Sign up to receive the occasional note from Dessa. Listen Live, Exploring the musical legacy of Prince and beyond (IT IS.). Clockwork. “For someone who cut her teeth on hip-hop,” she recently told me, “there’s a lot of daylight between a basement studio and an orchestra hall.”. (Live), The Beekeeper The Making of Sound the Bells pulls back the curtain to explore the workings of this ambitious project through stories, images, and live performance from a string quartet composed of Minnesota Orchestra players. There are so many things to love about this album - like the fact that the Grammy-winning Minnesota Orchestra can now say they have a record out on Doomtree Records, and that Andy Thompson's intricate, nuanced orchestral arrangements of Dessa's songs have now been captured for us all to revisit again and again. Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press. Anecdotes, haikus, and recipes. The result launches Dessa to the top of a vaunted class that features the likes of the Who, Sting, and Peter Gabriel. Sarah Hicks, Principal Conductor of Live at Orchestra Hall, conducted the program—17 of Dessa’s strongest songs, ambitiously rearranged by musician and composer Andy Thompson. As with so many of the other tracks on "Sound the Bells," Dessa’s “5 Out of 6” doesn’t merely become subsumed by the work of the Minnesota Orchestra. Under the conduction of Sarah Hicks, the Minnesota Symphony proved to be an able partner to Dessa’s lyrical effusions. It only took me a few listens to realize that Sound the Bells is a triumphant opus from an artist that has accomplished so much but has boundless potential going forward.

Copyright © 2019 Salon.com, LLC. (Live), Fire Drills (Chk Chk Chk); Ted Leo; Okkervil River; Mipso; Bailen; Pedro the Lion; Lucinda Williams; The Mountain Goats; Marmalade and more, Virtual Gig List: Sam Smith; Rufus Wainwright; Gwar; Starcrawler and more, First Avenue's Annual Halloween Party & Costume Contest, Virtual Gig List: Superior Siren; the Cure; Low Cut Connie; Melissa Etheridge and more, Virtual Gig List: Gaelynn Lea; Rhett Miller; Los Lobos; Men At Work; Ezra Furman and more, Sound Unseen 21st Annual Virtual Film and Music Festival, Minnesota Legacy Amendment's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, Sound the Bells: Where Dessa and the Minnesota Orchestra meet, Minnesota Public Radio - 89.3 The Current. (Live), Call Off Your Ghost All rights reserved. (Live), Ride This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. (Live), Skeleton Key When the five of them sing together, it's like a ray of sunlight through a prism. Born and raised in Minneapolis, she graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in philosophy and went on to become a rapper in the underground hip-hop/pop/rock/punk group Doomtree. The album was recorded on stage with the Grammy-winning Minnesota Orchestra, arranged by composer Andy Thompson, and held single-digit positions on several Billboard charts, earning high marks from critics and fans: “Exquisite…eclipsed the field.” -Salon. Her most recent album "Chime" grew her fan base considerably, drawing more ears and eyes into her enticing web of empowerment, honesty and vulnerability. What needs to be praised here is the sequencing. Minnesota Music ; !!! This event is made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Play on TIDAL or open in our Desktop app Share. But for Dessa, "Sound the Bells" is no mere diversion. Dessa sings incredibly well and her lyrics are exceptional and emotional. (Live), Boy Crazy Listen Live, by On the hook, she sings, “Don’t waste your worry on me/I always find what I need/Come and go as I please/I got my skeleton key.”. Presented by The Current, Classical MPR and Minnesota Orchestra. Guest Writer Brendan Ho offers his take on the album. With her new LP "Sound the Bells: Recorded Live at Orchestra Hall," the indie singer teams up with the Grammy award-winning Minnesota Orchestra to produce an exquisite mergence of hip-hop artistry and classical music. (Live), Velodrome 1. In Dessa’s words, he subjected her songs to a kind of “acid bath” in order to take full advantage of the symphonic instrumentation. This theme of helplessness continues with “Velodrome,” a track exploring the idea of free will, asserting that despite how “we spend our days and nights deciding where to go and how to ride there,” in the end, “we all turn left” just like in a Velodrome, a track for professional cyclists. Virtual Gig List: Omar Apollo; Lake Street Dive; Oddisee; Patterson Hood and more, Virtual Gig List: H.E.R. It shouldn't be surprising that a multidisciplinary talent like Dessa would conceive of such an ambitious, large-scale collaboration, but listening to Sound the Bells, recorded live at Orchestra Hall earlier this year, it's clear that by taking on challenges like this one, she's pushed her artistry to new heights. New Releases. The concerts were held in downtown Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall, a striking venue with an unmistakable acoustic design. On "Sound the Bells," “5 Out of 6” becomes even more potent as Dessa shares her intoxicating statement about unflinchingly living out loud arrayed against Thompson’s explosive score. Finally, in late March 2019, she put on two live shows with the Minnesota Orchestra, a Grammy-winning ensemble that was the first professional U.S. orchestra to visit South Africa. 2020.

Jumprope TIDAL is the first global music streaming service with high fidelity sound, hi-def video quality, along with expertly curated playlists and original content — making it a trusted source for music and culture. Watch Dessa convert new fans at SXSW with 4 songs from 'Chime' The voice of Dessa, as fluent at rap as at song and spoken word, is back and stronger than ever with 'Chime.' Singer-songwriter Dessa — known to many listeners for her work with the hip-hop collective Doomtree — is on a roll. Chime. This site runs like In the original studio recording, the song already made for one of the decade’s most powerful messages of feminist empowerment and fortitude. (Live), Sound the Bells: Recorded Live at Orchestra Hall. Dessa Thank you for putting out this incredible album. The recording features a selection of Dessa's hip hop work which she sang with a group of vocalists and the full Minnesota Orchestra behind her. Singer, rapper, and writer Dessa has made a career of bucking genres and defying expectations: her résumé as a musician includes performances at Lollapalooza and Glastonbury, six sold-out shows with the Minnesota Orchestra–including a live recording, Sound the Bells, released in November 2019–and a top-200 entry on the Billboard charts for her 2018 album Chime. (Live), Warsaw (Live), Good Grief And now for the Deluxe Pre-Order. Later on, the arc transitions to more purposeful and triumphant songs. Indeed, it has become a commonplace of late for pop music’s upper echelon to pump their wares with new energy courtesy of a symphony orchestra. 11.07 Thu. Dessa. Earlier this year, Dessa performed two very sold-out shows with the Grammy-winning Minnesota Orchestra. In addition to the over 75 classical musicians in the orchestra, the compositions are enhanced even further by the addition of a dream team of singers: Matthew Santos, Cameron Kinghorn, Ashley DuBose, and Dessa's longtime collaborator Aby Wolf. ... Other Albums by Dessa. Opinion articles written by staff members represent their personal views. December 23, 2019. Take “5 Out of 6,” one of the standout tracks on "Chime." In addition, the words here cut as deeply as when they appeared on their respective records. Her voice has rarely sounded so mature and expressive, and hearing her catalog performed by an orchestra reveals just how thoughtful and complex her songs have always been. Countless moments shine: the dizzying flurry of winds and strings on the opening of “Boy Crazy,” the glorious violin solos on “Dixon’s Girl” and especially “The Chaconne” and the delicate bells on, well, “Sound the Bells.” The arrangements ensure that Dessa and her backup vocalists (Wolf, DuBose, Kinghorn and Santos) never feel alone or thin, but also that they are never covered up. Dessa opens up the album with “Jumprope,” in which she compares the childhood game of jumping rope to adulthood’s obligations and anxieties that make it seem like a constant fleeing of a rope that is out to get you. His book "Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles" was published in 2019 in celebration of the album’s 50th anniversary. (Live), 5 out of 6 Andrea Swensson

Dessa.