''Pines'' is the third and final

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by A Fine Frenzy, the stage name for American singer-songwriter

Alison Sudol Alison Sudol (born December 23, 1984) is an American actress, singer, songwriter and music video director. She is known as the singer A Fine Frenzy, and for her role as Queenie Goldstein in ''Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'' (2016), as ...

. The album was released in the United States on October 9, 2012 and in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2013 through

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...

. ''Pines'' is accompanied by a companion book and short

animated film Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...

, 'The Story of Pines,' which premiered on TakePartTV on October 2. To support the album, Sudol co-headlined the "Live and In Concert" tour throughout the United States and western Canada in October and November 2012 with musician

Joshua Radin Joshua Radin (born June 14, 1974) is an American singer-songwriter. He has recorded nine studio albums, and his songs have been used in a number of films and TV series. His most successful album, ''Simple Times'', was released in 2008. Beginnin ...

Composition

''Pines'' contains thirteen original tracks, each written or co-written by Sudol, and totals 67 minutes, 47 seconds in length. In an interview with Anthropologie, Sudol stated that "the entire record is a story, and each song is a chapter that leads into the next."

Promotion

Singles

The song "Now Is the Start" was released as the lead single for "Pines" on July 30, 2012. Sudol performed the song live on ''

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jay Leno that first aired from May 25, 1992, to May 29, 2009. It resumed production on March 1, 2010 and ended on February 6, 2014. The fourth incarnation of the ...

'' on October 3, 2012. The accompanying music video was released on November 15, 2012. ;Other songs In addition, a music video for "Avalanches", a promotional single for "Pines", was released on October 9 to coincide with the album's release date. To date, lyric videos for both "Now Is The Start" and "Avalanches" have been posted to A Fine Frenzy's official YouTube account.

Critical response

Reviews for ''Pines'' have been generally positive. Maggie Levin of mxdwn.com praised the quality of Sudol's writing and commented that "aptly, there is as much forest as longing in this record," concluding that "the journey is as diverse as it is exquisite, with moments of solemn austerity cleverly offset by felicitous rapture." Caitlin White of Spinner.com also gave the album a favorable review in her interview of Sudol, writing "''Pines'' manages to combine the real world with the world of imagination in a very tangible way."

Consequence of Sound ''Consequence'' (previously ''Consequence of Sound'') is an independently owned New York-based online magazine featuring news, editorials, and reviews of music, movies, and television. In addition, the website also features the Festival Outlook ...

awarded the album three out of five stars, asserting that ''Pines'' is "double-edged walk through the woods," and the album reflects "the sound of growing up." James Christopher Monger of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

gave ''Pines'' four stars out of five, praising Sudol's successful integration of natural themes and emphasizing that "Sudol is a masterful architect of atmosphere" and her songs "all benefit from her ability to balance musicality with austerity, and like the rivers she draws much of her inspiration from, blissfully follow a course to the ocean of their own design." EY Magazine also awarded ''Pines'' four stars out of five, calling the album "authentic music" and remarking that "A Fine Frenzy releases the kind of music you’re not only compelled to listen but dared to feel in your soul."

Track listing

Track listing adapted from Allmusic.

Charts

Tour

Tour listing adapted from A Fine Frenzy's official live page.Live

Personnel

*Alison Sudol –

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, programming,

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Jon Brion Jon Brion is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and composer. He performed with the Excerpts, the Bats, 'Til Tuesday and the Grays before becoming an established producer and film score composer. Brion has ...

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

instrumentation Instrumentation a collective term for measuring instruments that are used for indicating, measuring and recording physical quantities. The term has its origins in the art and science of scientific instrument-making. Instrumentation can refer to ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

pump organ The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...

Matt Chamberlain Matthew Chamberlain (born April 17, 1967) is an American session musician, drummer, producer and songwriter. Biography Life and career Chamberlain was born in San Pedro, California on April 17, 1967. He began learning how to play the drums ...

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, percussion *Omar Cowan - guitar, programming, vocals (background) *Keefus Green - keyboards, piano,

producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

, programming, pump organ,

vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...

*Gabe Noel - bass, bass (upright),

bowed bass Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound. Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to th ...

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

Martin Tillman Martin Tillman (born 6 November 1964) is a Swiss cellist and composer. Biography Tillman was born in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1964. He arrived in the US in 1988. He has since performed/composed on numerous films, television shows, commercials and ...

- cello,

electric cello The electric cello is a type of cello that relies on electronic amplification (rather than acoustic resonance) to produce sound. An acoustic cello can be fitted with a bridge or body mounted contact pickup providing an electric signal, or a built-i ...

*Peter Bradley Adams – piano * Jonathan Wilson - composer, drums,

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

*Jesse Siebenberg - composer *Omar Velasco - composer *Paul Ackling -

guitar technician A guitar technician (or 'guitar tech') is a member of a music ensemble's road crew who maintains and sets up the musical equipment for one or more guitarists. Depending on the type and size of band, the guitar tech may be responsible for stringin ...

*Ronette Bowie - A&R *Dan McCarroll - A&R *

Eric Caudieux Eric Caudieux is a French sound engineer and producer. An accomplished player of the keyboards and rhythm guitar, he is best known for his work with Joe Satriani, appearing on many of his albums and as a member of his backing group when he is on tou ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

Pro-Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture (sound design, audio post-product ...

*Greg Koller - engineer, mixing *Hugo Nicholson - engineer *Paul Smith - second engineer *Patricia Sullivan Fourstar - mastering *Nicole Frantz -

Creative director A creative director (or creative supervisor) is a person who makes high-level creative decisions and, with those decisions, oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos. Creative director positions ar ...

*Bob Semanovich -

Product manager A product manager (PM) is a professional role that is responsible for the development of products for an organization, known as the practice of product management. Product managers own the product strategy behind a product (physical or digital), ...

*Abby Weintraub -

Design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

Personnel adapted from Allmusic.

References

External links

''Pines''
at A Fine Frenzy's official site * {{Authority control 2012 albums A Fine Frenzy albums Virgin Records albums