{"id":44827,"date":"2014-09-02T09:30:50","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T16:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=44827"},"modified":"2015-08-02T23:12:02","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T06:12:02","slug":"hints-guesses-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2014\/09\/02\/hints-guesses-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Hints &amp; Guesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"facebook\" src=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Alanna.jpeg\" alt=\"Alanna\" width=\"259\" height=\"194\" \/>The album <em>&#8220;Hints &amp; Guesses&#8221;<\/em> is the first full-length\u00a0album from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alannamariemusic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Alanna-Marie Boudreau<\/a>, a young musician from New York who was <a title=\"Love Good Music?\" href=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2014\/05\/20\/love-good-music\/\" target=\"_blank\">recently touring<\/a> here in San Diego. \u00a0About a month ago I received a copy of\u00a0Alanna&#8217;s new album in advance of its release this September (<a href=\"\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/album\/hints-guesses\/id909739216\" target=\"_blank\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lovegoodmusic.com\/products\/hints-and-guesses\" target=\"_blank\">Website<\/a>), so after a few weeks of listening to the album in my car, I wanted to share my impression of it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"860\" height=\"484\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pM4wsWvNtzo?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">The title of the album comes from a line in\u00a0a TS Elliot poem,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.coldbacon.com\/poems\/fq.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Four Quartets<\/a>, which speaks about the glimpses we get of something beautiful\u00a0and awe-inspiring, but which hasn&#8217;t\u00a0yet been fully\u00a0revealed.\u00a0In an interview on her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCqlOWbIeOG1DvTYuTIVCYyg\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube channel<\/a>,\u00a0Alanna compared\u00a0it to seeing the early morning sunlight before the sun itself has risen, explaining\u00a0it as <span style=\"color: #000000\"><em>&#8220;the sense of home-sickness that you can&#8217;t really describe&#8221;<\/em><\/span>.\u00a0These are themes to which a restless pilgrim can certainly <a title=\"Word Of The Day: Paroikia\" href=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2011\/05\/16\/paroikia\/\" target=\"_blank\">relate<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>Wise Words<\/h2>\n<p>After hearing one of Alanna&#8217;s other songs, <em>&#8220;Sorry&#8221;<\/em>, several months ago I <a title=\"Wise Words on Wednesday: The things I most regret\" href=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2014\/04\/23\/the-things-i-most-regret\/\" target=\"_blank\">posted a\u00a0lyric<\/a>\u00a0for <em>&#8220;Wise Words On Wednesday&#8221;<\/em>. I can assure you that the songs on the new album are equally replete with proverbial wisdom. For example, in the opening track\u00a0<em>&#8220;Davey&#8221;<\/em>, we hear the following lines:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><span style=\"color: #000000\"><em>Everything that&#8217;s terrible is something that needs love<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000\"> <em> and\u00a0anyone who&#8217;s hurt you has been hurt<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000\"> <em> and nobody is as evil as they seem to be<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000\"> <em> but hatred surely makes them worse<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>There are many more examples I could quote and you&#8217;ll probably see them posted here over the coming Wednesdays&#8230;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left\">Fine Music<\/h2>\n<p>Over the past few years, I have become a fan of quite a\u00a0few musicians on YouTube, eagerly awaiting each new video\/song on their YouTube channel.\u00a0Unfortunately,\u00a0on more than one occasion, when the artist has released a studio album, I&#8217;ve been rather disappointed. This has typically been because I&#8217;ve felt the long-awaited album was\u00a0over-produced and over-orchestrated. Having been captivated by the artist&#8217;s music in simplicity, I&#8217;ve felt that something was\u00a0lost\u00a0upon entering the recording studio. However, I&#8217;m extremely pleased to say that this isn&#8217;t the case with <em>&#8220;Hints &amp; Guesses&#8221;<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the songs remain fairly unadorned. <em>&#8220;Dappled things&#8221;<\/em>, for example, has very simple instrumentation, with Alanna mostly being accompanied by the sound of birds in a field, rather like Mary Poppins \ud83d\ude42 . In contrast, other songs\u00a0have have quite a bit of ornamentation, but each time it\u00a0is done with an extremely delicate hand. A perfect example of the well-crafted orchestration\u00a0is the song\u00a0<em>&#8220;I&#8217;ll be your woman&#8221;<\/em>, which starts with vocals and a few simple, isolated chords on a piano. Bit-by-bit the accompaniment is filled out, culminating in a wonderful Jazz trumpet solo which made this former trumpeter extremely happy \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left\">Different Influences<\/h2>\n<p>This weekend I drove up to Riverside with my friend Carrie and we listened to Alanna&#8217;s album on the drive. On more than one occasion Carrie\u00a0would ask\u00a0if we were now listening to a different album\u00a0and artist. She said this because of the broad\u00a0range of musical genres which are found across the album. As you listen, you hear a wide range of\u00a0influences: 50&#8217;s doo-wop, celtic etc., yet Alanna somehow manages to take elements from these different styles but still somehow manages to produce a sound that is\u00a0very much her own.<\/p>\n<p>Much more could be said about the different\u00a0songs on the album, such as\u00a0the brilliantly titled\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZSRXSE-1ot4\" target=\"_blank\">Mr Wonderful<\/a>, but I think I&#8217;ll end things here.\u00a0The album will soon be available for purchase, both on <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/album\/hints-guesses\/id909739216\" target=\"_blank\">iTunes<\/a> and through Alanna&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.alannamariemusic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">website<\/a>. If you can&#8217;t wait that long, her EP <em>&#8220;Hands In The Land&#8221;<\/em> is <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/album\/hands-in-the-land\/id572642122\" target=\"_blank\">available for purchase now<\/a>.\u00a0Until the album is released, you can stay up-to-date by subscribing to her\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCqlOWbIeOG1DvTYuTIVCYyg\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube channel<\/a>\u00a0and and liking her\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Alanna-Boudreau\/166092050128645\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"860\" height=\"484\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ppOvD4Egbno?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><strong>09\/04\/14 UPDATE:<\/strong> The album has now been released! Purchase it through <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/album\/hints-guesses\/id909739216\" target=\"_blank\">iTunes<\/a> or buy a physical copy using <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lovegoodmusic.com\/products\/hints-and-guesses\" target=\"_blank\">Love Good Music<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The album &#8220;Hints &amp; Guesses&#8221; is the first full-length\u00a0album from Alanna-Marie Boudreau, a young musician from New York who was recently touring here in San Diego. \u00a0About a month ago I received a copy of\u00a0Alanna&#8217;s new album in advance of its release this September (iTunes, Website), so after a few weeks of listening to the album in my car, I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2570,2969,2784,240],"class_list":["post-44827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-alanna-marie-boudreau","tag-featured","tag-hints-and-guesses","tag-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44827"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58507,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44827\/revisions\/58507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}