email artseditor@mondamag.com with “Marley” in the subject line. - Monday Magazine
Discography
Heart to Sky, 2010
Photos
Bio
Who Is Marley Daemon?
“Silence the clutter of a lifetime past / and in this moment blessed be.” - from the title track, Heart to Sky (2010)
What kind of music would come out of a girl raised in a highly creative family without television or institutionalized schooling, whose childhood years were spent surrounded by musical instruments, overflowing bookshelves, and thriving wilderness? Marley Daemon’s first album, Heart to Sky, is the answer. Marley Daemon is a new breed of songstress whos sophisticated compositions and passionate lyrics seek to explore the deepest questions surrounding human identity. In the words of Victoria reviewer Adrian Dolan, Daemon “is at the forefront of an exciting generation of young musicians poised to rejuvenate the folk genre as we know it, as well as put the Canadian west coast on the map as a hot-bed for intelligent and vastly original music.”
Marley Daemon began studying piano at age 4, and guitar at 11. Since then she has played in 5 different bands, studied Indian classical music at an elite school in Varanasi, and earned a Jazz diploma from the Victoria Conservatory of Music (where she was awarded the Katarina Composition Scholarship for best up-and-coming young composer). She is an engaging and animated performer who has studied theatre and clowning. Since the release of her debut album, Heart to Sky, in 2010, Daemon is quickly finding a home in the popular Canadian music scene. Besides receiving attention from television and radio media, Daemon has toured the country twice, stunning audiences at such events as the Victoria Jazz Festival, Campbell Bay Music Fest, Surge Fest and the ArtsWells Music Festival in Wells B.C. She has also been a featured performer on Via Rail, delighting passengers in the lounge car on three separate cross-country journeys.
Heart to Sky was recorded and co-produced by engineer/musician Adrian Dolan (from Canada’s renowned folk band The Bills), and features the talents of notable west-coast musicians Oliver Swain (upright bass), Kelby MacNayr (drums), Daniel Lapp (trumpet), Taylor Ashton and Adam Iredale-Gray of Fish and Bird (banjo and violin, vocals) among many others.
With strikingly honest, spiritually probing lyrics, and musical flavours ranging from faery-tale folk and creative post-bop soul, to sassy cabaret and epic orchestral art song, Daemon serves up a musical feast for the heart.
www.marleydaemon.ca
www.myspace.com/marley.daemon
250 516 5413
Reviews
“The sophistication of her writing really sets her apart - a very exciting young talent with a knockout first recording” - Oliver Swain (Outlaw Social, Scruj MacDuhk, The Red Stick Ramblers)
“Uniquely musical and adventurous” - Brent Jarvis, Brent Jarvis Academy of Music
“The musicality of the songs illustrates a fascinating sense of melodic construction, adventurous harmonies and forms, as well as stylistic nods to her many diverse influences, all while maintaining her own identity and a delectable pop sensibility... an abrupt departure from what we may be accustomed to knowing as singer- songwriter folk music. Marley’s musical world is situated somewhere near the crossroads of new-generation- neo-folk, experimental-old-time, and ambient-melodic-eastern- post-bop-soul.” - Adrian Dolan, producer/
musician
“Marley Daemon is one of those people who can make you feel like an underachiever.” - Amanda Farrell-Low, Monday Magazine, Reviews
“This gifted singer/pianist/guitarist has honed a distinctive voice that swells loose and easily through her courageously original repertoire ...Marley Daemon sings in vivid poetry to the deepest questions.”
- Jesse Thom, Victoria Music Reviews
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