RSS
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
"Saraiya's upcoming Soundproof Box, her second album under her own name, showcases the performer's creative energy with intensity. Saraiya's vintage cabaret sound is drama in bold relief, swinging from playful to maudlin in a single measure." -- Jessica Hopper, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
AMI SARAIYA AND THE OUTCOME LIVE!
Tuesday, November 27, 8p
Kobo
2590 N High St
Columbus, OH
Produced and arranged by Mark Messing (Mucca Pazza) and recorded at Maestro-matic studios, Soundproof Box is Ami's follow up to her 2009 debut LP, Archaeologist and expands on the recording sessions that spawned last year's folk-punk and cabaret inspired three-song EP, Purging. Starting off with the Bacharach-ian jazz-pop instrumentation of the album's kickoff "I'm Pregnant," Soundproof Box once again showcases the way Ami and her backing band, The Outcome, can ingeniously wade from the dark theatrics of the title song to the Mexicali of "Serenade" or the stripped-down bad romance of "Glass Full of Blue." But it's Ami's voice—a strong, worldly presence that has been likened to Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday—that pulls it all together.
Ami is a veteran of Chicago's eclectic and varied music scene—before she released her first solo album, Archaeologist, Ami was a member of pop collective Radiant Darling and R&B band Pelvic Delta, and has toured locally and regionally with appearances at The Hideout, The Empty Bottle, Metro and Double Door. A classically-trained pianist and a former music major at Indiana University, Ami also plays accordion and the guitar. In October 2011, Ami was also awarded a $15,000 3Arts Award (http://3arts.org/artist/ami-saraiya/).
"I'm Pregnant" video:
http://youtu.be/jsBJ8SMmK1E
AMI SARAIYA DISCOGRAPHY:
Purging EP (2011)
On 'Purging,' Ami and her band are effortless in mixing up genres, contorting and shape-shifting, much like the circus performers that appear in Ami’s songs. “Hanging by a Thread” is a piece of modern cabaret told from the perspective of a circus aerialist, while “Purging Purging” is a firey rave-up. The Musette-style waltz of “Cattle Prod Hands,” a dark tale inspired by recent stories of US torture in Iraq, closes out the EP.
“Ami Saraiya ventures to some dark places on her latest EP. In just 3 songs, she portrays a circus performer tempting death (Hanging by A Thread), sings of stone-cold corpses and red-hot fires (Purging Purging), and on Cattleprod Hands, turns out a bit of a nightmarish surrealism that sounds like it could have lept from the the brain of filmmaker David Lynch.” —Chicago Metromix
"Archaeologist is a brilliant record that bent many genres — chamber pop, blues, and waltzy-soul to name a few — into Saraiya’s magically surrealist songwriting. Her latest EP are also some of the best tracks she’s ever produced and, if they are an indication of what’s to come, a lead up to her most exciting LP yet." —Loud Loop Press
Archaeologist LP (2009)
"Saraiya's album Archaeologist proves that she can legitimately shred on the squeezebox while wrapping herself up in sparse, elegant orchestration (saw, sousaphone, muted trumpets, strings) and minor-key hints of Old World atmosphere. Sometimes she manages to push the sound in more unexpected directions, rocking it up with a surly vocal on "Memphis Train" and quietly letting some tension creep into the swooning prettiness of "Up Down & Charmed ..." —Chicago A.V. Club
Launched in August 2010, TheMetropreneur.com is a local online resource devoted to small business development and entrepreneurship. Its aim is to tell the stories of Central Ohio's business community, foster regional economic development and assist entrepreneurs with its resource-heavy focus.