Releases
Karen Elson - The Ghost Who Walks - Instores May 25, 2010
Karen Elson’s The Ghost Who Walks marks the debut solo release from the British singer/songwriter.
Available on US import CD through XL Recordings and Third Man Records, the 11 original compositions on The Ghost Who Walks were all written following Karen’s relocation from New York City to Nashville. While making her home – and raising two children – in the city of country music, Karen took to writing songs for her group, The Citizens Band, and found she had plenty of other melodies in her head.
Karen spins intriguingly unsettling tales of lost love, dashed hope, romantic betrayal and various crimes of passion witnessed only by the full moon. In a coolly inviting voice, strumming an acoustic guitar, she summons up a dark yet seductive atmosphere, an after-midnight world that’s irresistibly alluring.
Writing almost exclusively in the sanctuary of a closet in her bedroom, Karen’s songwriting blossomed. A fledgling songwriter might naturally be nervous to play their work for a spouse, but for Karen the trepidation was exacerbated by her husband’s own talent. It took many months of cajoling for Karen to play Jack White
her songs but his reaction was immediate: let’s get into the studio.
The arrangements for her small band – featuring the virtuosic Jackson Smith on guitar, Elson’s longtime collaborator Rachelle Garniez on accordion and vocals, and album producer Jack White on drums — evoke the lonesome side of country (“Cruel Summer”) or the tormented side of the blues (“The Truth Is In
the Dirt”), with eerie organ touches, keening electric guitars, and, on “In Trouble With the Lord,” some mean rock swagger.
Major press features in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and Vogue are set to coincide with release and will be followed by numerous other stories across all media in the weeks following.
A video for the accoustic version of The Ghost who Walks is available now across the web.
Recently playing a number of small shows around the US, including Austin for SXSW, a full tour is slated to begin in the Summer, followed by another round of dates in the Fall.
Previously collaborating with Robert Plant and Cat Power, Karen has been part of New York City-based art and music collective The Citizens Band for the past 5 years and appeared in the White Stripes video for Blue Orchid.
For more information, please visit www.karenelson.com, www.thirdmanrecords.com, and www.beggarsgroup.ca. To preview music and video, visit www.myspace.com/karenelsonmusic
“(Karen’s) voice goes from retro-breathy chanteuse to rootsy-belter in a few notes.” – New York Times
“She sounds like a Nashville veteran.” – London Daily Star
Until now, the British-born Elson has been better known as a top model, the face of ad campaigns for, among others, Armani, Prada, Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent’s Poison. With her pale white skin and shocking red hair, she seems an almost otherworldly presence on any given glossy page. While she assiduously worked as the face of various brands, she conducted an altogether different life behind the
scenes as a singer and songwriter, honing what has proven to be her considerable skills. In part, she learned by doing: for the last five years, she’s been a member, alongside Garniez, in the Weimar-style cabaret of New York City-based art and music collective The Citizens Band. Two of her more theatrical tracks, “100 Years From Now” and “Mouths To Feed,” inspired in part by author Tim Egan’s dust bowl saga, The Worst Hard Time, were originally penned for her troupe, which combines bawdy entertainment with barbed political commentary.
The Ghost Who Walks may not be drawn literally from Elson’s life, but it does represent an aspect of her psyche she’s been brave enough to explore: “I’m very much interested in the dark side of things. In my life, truthfully, I’ve had a lot of bizarre and dark experiences that have definitely colored the way I think about a
lot of personal things. The music I have always listened to as well has had a sorrowful, mournful, if not murderous, quality to it.” She pauses to laugh. “I’m not saying I would ever want to kill anybody, but sometimes love can drag you to the very depths of yourself and – my God – make you so desperate and forlorn. I really respond to songs that write about that. Hank Williams, for crying out loud, speaking of being forlorn and forsaken — there’s a song I just heard of his, an early demo, that really resonated with me.
Those songs move me in a way that happy go lucky songs don’t.”
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