“a luminous voice, a smoky alto that unfurls like a plume of cigarette smoke, its velvety tone a sensual narcotic… it’s hard not to think of the mythological sirens who used their hypnotic voices to lure sailors ashore” – textura
Oft compared to singular artists such as Nina Simone, Beth Gibbons and Elizabeth Fraser, Chloë March follows her own independent path, writing, engineering and producing from her home studio in south-east England. Inhabiting musical territory somewhere between art song and folk, dream-pop and electronica, the ambient and the cinematic, March embraces all these influences to create poetic, emotionally charged and intensely atmospheric songs and soundworlds.
For her fifth album, March drew inspiration from her early childhood in the Warwickshire countryside, nineteenth-century nature poet John Clare, and Lewis Carroll’s fantastical Alice Through the Looking Glass. Throughout the album there’s a palpable sense of wonder at the natural world, shot through with a deep concern for nature’s vulnerability. Starlings & Crows resonates with notions of home on a macro and micro level.
First single ‘To a Place’ is an elegant waltz built around swooning strings and piano. ‘Landing 1969’ sounds as astral as its subject matter would suggest, pulsing at the same tempo as Buzz Aldrin’s heart-rate as Apollo 11 left earth. ‘Remember That Sky’ is achingly emotive, showcasing March’s innate talent for creating an atmosphere of intimacy without compromising compositional depth. Despite running to a succinct 38 minutes, Starlings & Crows is lush and expansive, while distilled to its crystalline essence.
Snow Bird (Single)
December 2018
Following on from her 2017 solo release Blood-Red Spark, and her recent collaboration with labelmate Todd Tobias, Amialluma, ‘Snow Bird’ is a luminous winter song, gently hypnotic and hopeful. The track melds dream pop and found sounds of birdsong to create a crisply detailed emotional landscape, inhabited by March’s uniquely emotive vocal.
Todd Tobias & Chloe March – Amialluma
September 2018
After a number of stunning track collaborations on Todd Tobias’s 2015 album Gila Man, Chloe March and Todd Tobias have joined forces on their new full-length, Amialluma. Following on from Tobias’s recent album Massabu Evening Entertainments and March’s own Blood-Red Spark, this new album brings both artists’ distinct musical sensibilities together to create a bewitching brew. Dwelling in a mysterious hinterland somewhere between Cocteau Twins’ seminal Victorialand and The Caretaker’s Persistent Repetition of Phrases, Amialluma dances between the earthly and heavenly. Chloe March’s celestial voice shines a light through Todd Tobias’s dark, fantastical soundscapes, resulting in a sublime, uncanny experience that enraptures and unsettles in equal measure.
Blood-Red Spark
December 2017
In her fourth album, Blood-Red Spark, March continues her exploration of a rich musical seam in which songwriterly storytelling and imagistic soundscape meet. Beautiful ambient/electro-pop soundworlds of warm spaciousness and radiant sensuality are underpinned by a compelling pulse – a vital heartbeat of an album of emotional concealments and revealments, truth and trickery, loss, longing and desire. March leads the listener through an immersive multi-layered world of melodic twists and unexpected harmonic shifts with the confident songcraft of a composer happily at home with her own distinctive musicality, occasionally reminiscent of Goldfrapp, C Duncan, The Cocteau Twins or David Sylvian, using her voice as intimate centre point and textural instrument. The single ‘Let It All In’ is at the heart of this intimacy, distilling the emotional magnetism that March brings to all her work into an intense shot of magic and liquid melancholy. Blood-Red Spark is further evidence of an artist gathering her musical forces and transforming them into shimmering gold.
The Orpheus Pavement
March 14 2016
The Orpheus Pavement is the new six-track EP by English artist Chloë March, featuring new song ‘The Orpheus Pavement’, along with two originals from her acclaimed album Nights Bright Days and three remixes (by Lvmark, Sam Atkin, and Chloë March). The Orpheus Pavement is dreamy, slow-motion pop music, pulsating with sensuality. Listening to the EP feels like surreptitiously ingesting laudanum and wandering half-dazed through a secret garden that’s slowly shifting and warping around you. As with so much of Chloë March’s work, it was inspired by the mythical – the largest Roman mosaic ever found in Britain, which depicts Orpheus charming nymphs, tigers and other creatures with his songs. In this instance, the story is just the start, as March’s compositions bloom from reverberating piano and voice into evocative soundworlds that contain multitudes. Two of the songs are further transformed by remixers Lvmark, Sam Atkin, and March herself, into shimmering refractions of their former selves. Lvmark is an electronic music producer hailing from Northern Sweden, drawing influence from the isolation and vastness of his homeland to create echoing electronica. Sam Atkin is a Fremantle-based ambient and experimental producer operating out of his shed-bedroom, who released his debut album Gently, Quietly in 2015 through Workplace Safety CDRs, and has been keeping it slow and sad ever since.
To Set The River On Fire
February 2015
The new EP release To Set The River On Fire opens a window into a new universe of possibilities: Hidden Shoal artists remixing each other’s music. In the first of what we hope will become an ongoing series, English dream-pop artist Chloë March takes on a track from the latest album by German experimentalist Markus Mehr – and vice versa. Listening to ‘Buoy (Chloë March Remix)’ feels like watching Chloë March creep tentatively into Markus Mehr’s shadowy soundworld, casting her radiant voice around the room like torchlight. While on ‘Ember (Markus Mehr Remix)’, the original’s beautifully simple arrangement for voice and piano is trapped within a hall of industrial-sized mirrors, anxiously roving around in search of escape. Each remix complements the other, masterfully re-interpreting the source material while inviting fresh listens to the original.
Nights Bright Days
November 2014
Although often compared to singular artists such as Nina Simone, Beth Gibbons and Elizabeth Fraser, Chloë March follows her own unique path, writing, engineering and producing from her studio in south-east England. Inhabiting musical territory somewhere between art song and folk, dream-pop and electronica, the ambient and the cinematic, March embraces all these influences on Nights Bright Days to create poetic, emotionally charged and atmospheric songs and soundworlds. Four years in the making and originally self-released in 2013, Nights Bright Days is a cycle of songs as dreams, imbued with imagery of darkness and light, night and day. The album embraces elements of jazz, classical, folk and dream-pop, and features guest musicians on bass clarinet, soprano sax, French horn and guitar. Nights Bright Days features single ‘Winter Deep’, a shimmering waltz that opens the album with weightless grace.The Hidden Shoal re-release also includes the bonus digital EP Under The Day which features six previously un-released tracks.
Under The Day
November 2014
A set of daydreams that form a miniature B-side to the album Nights Bright Days, this is a collection of six songs including the piano ballad ‘May’ and the dream-folk synth/harp reverie for the oldest tree in Kew Gardens ‘Old Tree, Mon Coeur’ that garnered Chloë Soundclouder of the Day earlier in 2014 – ‘Dreamy voice… A magical atmospheric song’. The new songs on this EP include ‘Ballooniad’ inspired by tales of the early Balloonists lifting off from coastal cliffs, a dreamily buoyant track tethered to a circling bass and ‘Big Tree Engine’ a minimalist reflection centred around deep jazz-inflected piano chords inspired by an ancient tree in central London.
Politik
July 2012
Chloë was commissioned to compose a score for the dance-theatre piece realPolitik, choreographed by Julie Hope and performed at the Michaelis Theatre, London in 2008. realPolitik was a re-working of The Green Table, a tanztheater piece created by German choreographer Kurt Jooss in 1932. The Green Table explored political corruption and the futility and horror of war. This modern version also concentrated on those issues, focusing on modern warfare and personal power-plays between characters. Inspired by composers such as Walton, Weil and Stravinsky, Politik mixes orchestral drama with intricate and atmospheric electronica and weaves texts from A. E. Housman and Jonathan Swift into the score as spoken word elements. Highly atmospheric and emotionally involving, Politik offers an evocation of the 1930’s era of the original piece with a dynamic contemporary twist.
Garden On The Boulevard
November 2009
Garden On The Boulevard is a collection of six songs that includes tracks inspired by boulevard cafés and old cameras, lost love and seductive glamour, the dawn chorus, mythical bees, ghosts in the garden and frozen lakes.
Divining
November 2008
Chloë spent three years writing, recording and producing her second album Divining (2008). Inspired by water and featuring Chloë’s trademark poetic lyrics and immersive, cinematic soundworlds, Divining journeys through immersive sensuous soundscapes including a decaying Venice, a lament for Anne Boleyn, nostalgic sunlit reveries, tales of sadistic sculptors, grieving wolves and dark seas of love and loss.
With the piano at it’s heart and interweaving french horn, strings, marimbas and found-sounds including wind-chimes, paper and grass, this is a meticulously and lovingly-crafted album with a haunting, melancholic undertow.
Snowdrop
November 2004
Chloë March’s first album includes pared-down ballads for piano and voice and her first explorations into more epic, multi-layered highly evocative soundworlds. “Sophisticated songwriting… a trace of David Sylvian’s jazz-tinted sound…The utterly gorgeous melody and March’s singing are exceptional. Snowdrop is a thing of beauty.” – Collected Sounds
Biography
Chloë March has always lived a life with music at its heart. She grew up as part of a musical family, with both her parents musicians at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Her mother’s daily practice of playing Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy and Schumann pieces on the piano was the soundtrack to her young life, and March began piano lessons aged four. Later, after her parents divorced, songwriting and improvising on the piano became vital to her. Her early life was steeped in classical and jazz, with raids on her siblings’ record collections revealing wondrous new worlds created by Kate Bush, Pink Floyd and Joni Mitchell, which led to the discovery of David Sylvian, the Cocteau Twins and Steve Reich, all of which influenced her own music. Playing in bands with her brother and spending time in his 8-track home studio sparked a passion for recording, particularly for building up soundscapes with the texture and depth of multi-tracking. This early experimentation forged a determination to be in control of her own recording at home, with her current digital set-up only occasionally disrupted by her cat, musicologist partner, and various guest musicians. March’s long, slow discovery of her singing voice has been an odyssey of sorts, gradually finding the confidence and freedom to reveal a jazz-inflected alto that has been variously described as “absolutely charismatic”, “mesmerising” and “luminous”.
Inspired by myth, history, fairytales, books, film and the sensuality of the natural world, with an obsessive attention to detail and a desire to create intensely atmospheric and emotionally truthful music, March has been recording and producing her own music since she released her second album Divining in 2008. Prior to Divining, she toured the UK and Italy as keyboard player with the band Cousteau, released her first album Snowdrop in 2004, and composed for theatre and dance, including the 40-minute electro-orchestral soundtrack Politik. March has also worked with German ambient producer Jumpel, singing on his 2010 single ‘Edinburgh’ and four songs on his 2013 album Bloc4. Her latest album, and her first for Hidden Shoal, Nights Bright Days, has been four years in the making. It was initially inspired by the night and metamorphosis, and became a cycle of songs as dreams, imbued with images of darkness and light. The album embraces jazz, classical, folk and dream-pop influences, and features guest musicians on bass clarinet, soprano sax and guitar.
‘All Things Good‘ is the third single lifted from Starlings & Crows, the stunning new album by English ambient-pop artist Chloë March. The song is a delicate and evocative ballad, led by a vulnerable yet strongly flowing melodic vocal over gently propulsive piano. A wish-fulfilment and a spell of love and the healing sensuality of the natural world. Starlings & Crows has been featured in a number of Best of 2020 lists including Textura, Curveball and Mark Griffin.
“A stunningly lovely blend of electronic and orchestral jewel tones, sensitive vocals and diaphanous compositions, this record envelops and holds you to its chest where you can feel its beating heart.” – Mark Griffin
The album is available now in CD, cassette and digital formats via Bandcamp, streaming via Spotify and is also available via all good online stores and streaming service. The music of Chloe March is available for licensing (film, tv, web and more) via Hidden Shoal.
“A stunningly lovely blend of electronic and orchestral jewel tones, sensitive vocals and diaphanous compositions, this record envelops and holds you to its chest where you can feel its beating heart.” – Mark Griffin
The album is available now in CD, cassette and digital formats via Bandcamp, streaming via Spotify and is also available via all good online stores and streaming service. The music of Chloe March is available for licensing (film, tv, web and more) via Hidden Shoal.
Chloe March’s stunning album Starlings & Crows has been selected by the UK radio show Curve Ball as part of their Top 30 for 2020 (many thanks to Chris Evans as always). This follows on from the album’s selection by the highly respected Textura as one of the 10 best albums of 2020.
“However tempting it might be to cite artists such as Elizabeth Fraser and Tracey Thorn as reference points when speaking of March, Starlings & Crows—not for the first time—shows she’s staked out her own artistic place. No one sounds quite like her, either vocally or musically.“ – Textura
The album is available now in CD, cassette and digital formats via Bandcamp, streaming via Spotify and is also available via all good online stores and streaming service. The music of Chloe March is available for licensing (film, tv, web and more) via Hidden Shoal.
Chloe March‘s stunning new album Starlings & Crows has been selected by the highly respected Textura as one of the 10 best albums of 2020. The latest edition of Textura also features a glowing review of the album,
“However tempting it might be to cite artists such as Elizabeth Fraser and Tracey Thorn as reference points when speaking of March, Starlings & Crows—not for the first time—shows she’s staked out her own artistic place. No one sounds quite like her, either vocally or musically.“ – Textura
The album is available now in CD, cassette and digital formats via Bandcamp, streaming via Spotify and is also available via all good online stores and streaming service. The music of Chloe March is available for licensing (film, tv, web and more) via Hidden Shoal.
Hidden Shoal is proud to announce the release of the stunning new Chloe March album Starlings & Crows. The album is available now in CD, cassette and digital formats via Bandcamp, streaming via Spotify and is also available via all good online stores and streaming service. The music of Chloe March is available for licensing (film, tv, web and more) via Hidden Shoal.
For her fifth album, March drew inspiration from her early childhood in the Warwickshire countryside, nineteenth-century nature poet John Clare, and Lewis Carroll’s fantastical Alice Through the Looking Glass. Throughout the album there’s a palpable sense of wonder at the natural world, shot through with a deep concern for nature’s vulnerability. Starlings & Crows resonates with notions of home on a macro and micro level.
First single ‘To a Place’ is an elegant waltz built around swooning strings and piano. ‘Landing 1969’ sounds as astral as its subject matter would suggest, pulsing at the same tempo as Buzz Aldrin’s heart-rate as Apollo 11 left earth. ‘Remember That Sky’ is achingly emotive, showcasing March’s innate talent for creating an atmosphere of intimacy without compromising compositional depth. Despite running to a succinct 38 minutes, Starlings & Crows is lush and expansive, while distilled to its crystalline essence.
“The latest album by Chloe March is another heady trip through electro pop… The air is thick with atmosphere throughout and March is a masterful creator of mood… a beautiful sound somewhere between The Blue Nile and David Sylvian” – The Underground of Happiness
Oft compared to singular artists such as Nina Simone, Beth Gibbons and Elizabeth Fraser, Chloë March follows her own independent path, writing, engineering and producing from her home studio in south-east England. Inhabiting musical territory somewhere between art song and folk, dream-pop and electronica, the ambient and the cinematic, March embraces all these influences to create poetic, emotionally charged and intensely atmospheric songs and soundworlds.
‘Remember That Sky’ is the gorgeous second single from English ambient-pop artist Chloë March. The track is lifted from her forthcoming album Starlings & Crows which sees release on the 23rd of October 2020. The track is available now via Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp. The music of Chloe March is available for licensing (film, tv, web and more) via Hidden Shoal.
For her fifth album, March drew inspiration from her early childhood in the Warwickshire countryside, nineteenth-century nature poet John Clare, and Lewis Carroll’s fantastical Alice Through the Looking Glass. Throughout the album there’s a palpable sense of wonder at the natural world, shot through with a deep concern for nature’s vulnerability. Starlings & Crows resonates with notions of home on a macro and micro level.
First single ‘To a Place’ is an elegant waltz built around swooning strings and piano. ‘Landing 1969’ sounds as astral as its subject matter would suggest, pulsing at the same tempo as Buzz Aldrin’s heart-rate as Apollo 11 left earth. ‘Remember That Sky’ is achingly emotive, showcasing March’s innate talent for creating an atmosphere of intimacy without compromising compositional depth. Despite running to a succinct 38 minutes, Starlings & Crows is lush and expansive, while distilled to its crystalline essence.
“The latest album by Chloe March is another heady trip through electro pop… The air is thick with atmosphere throughout and March is a masterful creator of mood… a beautiful sound somewhere between The Blue Nile and David Sylvian” – The Underground of Happiness
Oft compared to singular artists such as Nina Simone, Beth Gibbons and Elizabeth Fraser, Chloë March follows her own independent path, writing, engineering and producing from her home studio in south-east England. Inhabiting musical territory somewhere between art song and folk, dream-pop and electronica, the ambient and the cinematic, March embraces all these influences to create poetic, emotionally charged and intensely atmospheric songs and soundworlds.
We’re excited to present ‘To a Place’, the stunning new single from English ambient-pop artist Chloë March. The track is lifted from her forthcoming album Starlings & Crows which sees release on the 23rd of October 2020. ‘To a Place’ is available now via Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp. The music of Chloe March is available for licensing (film, tv, web and more) via Hidden Shoal.
For her fifth album, March drew inspiration from her early childhood in the Warwickshire countryside, nineteenth-century nature poet John Clare, and Lewis Carroll’s fantastical Alice Through the Looking Glass. Throughout the album there’s a palpable sense of wonder at the natural world, shot through with a deep concern for nature’s vulnerability. Starlings & Crows resonates with notions of home on a macro and micro level.
First single ‘To a Place’ is an elegant waltz built around swooning strings and piano. ‘Landing 1969’ sounds as astral as its subject matter would suggest, pulsing at the same tempo as Buzz Aldrin’s heart-rate as Apollo 11 left earth. ‘Remember That Sky’ is achingly emotive, showcasing March’s innate talent for creating an atmosphere of intimacy without compromising compositional depth. Despite running to a succinct 38 minutes, Starlings & Crows is lush and expansive, while distilled to its crystalline essence.
“The latest album by Chloe March is another heady trip through electro pop… The air is thick with atmosphere throughout and March is a masterful creator of mood… a beautiful sound somewhere between The Blue Nile and David Sylvian” – The Underground of Happiness
Oft compared to singular artists such as Nina Simone, Beth Gibbons and Elizabeth Fraser, Chloë March follows her own independent path, writing, engineering and producing from her home studio in south-east England. Inhabiting musical territory somewhere between art song and folk, dream-pop and electronica, the ambient and the cinematic, March embraces all these influences to create poetic, emotionally charged and intensely atmospheric songs and soundworlds.
The sublime new Hidden Shoal remix compilation, By any other name, is this week’s RTRFM local feature album! Tracks will be featured on a range of shows across the week so be sure to tune in. Be sure to also check out the wonderful interview at the station with Ben Da Cruz and Sue Summers on the processes and ideas behind the album. The album is available now as a free download via Bandcamp and to stream via Spotify and SoundCloud.
For By any other name, Hidden Shoal invited a number of emerging Perth artists to rework a selection of tracks from the label’s catalogue. With 11 artists reimagining tracks by Target Archery, Erik Nilsson, Glanko & Daniel Bailey, Summon the Birds, Chloe March and Isophene, what’s most striking about By any other name is both the expansive nature of the individual tracks, and the cohesiveness of the overall listening experience.
By any other name features remixes by Boy In Nature, Austy, Alexi, Michael Tyrie, Sue Summers, Ryan Jose, Daniel Zinetti, Crier, Cron, Shane Isard and JW. Boy In Nature infuses the languid tones of Target Archery’s ‘Opium Den’ with an effervescent buoyancy. On Michael Tyrie’s reimagining of Summon the Birds’ ‘Tactile Hallucination’, the structure of the song is inverted, with the epic climax acting as a cinematic scene-setter. Cron’s re-envisioning of Glanko & Bailey’s ambient masterpiece ‘Adiaphora’ injects the original with urgency without losing its sense of grandeur. And Daniel Zinetti’s brilliant deconstruction of Chloe March’s ‘Old Tree Mon Coeur’ breaks the original into a thousand pieces and then ejects them into space.
As always this music is available for licensing for film, tv, games and more through Hidden Shoal.
We’re very excited to announce the release of By any other name, a new compilation of remixes of recently released tracks by Hidden Shoal artists. The album is available now as a free download via Bandcamp and to stream via Spotify and SoundCloud.
For By any other name, Hidden Shoal invited a number of emerging Perth artists to rework a selection of tracks from the label’s catalogue. With 11 artists reimagining tracks by Target Archery, Erik Nilsson, Glanko & Daniel Bailey, Summon the Birds, Chloe March and Isophene, what’s most striking about By any other name is both the expansive nature of the individual tracks, and the cohesiveness of the overall listening experience.
By any other name features remixes by Boy In Nature, Austy, Alexi, Michael Tyrie, Sue Summers, Ryan Jose, Daniel Zinetti, Crier, Cron, Shane Isard and JW. Boy In Nature infuses the languid tones of Target Archery’s ‘Opium Den’ with an effervescent buoyancy. On Michael Tyrie’s reimagining of Summon the Birds’ ‘Tactile Hallucination’, the structure of the song is inverted, with the epic climax acting as a cinematic scene-setter. Cron’s re-envisioning of Glanko & Bailey’s ambient masterpiece ‘Adiaphora’ injects the original with urgency without losing its sense of grandeur. And Daniel Zinetti’s brilliant deconstruction of Chloe March’s ‘Old Tree Mon Coeur’ breaks the original into a thousand pieces and then ejects them into space.
As always this music is available for licensing for film, tv, games and more through Hidden Shoal.
Boy In Nature’s remix of Target Archery’s ‘Opium Den’ is the first single lifted from By any other name, a forthcoming compilation of remixes of recently released tracks by Hidden Shoal artists. The track is available now as a free download via Bandcamp and to stream via SoundCloud. By any other name will see release on the 19th August 2019, available as a free download via Bandcamp and streamable via Spotify.
For By any other name, Hidden Shoal invited a number of emerging Perth artists to rework a selection of tracks from the label’s catalogue. With 11 artists reimagining tracks by Target Archery, Erik Nilsson, Glanko & Daniel Bailey, Summon the Birds, Chloe March and Isophene, what’s most striking about By any other name is both the expansive nature of the individual tracks, and the cohesiveness of the overall listening experience.
By any other name features remixes by Boy In Nature, Austy, Alexi, Michael Tyrie, Sue Summers, Ryan Jose, Daniel Zinetti, Crier, Cron, Shane Isard and JW. Boy In Nature infuses the languid tones of Target Archery’s ‘Opium Den’ with an effervescent buoyancy. On Michael Tyrie’s reimagining of Summon the Birds’ ‘Tactile Hallucination’, the structure of the song is inverted, with the epic climax acting as a cinematic scene-setter. Cron’s re-envisioning of Glanko & Bailey’s ambient masterpiece ‘Adiaphora’ injects the original with urgency without losing its sense of grandeur. And Daniel Zinetti’s brilliant deconstruction of Chloe March’s ‘Old Tree Mon Coeur’ breaks the original into a thousand pieces and then ejects them into space.
As always this music is available for licensing for film, tv, games and more through Hidden Shoal.
“One of those magical words that sometimes manages to capture the reader’s attention is underestimated. I find it actually difficult to call Chloë March with the term underrated, because in this case we are faced with a real neglect by critics and the public, despite the Fact that the English artist has just crossed the threshold of the fifth album (the penultimate “Amialluma” was shared with Todd Tobias). Perhaps I should not be surprised at the lack of attention paid to her so far, considering the guidelines of the music of the London singer-songwriter, more inclined to that imperceptible Hugo Largo-style rock, where the role of percussion and guitars is at least accidental.
Chloë March’s evanescent and refined chamber-pop wouldn’t go unnoticed if it were published on behalf of more celebrated artists (for example, Kate Bush or David Sylvian). There is an extreme vulnerability in these eleven creations that cannot be fully appreciated without attention and patience being devoted to it.
Let’s be clear that “Starlings & Crows” isn’t a difficult or pretentious album, voice whiteness and harmonies with fall and dreamlike tones are an easy language to understand and interpret. Diafane (the title track),moderately synthetic (the charming “Turn Fox Then”), rarely throbbing (the piano intonation in “All Things Good”), melodically fragile (the symphonic synth-folk of “Neon Emerald Sequin”), slightly retro (waltz time in “To A Place”), concise (the sumptuous “Remember That Sky” and the romantic “Chroma Bather”) or evanescent (“High Hay”), Chloë March’s chamber-folk and dream-pop creations are kissed by unusual beauty.
“Starlings & Crows” is a record with delicate and penetrating fragrances, almost an aroma-therapy entrusted to the seven notes. There is no shortage of literary references (“Alice in Wonderland” in “Looking Glass Lawn”), or historical (the moon landing in “Landing 1969″), but the predominant element is the extreme attention to detail of the arrangements, an element that, combined with the depth and emotional intensity of the author’s refined and never cloying vocal mastery, confirms Chloë March as one of the heirs of the magic of Kate Bush and the less well-known Heidi Berry and Virginia Astley.”
“It was hard not to be charmed by the beauty of Chloë March’s album, Starlings & Crows, which flew into sight in October last year. As a timely reminder of her precious talent, the English ambient-pop artiste has just shared a third single off the record, “All Things Good”. Those very familiar with her work may recognise that the song is a version of “Calypso Wants” from her previous album, Blood-Red Spark, with extended lyrics and a different arrangement. March is a confessed fan of the process of reworking as a means of improving something or continuing to explore a theme. “All Things Good” falls firmly into the second category.”
“I first heard the unique and otherworldly music of Chloë March on Tom Ravenscroft’s BBC 6 Music Show some 6 or 7 years ago. Little did I know that we would later become friends and we would both, in different roles, become stalwarts of Fresh On The Net. In that time she has continued to produce a consistent catalogue of beautifully-crafted songs and accomplished albums, recording for the Australian label Hidden Shoals. She has also repeatedly won the approval of our discerning readers who have regularly voted her tracks into the Fresh Faves.
All Good Things is a prime example of what Chloë does so well. The piano develops in waves of alternating, fluid chords that make room for the kind of sumptuous dissonances rarely heard on a pop record. The other sounds swirl and saunter around it, while her soft but distinct and assured voice takes hold; a subtle and savoury main course, adorned by a plateful of carefully contrasting side dishes. The song is reflective, melancholy and tugs at the heartstrings. But never does it dip down into sugary sentiment, and it is all the more emotionally powerful as a result.”
“A stunningly lovely blend of electronic and orchestral jewel tones, sensitive vocals and diaphanous compositions, this record envelops and holds you to its chest where you can feel its beating heart.”
“Chloë March has been variously described as an ambient-pop or electro-pop artist, but neither label truly satisfies. Yes, an ambient aspect is present in her atmospheric music, and, yes, she does use electronics to fashion her material, and, yes, there is a pop dimension in play when she favours concise, song-styled structures. Yet her intensely personalized sound helps make Starlings & Crows, March’s fifth album, transcend singular categorizing. One ultimately less listens to this intoxicating collection than luxuriates in it.
Operating out of her Warwickshire countryside home, the English artist crafts songs that might be better described as deeply aromatic mood pieces that derive their greatest distinguishing character from her unmistakable voice. Across eleven songs, March induces entrancement by coupling her free-floating, often multi-layered singing with instrumental backdrops that are pristine and keyboards-heavy. Her voice unfurls gracefully, with its vulnerable ache a stark counterpoint to the secure foundation of the instrumental design. An omnipresent tension emerges through that juxtaposition when the meticulous polish of the latter contrasts with the live-sounding spontaneity of the vocal performances.
As the thirty-eight-minute recording plays, the listener is pulled deeply into its world, the effect intensified by the subject matter associated with the project. As the John Tenniel-like illustrations adorning the sleeve (and the title of the closing track “Looking Glass Lawn”) suggest, March drew for inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass as well as the writings of nineteenth-century nature poet John Clare. Such literary references accentuate both the album’s connections to the transporting dreamworlds of fantasy fiction and the sense of wonder engagement with the natural world calls forth.
With a title alluding to the Apollo 11 mission, the opening song “Landing 1969” illustrates how critical her voice is to her music’s impact when multiple vocal lines elegantly intertwine across a shimmering bed of pulsations. Here and elsewhere, March favours slow tempos, a choice that strengthens the music’s dreamlike quality. Among the standouts is “Remember That Sky,” which alchemizes her voice and a lilting backing into a swooning, intensely emotive elegy for things lost and unrecoverable.
As much as singing is the primary focal point, arresting instrumental touches surface too. “Turn Fox Then,” for example, is animated by a deep bass pulse that in another context could pass for dub; in this song the element works in tandem with the synthetic textures and vocal to create a swaying mass that’s more than a little hypnotic. A similar state is induced during “High Hay” when strums by a harp-like instrument are part of the sound design. Piano moves to the instrumental forefront in “All Things Good,” whereas “To a Place” mixes things up by undergirding her singing with a waltz rhythm.
However tempting it might be to cite artists such as Elizabeth Fraser and Tracey Thorn as reference points when speaking of March, Starlings & Crows—not for the first time—shows she’s staked out her own artistic place. No one sounds quite like her, either vocally or musically.”
“Having brilliantly overcome the parenthesis of organic collaboration with Todd Tobias (“Amialluma” 2018), Chloe March returns to solo creation, accentuating the dreamy characters and evanescent atmospheres of the previous “Blood-Red Spark” (2017). On the fifth album, the English artist now proves to be fully at ease in rarefied and often arrhythmic settings, to which her sinuous interpretations give enveloping dynamics and sinuous harmonic flows.
The eleven tracks of “Starlings & Crows” are the result of an immediate and very sophisticated elaboration process, which derives from the comparison with places and personal memories, filtered by an approach of enchanted candor, faithfully reflected by soft synthetic stratifications, marked by occasional pulses and fragile watermarks of notes. The delicacy and apparent vulnerability that transpire from the work are paired with the clear awareness of Chloë March in her vivid dream-pop emissions, arising from an undoubtedly personal dimension but calmly aimed at universal emotional spaces.”
“Starlings and Crows, the new album by Chloë March, is an autumnal song cycle full of rich electronics, dark honeyed vocals and startling touches, like crystalline piano chord progressions and shimmering autoharp strums. It’s richly atmospheric, full of nature imagery and Romantic (with a capital R) reveries. Everything note played or sung is placed with jewel-like precision. It’s a song suite, but there are highlights, like the tentative piano ballad “All Things Good” or the cinematic blur of “To a Place,” and “Remember That Sky” could be an Adult Alternative single. It reminds one of the misty electronic pastorals of Virginia Astley’s “Hope in a Darkened Heart,” though March has a plaintive alto compared to Astley’s boy soprano tones. Other references: “The Sensual World,” by Kate Bush, “Secrets of the Beehive” by David Sylvian or the 4AD era of folk singer Heidi Berry.”
“It is honestly a coincidence that two singer-songwriters who have blown me away this month share my name! But none of us are related! The ever-consistent Chloë March returned and stormed into the fresh faves with the haunting melancholy of To a place. Like all her best songs, it has an otherworldly quality with swirling synths and Chloë’s fantastic alto voice delivering a melody that cuts my emotions to ribbons. I duly chose it to be my Vanishing Point track on Ming & Jon’s Monday Night Ride Out show on Exile FM. Opinion from all those who commented was unanimous on the song’s unique beauty.
March has also been on my radar for a while and she returned with a stunning track called For the world which I also picked as a Vanishing Point track. We had the luxury of her performing it live in lockdown with just guitar and voice for Trust The Doc TV while being able to play the full production version on my radio show. The live version underlined the quality of her vocals and was compelling to watch and listen to. Look it up on Edition 9 of the TV show if you have not already done so. Then the single showed what could be done with such a well-written song, brooding and building from minimal start before hitting with a kind of coda at the end that is butterflies-inducing. March is currently studying at the amazing Institute of Contemporary Music Practice where I am likely to be delivering some lectures in the new future. She is in the right place for her considerable talent to be guided in a positive direction.”
“It wasn’t so long ago that I was writing about bird gatherings (4 September) to preview Emily Barker’s fine new album, A Dark Murmuration of Words. English ambient-pop artiste, Chloë March, is now getting in on the act with the release of Starlings & Crows, due on 23 October. The album is trailed quite brilliantly by the gloriously sensual single from it, “To a Place”. The song appears inspired by a collision of the natural world and something akin to Alice’s experience through the looking glass. In this case, the conduit is a hole in an old garden wall.
March’s delicate alto glides through the minor modulations of the song effortlessly as she sings of longing for a loved one, of falling into a place of memory and imagination. There is a subtle menace implicit in some of March’s lyrics which counterbalances the beauty of their delivery. Hardly a new girl on the block, the upcoming album will be her fifth in a career spanning 16 years. While we await the full album, an investment in the back catalogue of this gifted, independently-driven artiste is highly recommended.“
“This song was a nice juxtaposition against the previous on the list. In another world we are whipped off by the winds to a new environment and already charmed by its surroundings. I felt overwhelmed by the imagery, such was its power. Like finding a fascinating painting in an art gallery, you just cannot tear yourself away. Multi-faceted, layered, textured and dextrous. Chloë March reminds me a lot of Sarah Barker from Zero 7 fame. There is a sexual tension which emerges as she leads us through a hole in the old garden wall “I’m not sure I want this at all, but light is flooding through you”. Like a fine meal, everything is considered and delicately plated up, from the keys to the bass to the vocals. Achieving what is, in my opinion, a great song.”
Chloë March’s music is available for licensing (master & sync cleared) through Hidden Shoal. Please contact us with some basic details about your project and the track(s) you wish to use and we’ll be sure to get back to you straight away.
“a luminous voice, a smoky alto that unfurls like a plume of cigarette smoke, its velvety tone a sensual narcotic… it’s hard not to think of the mythological sirens who used their hypnotic voices to lure sailors ashore” – textura
‘All Things Good‘ is the third single lifted from Starlings & Crows, the stunning new album by English ambient-pop artist Chloë March. The song is a delicate and evocative ballad, led by a vulnerable yet strongly flowing melodic vocal over gently propulsive piano. A wish-fulfilment and a spell of love and the healing sensuality of the natural world. Starlings & Crows has been featured in a number of Best of 2020 lists including Textura, Curveball and Mark Griffin.
‘Remember That Sky’ is the gorgeous second single from English ambient-pop artist Chloë March. The track is lifted from her forthcoming album Starlings & Crows which sees release on the 23rd of October 2020. The track is available now via Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp. The music of Chloe March is available for licensing (film, tv, web and more) via Hidden Shoal.
We’re excited to present ‘To a Place’, the stunning new single from English ambient-pop artist Chloë March. The track is lifted from her forthcoming album Starlings & Crows which sees release on the 23rd of October 2020. ‘To a Place’ is available now via Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp. The music of Chloe March is available for licensing (film, tv, web and more) via Hidden Shoal.
The sublime new Hidden Shoal remix compilation, By any other name, is this week’s RTRFM local feature album! Tracks will be featured on a range of shows across the week so be sure to tune in. Be sure to also check out the wonderful interview at the station with Ben Da Cruz and Sue Summers on the processes and ideas behind the album. The album is available now as a free download via Bandcamp and to stream via Spotify and SoundCloud.
