Track Listing

1. Come On, Come Out
2. The Minnow & The Trout
3. Whisper
4. You Picked Me
5. Rangers
6. Almost Lover
7. Think of You
8. Ashes and Wine
9. Liar, Liar
10. Last of Days
11. Lifesize
12. Near To You
13. Hope for the Hopeless
14. Borrowed Time

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #327 in Music
• Released on: 2007-07-17
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com

A Fine Frenzy Photos

Amazon.com
A Fine Frenzy is actually just a fine young singer-songwriter from Seattle, born Alison Sudol. A self-taught piano player, on her debut album she pairs sweeping orchestral arrangements with dreamlike lyrics inspired by the classic works of fantasy writers like CS Lewis, EB White, and Lewis Carroll. Add to that a propensity for frilly shirts and cryptic song titles such as "The Minnow & the Trout" and you half-expect to find a back alley Joanna Newsom. Instead Sudol specializes in accessible pop epics, the kind of songs that fit perfectly over the end credits of a great Hollywood tearjerker. Despite the gentle melancholia that runs through "Ashes and Wine" and "You Picked Me," each tune arrives wrapped in an exuberant melody and topped by the singer's commanding voice. On the disc's standout moment, "Almost Lover," she shows she can do simplicity as well, musing over a sublime piano medley, "Shoulda known you'd bring me heartache/ Oh, most lovers always do." --Aidin Vaziri

About the Artist
A Fine Frenzy is the music of 21 year-old Alison Sudol.

Born in Seattle to dramatic-arts teacher parents, Alison moved to Los Angeles at the age five. With her newly single mother, Alison moved frequently around the city. She developed a strong love for the fantastic literary worlds of CS Lewis, EB White, Lewis Carroll and Charles Dickens, while becoming a passionate author in her own right.

Alison also immersed herself in classical music, Motown, Aretha Franklin, swing bands, Ella Fitzgerald, Elton John, Louis Armstrong, the Beatles, Technicolor movies and classic 1950's television.

After teaching herself to play piano, Alison increasingly invested her internal narratives into song form. She found solace in the melodic melancholia of new global British bands Aqualung, Radiohead, Coldplay and Keane, etc... She was also moved by the diatonic minimalism of Philip Glass and the transportive allure of Icelandic music (Bjork, Sigur Ros.) Inspired, Alison developed the sound of A Fine Frenzy - hypnotic piano arrangements under classic American melody fused into irresistible, atmospheric songs with the power to reach around the world.

Customer Reviews

Bluesy voice with intriguing lyrics
I love this CD. Her voice is awesome. Soothing after a stressful day. Nice to listen to while you drink evening tea. Kind of sweeps you away to a simpler time and place of honesty, if you let it. rp

Enchanting
It has been a long time since I bought an album and loved every song. She is one talented young woman, both in voice and songwriting.

'I Talk to the Trees'
There seems to be a surfeit of these earnest female singer-songwriters out there in the flux and fluctuating pop arena. Most are quite bad, but sifting through the rubble left on the battlefield, you can occasionally rescue small gems like A Fine Frenzy, hiding in potholes after the big guns (and we all know who they are!) have long finished discharging their infertile loads.
'One Cell in the Sea' is a tiny, slightly miraculous pop album. I'm sure supporters of Vanessa Carlton, Kate Nash and Colbie Callait et al can instantly tell their heroines apart and could fervently point to the varying merits of each, but for yours truly it needs something grabbing and different to raise the heckles and 'OCITS' has that special something.
'That special something' isn't anything mystical or other-worldly, it's simply well thought out words and ideas, presented straight and true in satisfyingly low-key but busy treatments. Nothing revolutionary or incendiary here pop-kids.
A Fine Frenzy (aka Alison Sudol) is a tiny, waif-like presence with a killer line in powerful melody and thoughtful wordplay. She's mainly piano-driven with layers of strings and acoustic guitar, and she's just dropped lucky - it all comes together for her (and fortunately - for us!). Even the lyric booklet is good. It's hippy woodland nonsense to a degree, with various colourful etchings of song-birds, (the only instance of vanity Ms. A Fine Frenzy indulges in) but in it's one-trip dream and romance world view, it finds this particular easily distracted commentator in sympathetic mode. It's merely an extension of 'OCITS's earthy lush-pop. A symbolic branch of it's mini-engine of creativity and mission.
Unsurprisingly, she's a quietly understated and beautifully stylish lady. She reminds very much of Madeline Smith, the fetching 70's Hammer actress, particularly in one gorgeous shot, where she's wearing a long, pleated, blood-crimson dress and is looking worriedly over her shoulder, as if the forest around her has just come alive, and is stealthily revealing it's sinister intentions.....
High points? Many, but the 'You Picked Me'/'Rangers'/'Almost Lover' triumvirate about a quarter in take some stopping. Deft and moving scopes of sound and thought, 'Last of Days' is suitably haunting, and the exceptional 'Lifestyle', the nearest thing we get to a 'rock' song, even has a "Yeaahh!" at one stage. Woah girl, deep breaths.
The album's not perfect. (although Alison probably is..) It goes on too long, there's a slight lack of diversity as it turns the last bend, and it sounds a bit one paced after repeated listens, but nothing that affects the effect of the many essentials. AFF will iron this out for her next album, importantly making sure she leaves in all the sleights and subtleties that make 'OCITS' one of the best of it's kind.
At the moment she's (deservedly) head and shoulders above the opposition, we'll wait see if she finishes there....