Astrid Williamson
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Astrid Williamson
Astrid Williamson (born 28 November 1968) is a Scottish musician, composer, and songwriter. Life and music career Growing up in Shetland, she enjoyed playing the piano from an early age and The Shetland Folk Festival provided early experience both of local music tradition and stagecraft. She went on to graduate from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) as a classically trained pianist, where she also studied under composer Judith Weir. Astrid formed the band Goya Dress in the 1990s with Terry de Castro & Simon Pearson, releasing EPs & only one album, ''Rooms'' (produced by The Velvet Underground's John Cale) in 1996 before disbanding in 1998. Since then she has released seven albums to date via her own label, Incarnation Records, Universal \ BMG and One Little Indian. During her career she has collaborated with other artists including the legendary DJ / producer, Arthur Baker, Oskar, The Bilderberg Group, Milk & Honey Band, Canadian singer songwriter, Tara ...
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Pulse (Astrid Williamson Album)
''Pulse'' is the fifth album from the Shetland-born singer-songwriter and musician Astrid Williamson. The album was produced by Leo Abrahams (a guitarist famed for his work with Brian Eno). Reception ''Pulse'' was judged by ''MusicOMH'' to be a "bold change in direction....pulled off extremely competently". ''The Scotsman'' newspaper suggested the "lilting conversational beauty of he track"Paperbacks" - up there with Joni Mitchell's best moments". ''Popmatters'' viewed it as "less a game-changer than a paradigm shift", while ''UNCUT'' magazine concluded it is "as beautiful as it is unsettling". Track listing # Dance # Pour # Underwater # Cherry # Miracle # Connected # Pulse # Husk # Reservation # Paperbacks Personnel and recording details *Astrid Williamson - vocals / guitar / harp / piano and handclaps *Leo Abrahams - bass / drums / electric guitar / bells / keyboards and tambourine * Programming, mixing and production by Leo Abrahams * Mastered by Mandy Parnell * Photog ...
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Shetland
Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the northeast of Orkney, from mainland Scotland and west of Norway. They form part of the border between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. Their total area is ,Shetland Islands Council (2012) p. 4 and the population totalled 22,920 in 2019. The islands comprise the Shetland (Scottish Parliament constituency), Shetland constituency of the Scottish Parliament. The local authority, the Shetland Islands Council, is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. The islands' administrative centre and only burgh is Lerwick, which has been the capital of Shetland since 1708, before which time the capital was Scalloway. The archipelago has an oceanic climate, complex geology, rugged coastline, and many low, rolling hills. The lar ...
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Leo Abrahams
Leo Matthew Abrahams (born 1977 in Camden, London) is an English musician, composer and producer. He has collaborated with a multitude of professional musicians, including Brian Eno, Katie Melua, Imogen Heap, Jarvis Cocker, Carl Barât, Regina Spektor, Jon Hopkins and Paul Simon. After attending the Royal Academy of Music in England, he started his musical career by touring as lead guitarist with Imogen Heap. Since 2005 he has released five solo albums, largely in an ambient style involving complex arrangements and a use of guitar-generated textures. He has also co-written or arranged a variety of film soundtracks, including Peter Jackson's 2009 release ''The Lovely Bones'' and Steve McQueen's ''Hunger''. Abrahams has produced Regina Spektor's album ''Remember Us to Life''. Hayden Thorpe's ''Diviner'', Editors' ''Violence'' and Ghostpoet's ''Dark Days + Canapés''. Career Early Years Abrahams was given an acoustic guitar by his parents at age 7, only to ignore the instrument f ...
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Dead Can Dance
Dead Can Dance are an Australian music duo first established in Melbourne. Currently composed of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, the group formed in 1981. They relocated to London the following year. Australian music historian Ian McFarlane described Dead Can Dance's style as "constructed soundscapes of mesmerising grandeur and solemn beauty; African polyrhythms, Gaelic folk, Gregorian chant, Middle Eastern music, mantras, and art rock." Having disbanded in 1998, they reunited briefly in 2005 for a world tour and reformed in 2011 when they released and toured a new album, '' Anastasis''. They released a new album in 2018 called ''Dionysus'' and toured Europe in 2022. Career Formation and early years Dead Can Dance was formed in Melbourne, Australia, in August 1981 with Paul Erikson on bass guitar, Lisa Gerrard (ex-Microfilm) on vocals and percussion, Simon Monroe (Marching Girls) on drums and Brendan Perry (also of Marching Girls) on vocals and guitar. Gerrard and Perry were ...
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Transcendental Meditation
Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a form of silent mantra meditation advocated by the Transcendental Meditation movement. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi created the technique in India in the mid-1950s. Advocates of TM claim that the technique promotes a state of relaxed awareness, stress relief, and access to higher states of consciousness, as well as physiological benefits such as reducing the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure. Building on the teachings of his master Brahmananda Saraswati (known honorifically as Guru Dev), the Maharishi taught thousands of people during a series of world tours from 1958 to 1965, expressing his teachings in spiritual and religious terms. TM became more popular in the 1960s and 1970s, as the Maharishi shifted to a more technical presentation, and his meditation technique was practiced by celebrities, most prominently members of the Beatles and the Beach Boys. At this time, he began training TM teachers and created specialized organizations t ...
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Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a person's life. Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues, alterations in the way a person thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response. These symptoms last for more than a month after the event. Young children are less likely to show distress but instead may express their memories through play. A person with PTSD is at a higher risk of suicide and intentional self-harm. Most people who experience traumatic events do not develop PTSD. People who experience interpersonal violence such as rape, other sexual assaults, being kidnapped, stalking, physical abuse by an intimate partner, an ...
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D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. Planning for the operation began in 1943. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. The weather on D-Day was far from ideal, and the operation had to be delayed 24 hours; a further postponement would have meant a delay of at least two weeks, as the invasion planners had requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and the time of day that meant only a few days each month were d ...
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Hessle
Hessle () is a town, civil parish and electoral ward in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, west of Kingston upon Hull city centre. Geographically it is part of a larger urban area consisting of the city of Kingston upon Hull, the town of Hessle and a number of other villages but is not part of the city. It is on the north bank of the Humber Estuary where the Humber Bridge crosses. According to the 2011 UK census, Hessle parish had a population of 15,000, an increase on the 2001 UK census figure of 14,767. Amenities The centre of Hessle is the Square. There are many shops and a small bus station, which was refitted in 2007. Hessle All Saints' Church is located just off the Square and was designated a Grade I listed building in 1967 and is now recorded in the National Heritage List for England, maintained by Historic England. Hessle Town Hall was built in 1897 and is situated at the top of South Lane. Hessle Police Station, which closed in 2014, is next door to the t ...
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Requiem & Gallipoli
''Requiem & Gallipoli'' is the seventh album by Astrid Williamson and contains her first full classic composition. Williamson first performed ''Requiem & Gallipoli'' at Requiem for the Fallen, a D-Day Remembrance event at All Saints' Church, Hessle, Yorkshire on 6 June 2015. The event raised funds for a local Hull veterans' charity and Operation Warrior Wellness, a process to address post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans using transcendental mediation in collaboration with the David Lynch Foundation The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace (or simply DLF) is a global charitable foundation with offices in New York City, Los Angeles, and Fairfield, Iowa. It was founded by film director and Transcendental Me .... Williamson explained the writing process: "I would translate each movement from Latin, then start writing the music at the piano, later orchestrating and singing each individual voice; as I began to transcribe the piano arrangem ...
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Serving Sara
''Serving Sara'' is a 2002 American romantic comedy film directed by Reginald Hudlin and starring Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley, and Bruce Campbell. The story follows a process server given the assignment to serve a British socialite with divorce papers, but is persuaded to serve her husband instead so that she can get a larger portion of his money in the divorce. The film was panned by critics and did poorly at the box office, debuting in the top 10 when it was released on August 23, 2002, in the US, where it grossed only $5,750,000 on the weekend. Plot Joe Tyler, a process server, is a week late serving a Mafia kingpin known as Fat Charlie with a summons to appear as a witness in court. Joe's abrasive boss Ray ridicules him while complimenting Joe's rival, Tony, for serving multiple summonses in record time. Willing to give Joe one last shot, Ray gives him an assignment to serve British socialite Sara Moore with divorce papers from her husband, Gordon, who is at his ranch in ...
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Abra Moore
Abra Moore (born June 8, 1969) is an American folk-styled rock singer-songwriter. Moore was a founding member of the Hawaiian rock band Poi Dog Pondering, but left to pursue a solo career after the group's move to Texas in the late 1980s. Her 1997 album '' Strangest Places'' included the hit "Four Leaf Clover", which received airplay in Midwest U.S. radio markets and VH1 and MTV2 rotation, and charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Early life Moore's parents are Dale and Lisa Moore. Her father named her after the heroine of John Steinbeck's '' East of Eden''. She was raised in Puna, Hawaii, with three brothers—Matt, Pepe, and Zack—and sister Mia in a bohemian household that had very strong jazz influences, including jam sessions by guest musicians. Career Abra was influenced by the sax music that her brother, Matt Moore, an accomplished Hawaii Jazz musician, played during her childhood. When she was 19, she joined Poi Dog Pondering with a group of friends, moving to Los Angeles i ...
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