More Love & Death
In 2009 Johnny Parry released his third album, “More Love & Death“, exploring the themes of love, death and the ways in which they intertwine. In 2012 Johnny came back, reworked and reimagined to produce a sibling album, which, whilst building on the underlying foundations of “More Love & Death”, showcased alternative arrangements and lyrical changes to deliver a different feel. The result is two albums which feel like they were separated at birth, intrinsically different, and yet at the same time linked.
More Love & Death
“More Love & Death” is genius, one that builds off of trauma and bad choices, blends it with the moody echoes of some of his heroes, and creates art that remains, despite the fringes, stark and brutally honest. That genius is, more than the sum of its parts, Johnny Parry himself.”
—Music Emissions
“As Parry has proved it once more with More Love And Death, his dark and beautiful and complex world is a work of genius.”
—Daily Vault
“A piano led thing of beauty.”
—Timeout
“More Love & Death” explores the twin themes of “love” and “death” and how they intertwine through the use of enigmatic, romantic, and occasionally comic lyrics. The Johnny Parry Trio provides the musical backbone of the album, supported by vast cinematic orchestral arrangements, and juxtaposing Johnny’s unique low growl with the sparkling operatic soprano of Donna Lennard.
Launched with a concert at Union Chapel on the 9th May with support by Soy Un Caballo & This Is The Kit, the performance featured Johnny’s trio, string quartet, brass, woodwind, opera singers and live visuals and is the birthplace of “The Johnny Parry Chamber Orchestra”.
Johnny went on to tour the album, being invited to perform at an arts festival in Bruge. He assembled the Chamber Orchestra and traveled to Belgium where he put on a stunning, headline performance.
Fields & Birds & Things
“Johnny Parry vaults his way from being just another singer-songwriter to something more akin to the UK’s equivalent of Sufjan Stevens, an artist with a distinctive musical vision”
—The Independent
“Absolutely Dazzling”
—Clash Magazine, Essential Ten section
“Complex, cinematic music that builds intricate landscapes of sound…Compelling… Intoxicating… an unusual delight”
—MOJO
In 2012 ‘Fields & Birds & Things‘ was released. Despite using the same core of the compositions found in “More Love & Death”, most of the tracks are unrecognisable from their early counterparts. As with many of its elements this sequel mirrored its predecessor with a premier performance at the Union Chapel.
Johnny’s aim was to create an album which felt like it had been separated at birth from the other, using alternative compositional and lyrical choices to produce an album which is at once similar, yet vastly unique. Johnny explains more about the process here “Why make the same album twice?“
Track list
More Love & Death [left] and Fields & Birds & Things [right]; with the laters tracks rearranged to show the original ordering
