A-P Swan

	Mesmerizing New Album Coming From Mazzy Star Hope Sandoval: Only happy when it rains Addicted to Noise July 21,96 by Michael Goldberg The new Mazzy Star album, titled Among My Swan, will be released on September 5th. The album, the duo's best yet, is a melancholy walk through an English country side rose garden--or maybe a solitary stroll along a river up in Oregon somewhere. The touching "Flowers In December" features a charming harmonica solo by singer Hope Sandoval, who wrote all of the lyrics with the exception of those for "Rhymes Of An Hour," which were co-written by Sandoval and her partner in crime, guitarist/songwriter Dave Roback, who is responsible for all of the music on the album. Roback also produced the album, with a co-production credit going to Sandoval. This album is the kind you listen to late at night, when you're feeling as down as can be, and need some music to fit your mood. Guitarist William Reid--yeah, the brilliant noise-meister from The Jesus and Mary Chain--appears on a song called "Take Everything." Other songs on the album: "Disappear," "Cry, Cry," "Still Cold," "All Your Sisters," "I've Been Let Down," "Rose Blood," "Happy," "Umbilical" and "Look On Down From The Bridge." It's too bad that Garbage already wrote a song called "I'm Only Happy When It Rains," cause that one ought to be the theme song for Mazzy Star. While some of Sandoval's melodies make me think that she's listened to Bob Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" about 2000 times, her voice and Roback's musical settings for it are strikingly unique. Simply gorgeous in a dark, femme fatale kind of way. Capitol Records Press Release Among My Swan, the new Mazzy Star album, is out! It is the third album from the California based band featuring Hope Sandoval and David Roback, and it includes 12 new Sandoval/Roback songs. Mazzy Star began performing live on the underground music scene in the late 1980's, and released its first album, She Hangs Brightly, in 1990 on the independent label Rough Trade. Despite the critical success of their first album and their rapidly growing cult following, Mazzy Star has remained a somewhat enigmatic presence on the contemporary music scene . The 1993 release of their second album So Tonight That I Might See, on Capitol Records, further reflected their diverse and experimental musical styles, both electric and acoustic. Since the release of their second album, Mazzy Star has been performing live in Europe and North America, as well as working in the recording studio and appearing on movie soundtracks. The new album, Among My Swan, was recorded in California and London, and will include the new single "Flowers in December." [Capitol - online]
	Ray Gun November 1996 Mazzy Star in "singer speaks" shock. Rock writer rushed to emergency room. "Couldn't get her to shut up," mumbles an anaesthetized Jim Greer as his gurney trundles headlong through the hospital doors. by Jim Greer For the past few days I've been going over a stack of Mazzy Star press clippings and have talked to a number of people who've previously interviewed the duo; the unifying thread of both the articles and the conversations, making allowances for differences of perspective and personality, seems to be GET OUT OF HERE FAST! THIS INTERVIEW WILL BE A DISASTER! But we at RayGun will not be so easily cowed. In the past, it seems, the pair have given such reluctant and unforthcoming interviews that some writers have been reduced to printing an actual count of the seconds between question and reply - and when the reply does come, it tends to be along the lines of "Um, I don't know. Maybe." Which can be frustrating, after a while, both for the writer as well as for the reader eager for more complete picture of the enigmatic band's collective personality. Ah, but we've got a plan. Simply put: Divide and conquer. Due to a fortuitos logistical arrangement, singer Hope Sandoval is here in Berkeley and guitarist etc. David Roback is somewhere in Norway. Ray Gun editors call up the record company loudly demanding that interviews must be done right away, for obscure but ominous-sounding deadline reasons. The ruse works - I'll get to talk to Hope here alone, then jet off the next morning to Oslo and put the screws to her partner. The result of my efforts should be either a softening of the glacial Mazzy Star silence or a doubling of same, with jet lag. Either way, my frequent flyer mileage wins. First things first: Mazzy Star has a new album out. The reason Mazzy Star has agreed to do (a very limited amount of) press is that Mazzy Star has a new album out. The band has made it clear that it doesn't understand why anyone would particulary need or want to talk to them, especially. Everything they had to say they said on the record. Just listen to the record, seems to be the implied message. So, okay, the new record: Among My Swan (I'm not even going to try to figure that one out), while similar in vein to the previous two Mazzy Star records, is a great improvement over what some found to be the stylistic torpor of the last one, So Tonight That I Might See - though that record did represent the band's commercial breakthrough, due mostly to the late-breaking success of the single-and-video "Fade Into You", as well as the added exposure the band garnered when Hope guest-sang on the semi-popular Jesus and Mary Chain track "Sometimes Always," which was in MTV rotation at roughly the same time. Fans of either that record or the previous, far better debut, She Hangs Brightly, will not be shocked by any severe stylistic swerves on Among My Swan. Nevertheless there's evidence of a broadening of the traditional Mazzy palette; a more purely pop sensibility sticks its tongue out on a couple of the newer tracks among all the usual country-blues-such-girl-in-a-pretty-dress-whirling-around sort of stuff, and songs like "Dissapear" and "Take Everything" demonstrate an increased willingness to experiment with a broader range of sounds, the former featuring a dissonant-but-beautiful bell accompaniment. There's even a song called "Happy" that seems to mean it, which in itself could be called a stylistic breakthrough for the determinedly melancholy duo. Whether the new record duplicates the platinum performance of So Tonight or not remains of course to be seen, but the prospect of either its success or abject failure doesn't seem to trouble the two Mazzy Stars one whit. They seem more bemused by their newfound Modern Rock Star status than enthusiastic about sustaining at least the more public aspects of that status. "What time are you flying to Norway tomorrow?" asks Hope as we sit down at a quiet table in the Berkeley bar (The Spam? The Spit? The Splat? Can't remember) she's chosen for our interview. "Do you like flying or is it sort of a drag for you?" "Um..." I begin, hesitating, thrown a bit off guard by her forthightness. Hope laughs. "You must not like it, because you hesitated. So why not just do it over the phone? Or is it more exciting in person - I mean as far as just talking to the person in person." "No, it's not that," I reply, slowly getting used to the idea of having the interviewing tables turned on me. I wonder if this is a new tactic she's developed to avoid answering questions. Contrary to anything I'd been led to expect, Hope appears relaxed, confident, maybe a little quiet, but no more so than you average sober American. "You can't really get a sense of the person over the phone; you need to meet them so you can better tell what they're like, I guess. Phone interviews can be so superficial - they're really just used for sort of utilirian promotion; although I guess there's some aspect of that to any kind of press. I mean, why are you here now? Because you've got a new record out. It's not because -" Hope interjects, laughing, "It's fun!" "Do you prefer to do phone interviews? Are they easier?" She considers for a moment. "Yeah. It's easier. But it's obvious why it's easier: It's easier for basically the same reasons why you just said it's better to do it in person." We talked for a while about the making of Among My Swan, which Hope tells me was recorded partly in Berkeley - at a studio called Live Oak that the band has used for its previous records; it's a basement studio in a house here where bands like En Vogue usually work, but they like it - and partly in London, at the Jesus and Mary Chain's studio and at the Cocteau Twins' studio. "Do you like London?" I ask. "Yeah, I love London," she replies. "I mean, my boyfriend (William Reid from the Mary Chain) lives there." "What do you eat there?" I ask, genuinely puzzled. "Umm, fish and chips," she answers with a vague smile. "I'm big on sandwiches, too. They have great sandwiches in London." "I notice you have a co-production credit on this record." "Well, David does most of the producing, but we both analyze each and every song, and sort of decide what guitar or whatever - mean obviously mostly that's his, because he's the guitarist, but I figured I should get producer's credit because I was involved with most of it." "Has the level of record company involvement changed with the success of the last record? Did Capitol execs come sniffing around the studio any more than usual?" "They just seemed like the way they've always been," she says. "They're interested, but they're not gonna force anything on us. They're businessmen, they don't want to hurt the relationship in any way. They want to make things go as smoothly as possible. I know if things got really bad for Mazzy Star it might be a different story, but right now, they're just sort of "Let them do what they need to do and leave them alone, and they'll make a good record." "What about the composition of the audience? I ask. "I know a lot of bands seem to notice a sort of immediate change once their video gets played a lot on MTV. The audience seems to get younger and, I don't know, stupider in general." "I don't think that we've reached that point," she replies. "I've heard that that does happen, but I don't think it's happened to us yet. If it has, it's so small that we haven't noticed it." "What, no mosh pit?" "No. They didn't really do that for us. Well, when we toured with the Mary Chain, I would go onstange and sing "Sometimes Always" with Jim, and people would sort of do that slam-dancing thing." "Has playing live gotten any easier? I know you used to be real uncomfortable with it." "Well yeah, all those people just staring at you...." "But I thought performers were supposed to crave that kind of attention." She demurs brightly. "I mean, it's natural for anyone to crave attention, and yeah I guess some people sort of OD on it. I mean, I like attention just like the next person, but playing live is sort of - it's really asking for it." "Do you feel obligated to put on a show?" "I feel obligated to sing well, and that's it. I sense that (desire for more interaction) from them, yeah, and that's what makes it uncomfortable. I mean, it's not so bad now most people who come to the shows now realize it's not going to happen, and they accept it, but in the beginning....people would demand it. Like, they demand a show." Hope looks momentarily perplexed at the thought of her demanding audience. The thought to me that at some point I'm going to have to ask Hope about her lyrics, since after all they represent a large part of her contribution to the Mazzy Star experience. Knowing her reputation for standoffishness when it comes to discussing specific lyrics, I decide to try a more general track, first bucking up to the task by ordering one more in a succesion of 7 & 7s. (Hope sips occasionally from a glass of red wine, but barely manages to finish it by the end of our interview). "Judging from the sort of overall bent of your lyrics, one might think you have a somewhat jaundiced view of relationships. In general, I mean." "I think some of that's true," says Hope, tracing her finger lightly over the lips of her wine glass, "but I think people sort of project their own feelings into the lyrics, to coincide with what's going on in their own lives. But I guess you could say that." "Do you mind people coming up with different interpretations of your songs, or is that the point?" "It doesn't matter what people think about the lyrics. You can't control it anyway." "Is there a song on the new album that you would call flat-out celebratory and uplifting?" "Yeah: 'Happy'" "I wasn't sure if that was meant to be sarcastic. When you come up with a lyric, do you have a specific meaning in mind that you want to communicate, or is it more of a broad emotion?" "I don't really think about any of those things, I just sort of talk about what is happening at that particular moment," says Hope. "I think most people, probably everybody who writes lyrics, they are talking about themselves, even if they attempt to sort of talk about their friend, it is themselves, it's their feelings, it's their opinion of the situation. So I think most people, if not everybody, is talking about themselves who write lyrics." "Does your opinion about things in general and situations differ a lot from time to time, or are you pretty consistent in your thinking?" "I'm sure it changes." "Does that mean you're (pause for comedic effect) moody?" I joke. Hope laughs. "I don't know, I don't know." "How do you choose what material makes it onto any given album, for instance this one," I ask, changing the subject. "We record a lot of songs and then just sort of decide what our tastes are that particular month or week or whatever." "Do you ever revisit unused material? "We plan to do that after each record, but it never happens. We just sort of get bored of it. We just sort of feel like if you don't write new songs you're just stagnating or whatever." At this point, I decide that the RayGun plan has been an unqualified success thus far. On their own, unable to fall back on the protection afforded by simply lapsing into an elliptical silence, dropping the conversational ball to be picked up and similary fumbled by the one or the other, Hope and David were forced to be more articulate than their reputation would admit. Or at least Hope was. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Heady with evident interview mastery, I strectched a bit further than my rock writer resources were currently capable of extending, going on an extended and web-headed analysis of the difference in Hope's singing on Among My Swan as opposed to her earlier stuff. All of which boiled down to me suggesting that her melodies were a bit more developed on this record than in the past. "Umm...I think I know what you mean," answers Hope kindly at the end of my rambling exegesis. "You're the second person who's said that, so I guess maybe it's true, I guess. It's sort of hard to tell, I mean you just keep playing and singing music and it's just sort of whatever happens happens." "Do you think your voice has improved?" "(Emphatically) No, I don't think that, but people have told me that they think that." We talk a while longer, mostly about not terribly interesting things, which is my fault, I eventually start fumbling around with the "What's the last record you bought/book you read/movie you saw" type of fanzine idiocy that usually marks my seventh or eighth cocktail, when Hope is rescued at last by the arrival of her "ride," in the person of William, her boyfriend to whom I am politely introduced, before the two dissapear into the Berkely evening. Early to bed for me: I've got an eight AM plane for Norway. Oslo, Norway. The airport hotel. A hellish (only in sense that all intercontinental plane travel is hellish) 18-hour journey has ended here, with my head in the minibar awaiting a call from David Roback, Mazzy Star's other half. Flush with my previous success, I anticipate similar accomplishment with Roback, who in any case has a reputation for somewhat more loquacity (of course in a relative sense) than his partner. And she wasn't any problem at all. He calls later that evening, and we fix a rendezvous at a place called the Library Bar off the lobby of the Bristol Hotel in downtown Oslo. I'm glad of the chance to be away from the airport, if only temporarli (my flight out is scheduled for some ungodly morning hour the next day). David is sitting in a booth in a corner of the bar when I arrive, talking to a couple of friends. At least, I assume they're friends. I'm early and so take a place at the bar so as not to compound the imposition of the interview by showing up rudely early. Roback's easy to spot even in the well-populated bar; with his beatnik black attire and matching beret, he might as well be wearing a sign that reads "Musician." No one's really sure what David's doing here here in Norway. His record company publicist professed complete ignorance, and when I asked Hope, she shruggled and replied, "Ask him." Which I proceeded to do, but was rewareded with an elleptical reply along the lines of, "Travelling." Well, I could see that, Beatnik Boy. In general, David proved a far more difficult nut to crack then had Hope. He was unfailingly polite, and made an earnest attempt to answer my fruity rock writer questions, but his answers tended to be not only exactly the same as hope, but unrevealing in the extreme - along the lines of "There are no rules in music. It's just what sounds good to you," which I'm sure opens up worlds of meaning in some alternate universe where rock cliches have before been uttered or written, but it didn't do a hell of a lot for me. In another, less accomplished musician, such retience and apparant lack of of insight might be suspect; but Roback has earned the right to keep his trap shut. Beginning with his early 80's work in Rain Parade, a seminal band among the "Paisly Underground" (a short-lived flowering of LA-based psychedelica), through the proto-Mazzy psuch-natterings of Clay Allison and the enormously well-regarded (if commercial obscure) Opal, David's track record basically defines the hoary term "artistic integrity." When the very 30-something guitarist (there's no hair under that beret, is what I'm thinking) looks you in the eye and says that, "We're just doing what we-ve always done," that "always" contains a lot more history than your typical out-of-nowhere MTV wunderkind. But if you happen to be unaware of his honorable rock record, he's not well inclinded to disabuse you. So, really, it was probably just the jet lag. I opened up by expressing surprise at Hope's lack of retince, to which David replied simply, "You can't believe everything you read." We discussed technical matters concerning guitar sounds and amps and such that can't possibly be of interest to any one reading this now, which obviously is my fault again, and he confirmed to me pretty much everything Hope had already said concerning the process of writing the new album. The only point of dispute seemed to be wheter the bell sounds he used for the songs "Disapear" and "Happy" were sampled (as Hope as informed me), or "created" (David's word) and "definitely not sampled." Like it matters. Or the subject of record company involvement, David envinced an even more fanatical desire to be left alone than had his partner. "I'd rather just put stuff out on a cheap cassette than let somebody else tell me how to make my music," he averred. I'm thinking to myself, "Why a cheap cassette particularly," but my mind tended to wander badly throughout the course of our chat . David insisted, "I don't really notice the audience," when playing live, but affirmed overall that the process of touring was an enjoyable one, because "you get to present the songs in a different environment." What do you talk about rock music? David couldn't remember the last band he'd seen play live, apart from the ones he's been on tour with. His musical world seemed unremittingly insular, as evidenced not only by his zealous guarding of any and all personal facts by his seeming proud rejection not only of the music industry but of most of the music itself. If ever a man could be said to be self-sufficient, it would be David Roback. Some of that self-sufficient spirit inevitably translates into Mazzy Star's ambiguous and affecting music. But appertenly the secret behind that transmutative process will remain as tightly wrapped as the man who writes the music keeps himself. An enigma wrapped in a puzzle on a bed of lettuce, or something. Obviously I was a little more than tired by this point. I said good-bye to David and caught a cab back to the airport hotel, where I crawled into bed to await my wakeup call so I could get back in another metal tube and be flung across the ocean. But the joke was, I couldn't get to sleep. The God of Jetlag, or that crazy Norse God Loki, would not let me shut my eyes. I put my tape of the new Mazzy Star record in my Walkman and turned the volume way down, hoping to be lulled asleep by the gentle strains of the music. It didn't work: I just got more disturbed, and lay there in an agitated clump. Which is probably just the kind of reaction those two were looking for.
	Scene Magazine Peaceful Easy Feeling Mazzy Star's Magical, Mystical Tour by Steven Batten Listening to Mazzy Star's latest is perhaps best experienced snuggled in front of a hot, cozy fire on a cold, dreary winter evening. Or perhaps nestled alongside a lazy, babbling brook at the edge of a golden, grassy field. The serene, tranquil soundscapes that characterize the duo's third effort, Among My Swan, are likely to be the perfect complement in either case. David Roback's mystical, almost hypnotic melodies and Hope Sandoval's mesmerizing, meandering vocals attempt to transcend both time and place, with considerable success. In fact, with Among My Swan, the duo is now more fully realizing a sonic journey that began with its 1990 debut, She Hangs Brightly, and its promising 1993 follow-up, So Tonight That I Might See. It's somehow fitting that Roback should be calling from Copenhagen, the seaport capital of Denmark, where the days are growing shorter and the nights colder. Roback's pleasant, though reticent demeanor, seems somehow well suited to his current climate, and as he details his surroundings, you get the impression that it could well be the mood of the new album to which he is referring. "It's just the beginning of Winter here," he relates, "and the days are really getting shorter the further north you go. The sun only comes out for a few hours a day, so it's starting to get that dark, winter vibe to it." Perhaps Roback's fondness for such climates manifests itself in the music he writes, but he isn't saying. It's also likely that the duo, which splits time between foggy London and the sunny coast of California, is equally influenced by the subtly clashing cultures in which they choose to reside. "It definitely affects our lives," Roback allows. "And music is so much a part of our lives that it must affect it. But I couldn't say specifically how." The distant, mystical and mysterious vibe that surrounds the band is a pleasant side effect of the duo's unconscious decision to eschew the high-profile rock and roll lifestyle for a more focused, meaningful existence. "We've always sort of considered ourselves to be an underground band," Roback explains, his distrust for the whole rock and roll machine clearly evident. "When we started playing music together, it had absolutely nothing to do with popularity or the music industry, and it's stayed that way. That's the reason why we make music." Perhaps despite themselves, Roback and Sandoval have built a considerable following over the course of their last two albums. "Fade Into You," the beautifully intoxicating single from So Tonight, paved the way for a larger audience as it took commercial alternative radio and MTV by storm, essentially because it stood in stark contrast to the regular rotation fare at that time. Likewise, the band's current single, "Flowers In December," has taken root at radio. From his vantage point, however, Roback hasn't really seen much of an effect of platinum records and MTV on the band's loyal following. "You know, it's always been hard for me to really tell who our audience is," he says. "When we play clubs, it all becomes a big blur in my mind and I can't really say exactly who's in the audience." Roback is equally ambiguous regarding has songwriting partnership with Sandoval (he writes the music, she the lyrics and melodies), which has blossomed over the course of their three releases. "We write a lot of songs together," he says, downplaying their collaborative formula. "I don't really see it that way, as growing, or going backwards or forwards or any particular direction, other than just song by song. That's how Mazzy Star really works -- we just work on a song by song basis. We have a song we like, and we record it. So we don't really look at it as a progression. We don't analyze it in that way at all." To wit, the particularly press-shy Roback and Sandoval have shied away from elaborating on what the individual songs mean to them, leaving the songs open to interpretation by critics and fans. Roback says he wouldn't be entirely surprised if fans interpreted completely different meanings than their original intentions. "I don't often hear how people interpret our music," he says, "but it wouldn't really surprise me if people interpreted it in a very personal way, because I think that that's the way that people react to music. If you took a well known song and asked 10 people to write down what the lyrics are (about), you'd find surprisingly different interpretations of what the lyrics are because people hear what's in their own imagination." Therein, he says, lies the inherent beauty of the songwriting process. "I think music is something that's very available to all people, to get involved with." Roback is equally noncommittal regarding his preference for touring versus the studio setting, though he allows that the live setting offers certain facets that the studio can't. "There's an element of the unknown every time you go to a different city and a different environment to play," he says. "Plus you're really projecting your sound into a much larger space. That's kind of interesting to sort of see what happens with the element of chance involved." Given the low key, often serene nature of the band's performances (they'll play at the Odeon this Friday, December 6, with special guest Sparklehorse), it's often difficult to discern whether Roback and Sandoval are enjoying themselves, a question Roback dodges with trademark reluctance. "Sometimes we enjoy it," he says, countering quickly, "It really depends on the concert. Some concerts are more interesting than others." With the band's fan base growing rapidly, it's likely that their forthcoming Cleveland date will be the first time that many in the audience have experienced Mazzy Star live. What does Roback think they can expect? "I think you would pretty much just expect to hear our music," he offers cooperatively, maintaining his elusive demeanor. "I think whenever you hear music live, not only are the musicians playing it differently, but you're also responding to it differently, because you're listening to it in a different context than if you were listening to it at home or in your car, listening to a record. So the context really is changed for both the musician and the listener." Onstage, Mazzy Star are flushed out with the addition of musicians Will Cooper (strings), Keith Mitchell (drums) and former Hole member Jill Emery (bass) . The focus of the current tour's set, Roback says, is on the new album, though he maintains that they don't pin themselves down to any standard set list. Somehow, that's just not surprising. "Our show really changes day to day, depending on what we're in the mood to play," Roback relates. "We don't really have any one group of songs that we play, but we've been incorporating some of the new songs. We've been thinking a lot about how these new songs sound live, so that's one of the things we're into now." Addicted to Noise Dec 11, 96 Mazzy Star's Big Mistake No, Mazzy Star didn't write "Hair and Skin." Addicted To Noise staff writer Gil Kaufman reports: The b-side of the latest UK Mazzy Star single sounded awfully familiar to former Green on Red front man Dan Stuart. As Stuart tells it, he'd heard that Mazzy Star might record the song, "Hair and Skin," about six months ago. But recently, when he started getting calls about it again, he went down to the local record store he frequents in Tucson and picked up the single. "It's a song that's on our first real record, Down There ," Stuart told Addicted To Noise, sounding more amused than pissed off. "To be quite honest, I couldn't even remember how the damn thing went." Stuart says he bought the import (the a-side is ""Flowers in December"), then asked the clerk to slap the song on, just to be certain. Sure enough, Stuart not only recognized the song, but was surprised to see that the songwriting credit tagged it as a Mazzy Star composition. "I was just amazed that anybody could figure out how to play it since I can't even remember where my fingers are supposed to go," laughed Stuart, who said he was aware that Mazzy Star has frequently covered the song in their live shows. As it turns out, like Stuart told us, there's no "grassy knoll." According to a source at Capitol Records, the company Mazzy Star record for, the mis-credited tune was a "big oversight, a big mistake that they (Capitol's English counterparts) are very embarrassed about." The folks at Capitol confirmed that the song in question is in fact a Green on Red song that was mistakenly credited to Mazzy Star and that the oversight will be changed on future runs of the single. Our Capitol source also told us that a letter of apology has been sent to Bug Music [the company that handles Stuart's publishing] and that, effective immediately, Stuart will get proper compensation. Stuart says he's received word of the apology and joked, "If they really want to make it up to me, they could pick some other song I wrote 20 years ago and make it the single instead of the b-side." Stuart added that he wouldn't mind if some of Nick Lowe's luck rubbed off on him. "Somebody put '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,' on The Bodyguard soundtrack and Lowe got a check for [something like] $3 million. I guess miracles do happen."
	New Times Los Angeles - January 16, 1997 My Black Pages By Rhoda Penmark C'mon, Danny Stuart, don't Rain on Dave's Parade--dontcha know that property is theft? Mazzy Star's new single, "Flowers in December," features a song on the B-side called "Hair and Skin." Somehow, the credits list Mazzy Star as the author--not Dan Stuart! (Stuart was formerly in Green on Red, who used to gig constantly with David Roback's '80s band Rain Parade when both Green on Red and Rain Parade were considered part of the so-called Paisley Underground.) Mazzy Star has been playing "Hair and Skin" in its live set for quite some time and, in a jaunty bout of selective amnesia, simply forgot to remember to tell its manager and Capitol Records and its editorial department (which obtains written confirmation every step of the way to guarantee that the label copy is correct) that someone else wrote the song. --Rhoda Penmark ©1997 New Times, Inc.
	The Denver Post - December 9, 1996 Mazzy Star wishes we'd all shut up and listen Dreamy California band insists it isn't background music By G. Brown Denver Post Special Writer Mazzy Star albums could come with a warning: "Avoid driving a motor vehicle or operating machinery while listening to this product." The elements in the California-based band's slow, dreamy "nod-pop" are Hope Sandoval's soft, ethereal voice (her torpid turns make Cowboy Junkies' Margo Timmins sound caffeine-crazed) and David Roback's hazy, wistful touches of guitar and organ. And the music is blended with mystique. Roback and Sandoval are reticent interviewees - some rock scribes have published actual counts of the seconds between questions and "Maybe I don't know" answers. "So Tonight That I Might See," from 1993, spawned the beautiful MTV video hit "Fade Into You," but Sandoval sounds more little-girl-lost than ever. Problems playing live: "We hardly play 'Fade Into You.' We like playing it, but we don't play it very much," she said recently. Mazzy Star will perform at the Boulder Theater tomorrow night. "I still have a lot of problems playing live. It's harder to control everybody when there's so many more people in one room. "When a band gets popular, when it's in the middle of being a small band and being a big band, the audience doesn't know what's going on. "If you've never been to a Mazzy Star show, you don't know that it's really awkward to show up and socialize and have some kind of party while the band is playing. It's not background music. It's frustrating to go on stage. "I just think it's rude when somebody's talking over a very quiet song and not paying attention. "I don't see the point in showing up." The roots of Mazzy Star were planted in Los Angeles' "paisley underground" scene of the early '80s. Roback split the Rain Parade after that group's only album and formed Opal. Around the same time, Sandoval was singing in Going Home (Roback produced the folk duo's first album). When things soured for their respective bands, they got together. Cult following grew A haunting, serene beauty was achieved - Roback's simple, atmospheric arrangements, the fuzzy strum of his guitar work and touches of neo-psychedelia highlighted Sandoval's languid, morose vocals. Mazzy Star's debut album, "She Hangs Brightly," established a cult following, and "So Tonight That I Might See" went platinum. There are jumps in style on the new "Among My Swan." "I've Been Let Down" moves along like an acoustic country tune, and guest musician William Reid of Jesus And Mary Chain (he's Sandoval's boyfriend) scorches a guitar solo on "Take Everything." The single "Flowers in December" uses an unassuming Neil Young-ish harmonica to accompany a message of longing. Changes on stage "We wrote that song pretty quickly, right after we released 'So Tonight That I Might See.' "We played it live a lot and it basically stayed the same," Sandoval said. "But we change the set a lot on stage. Last night (in Boston) my voice was going out, there was people talking and chatting . I turned around to David and said, 'We're not doing "Into Dust" tonight, we're not doing "Give You My Lovin," we're not doing "Blue Flower."' "I knew that I couldn't do the songs. I knew that people didn't care." MAZZY STAR When: 8 p.m. tomorrow Where: Boulder Theater Tickets: $ 15. Call 830-8497 ©1996 The Denver Post Corporation
	The San Diego Union-Tribune - December 12, 1996 Mazzy Star is 2 auteurs of the austere By Jeff Niesel No music venue is too austere for the Los Angeles band Mazzy Star. Although some critics have said the group's soft, plaintive melodies would make fitting background music for insomniacs, guitarist David Roback said the band's ability to play quiet melodies has served it well on its current tour, which recently passed through Europe and lands at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach on Wednesday. "Sometimes when the mood is right, we will do a lot of acoustic songs. But you have to have the right environment for that because the acoustic songs tend to be more fragile when they're played live," said Roback. "We actually play a lot of different types of places. "For example, we played at a 19th-century Gothic Revival church in London a month ago, and that was a very interesting context to play in. It was a very quiet and eerie environment. We like to play in different places; that's one of the interesting things about doing concert tours." As the guitarist of the Rain Parade, Roback was one of the founders of Los Angeles' "Paisley Underground" scene, the mid-'80s neo-psychedelic rock movement that included bands like the Dream Syndicate and the Bangles. But after only one album, 1983's "Emergency Third Rail Power Trip," Roback left the Rain Parade to form Clay Allison with former Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith. Smith and Roback recorded the brilliant "Happy Nightmare Baby" in 1987, but when Smith decided to retire to the country in the midst of a tour, Roback had to find a replacement. He recruited Hope Sandoval, the singer in a band called Going Home, and the pair began recording together as Mazzy Star. The duo's debut, "She Hangs Brightly," came out in 1990. ("When I) met Hope, I thought she was an interesting songwriter. Her voice is really amazing, too," Roback said. "I really liked her songwriting and her attitude. She is a strong individual, and that's something I could hear in her music immediately." On the two albums that have followed "She Hangs Brightly," 1993's "So Tonight That I Might See" (which includes the single "Fade Into You") and the recent "Among My Swan," Mazzy Star hasn't altered its Velvet Underground-inspired music. Roback's blues-based guitar chords provide a melancholy backdrop for Sandoval's equally sorrowful, whisper-thin vocals . Roback said the group, which spent three years recording "Among My Swan," doesn't worry about changing from album to album. "We approach things on a song-by-song basis. We don't see things on an album-to-album progression," he said. "We just don't look at it that way. We've been doing a lot of different writing and experimenting. We have written several albums' worth of music but haven't publicly released them. We do a lot of work that doesn't get released." DATEBOOK: Mazzy Star with Sparklehorse 8 p.m. Wednesday; Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach. $15. ©1996 The San Diego Union-Tribune
	Strobe - Jan 97 Star Light, Star Bright Eric Broome sees what makes Mazzy Star shine Mazzy Star is all about purity of vision. The simple, rolling chords of David Roback's guitar. The detached, evenlyphrased singing of Hope Sandoval, rising hazily behind draped layers of echo. The traditional, unadorned lyrical themes:the rise and fall of love, disillusion, spiritual yearnings. It's a sound that hangs timeless in the wind, free of contemporary references and technology.It's the moody, internal universe of Roback and Sandoval, which they consent to let us visit for a moment on strict condition that we're careful not to disrupt the furnishings of this pristine, private world. Given the music's introverted nature, no one should've been more surprised than Roback and Sandoval that Mazzy Star's second album, So Tonight That I Might See, was a genuine commercial hit. Months after the disc's release in September, 1993, the vaporous "Fade Into You" became an overnight radio smash, and led to the album hitting the platinum sales mark well over a year after its release. Adding to the Mazzy onslaught, hungry station programmers then tapped 1990's She Hangs Brightly for "Halah," creating a second surge of sales for the group's debut. Of course, Roback and Sandoval were never too concerned with chart positions. Speaking in separate phone conversations, the two shrugged off fame with customary nonchalance. Their responses came soft, slow and stumbling, as befits the group often cited as the most difficult interview in pop music. "It doesn't feel any different, really," murmured Sandoval, calling from Los Angeles where she was completing a video shoot. "Um... I don't really...it just happened. I mean, I don't..." "It's pretty abstract, really," said Roback, across the world in London, setting up an overseas tour. "It's kind of strange, I suppose. But you know, we just go about living our lives. Fame can screw up people's heads. Some people think about it more. I never really think about it." Thus, the two trudged through extra tour dates and an embarrassing photo shoot here or there, then retreated back into hiding. They continued what Roback calls their "nomadic lifestyle" for awhile, spending most of their time bouncing between London and San Francisco, but at last, they have graced us with a third Mazzy album: Among My Swan. A full three years have passed since So Tonight That I Might See. "This is just basically how we work," said Sandoval, dismissing the gap between releases. But what really accounts for such a delay? Writing? Recording? Mixing? "Uh...it's about equal, I would say," she decided. "We wrote songs, recorded them and then sort of got bored. Then we wrote some more songs and recorded them. It's sort of what happens..." "When we actually record, we record pretty fast," said Roback. "It's just that we do a lot of other things. We experiment around with a lot of different ideas. Like different songs, things we've never released. I wouldn't call it discarded material, but we definitely have always experimented a lot, both in writing and recording." The latest product of the Mazzy laboratory offers no huge surprises, Recorded in both London and San Francisco, Among My Swan has the usual array of smoky balladry and dreamy atmospherics, adding a few new touches like the gurgling wahwah guitar on "Cry, Cry," the eerie belllike keyboards on "Disappear" and "Happy," plus Sandoval's tentative harmonica debut on "Flowers In December" and "I've Been Let Down." Thankfully, the album's not as oppressively bleak as its predecessor, and nostalgically spacy tracks like "Still Cold" (see Surrealistic Pillow) and "Rose Blood" (see A Saucerful of Secrets) add some nice variety. "Rhymes Of An Hour" is also included, a hypnotic piece already heard on this year's Stealing Beauty soundtrack. Again, Mazzy Star has created a uniquely haunting work."It's basically a similar approach," said Roback, comparing Swan to the previous records. "You can make generalizations about things -- but every song is different, and each one is written in a different way. Each one has different contributions to the music and lyrics. That's always been our approach: song by song. The approach to each song is different, but not to the albums. We always end up with some sort of a mosaic." The most enigmatic track is certainly "Umbilical," a rambling spoken piece similar to the last album's lengthy title cut. Trying to read between the lines of Sandoval's lyrics is difficult enough, but in this case, the words aren't even fully audible. "I wouldn't say that we hid the lyrics," producer Roback explained, "but I've always thought that in music, there's a lot of room for participation. You interact with the music. There may be a song that you think you've known for 20 years, and then you might read the lyrics and go, 'Oh, that's what she's saying? I had no idea. I always thought it was this.' You bring your own interpretation to it. That's why you can listen to music in different languages it can be very satisfying. But you'd have to ask Hope if you wanted her to interpret the lyrics to that song." Of course, the evermysterious Sandoval wasn't about to discuss its contents. "I'd rather not," she said slowly. "I just don't feel...I just don't really like to do that. In general, I just don't like to talk about it." So she won't discuss her lyrics at all? Long pause. "Um...I just don't like when I hear other people doing it. For some reason, it bothers me. I feel like they make too much out of it. They sort of become obsessed with their own lyrics." Well, is any one track on the new disc more personal to her than the others? "No," she answered, adding with a palpable smile, "As if I would say." Strike three. Asking Roback and Sandoval about their songwriting isn't easy from any angle. This much is apparent: While Roback wrote most of the lyrics for his past bands Opal and the Rain Parade, Sandoval holds a fairly tight leash on the words in Mazzy Star. Taking most of her poetic cues from old jazz/blues standards, she adds her ownmodern, slightly gothic twist. (Tellingly, she named Billie Holiday, the Rolling Stones and Spiritualized as her favorite artists.) The two have an unusual way of dividing the writing duties Roback gets credit for "music," Sandoval for "vocal melodies." This suggests that Roback arranges the backing tracks first, then submits them completed to Sandoval for decoration. Correct? "Sort of like that," she replied. So she picks and chooses from his instrumental demos? "Well, if he comes up with something I like, I say, 'Can I work on that?' Or he'll say 'Do you want to work on this?' and I'll say yes or no." Roback countered her slightly. "Well, it really depends on the song. Sometimes it'll work that way. It's not so blackandwhite. Sometimes I'll write some words to a song [he did contribute some lines to 'Rhymes Of An Hour'], and sometimes she will have some musical ideas." Simplicity the clean, sparse lines of the melody and words seems to be a cornerstone of the Mazzy style. Some might even say that Roback's whole career has been a reductive process, leading from the florid psychedelia of the Rain Parade to the grittier jams of Opal, and finally to the rootsy musings of Mazzy Star. "I wouldn't say that," he contended. "I like working with Hope because I like what she writes, and I like what she sings. It really has nothing to do with paring anything down. I suppose that I've wanted to experiment with different things, and that's probably the main reason why I've gone from one thing to the next. "When I started working with Hope, it was very exciting because she wrote a lot and was really into what we were doing. She was very respondent as a writer to a lot of my musical ideas, and that was an interesting thing to have happening. We started to write songs, and it was very natural for us.""We just write songs that we like," said Sandoval. "Whatever it takes for the song to appeal to us, that's what we do. We don't think about the simplicity of it, or anything else. We just do it." The group's most controversial aspect continues to be its live shows. Augmented as on record with recurring guest musicians (most notably, string player Will Cooper and drummer Keith Mitchell), Mazzy plays in neartotal darkness and avoids all direct contact with the audience. The band's aloof stage presence has alienated more than a few unsuspecting fans, but for Sandoval, performing is still terribly awkward. Isn't she used to it yet? "No," she moped. What's the worst part? "Um...just feeling uncomfortable in between songs, when there's nothing to do." She continued, brightening a little. "The audience has pretty much accepted it, I think. It's not like it used to be. I think now people have probably been to our shows before, and know what to expect. I mean, I don't think it's a big deal. There's plenty of shows where the lead singers and band members don't get up and do a songanddance. It's good if you feel like doing that, but I don't think it should be held against you if you don't. I don't think it means that you're not as good as somebody else, or not as interesting live as somebody else who's sort of dancing around and having a conversation with the audience. But it gets frustrating for me, because even shooting videos, I just feel uncomfortable. I wish I could feel more relaxed." Ever the intellectual, Roback is more analytical about the experience. "It's interesting to play our songs loud, and project them into a big environment. You know, This is something that's interesting to me. I think that's why we do it: to actually project the music onto a big, threedimensional space." Is he bothered by the fact that all eyes are fixed upon the more photogenic Sandoval? "No. I just want to focus on what I do, which is playing guitar and keyboards and things like that. And writing songs . That's really where I'm at. I don't care too much about anything else. "It's hard for me to know how other people perceive what we do. We've done what we wanted to do, and that's enough for me. We've made the music we wanted to make." FrontEra Magazine 2.1 (May 97) Looking for Hope Mazzy Star's inscrutable muse, Hope Sandoval, fades into the limelight by Mark Torres and E.V. Aniles Esperanza? She hangs brightly over our curious minds. Trying to get to the bottom of Hope Sandoval, singer and songwriter for the band Mazzy Star, is like listening to one of her songs: It's slow and painful. We know she's from East L.A. We know she spends some of her days in her new home in Berkeley, with her guitarist (and ex-boyfriend) Dave Roback, and the rest of her days in London with her current boyfriend, the Jesus and Mary Chain's William Reid. We know that her songs are dreamy, mournful and dispassionate. We know she stands stiff as a statue on stage, only occasionally lifting her twig-thin arms to play a harmonica or execute a graceful turn on her way off stage. And little more. As the other half of Mazzy Star, Roback can pull more soul out of his acoustic guitar and steel pedal than you'd find on an entire Lollapalooza Tour. In a musical climate where beat and volume rule, Mazzy Star unapologetically blends traditional folk, blues, and psychedelic church. While it remains impossible to understand Mazzy Star without mentioning psychedelia-inspired groups like The Paisley Underground, The Dream Syndicate, The Rain Parade and Opal, it is Hope Sandoval alone who places Mazzy Star on its perch above other modern bands. Sandoval's position as rock's melancholy muse came to her serendipitously in the late '80s. She was minding her own business, hanging out in L.A. and working with her friend Sylvia Gomez in a folksy band called Going Home. Dave Roback, guitarist and songwriter for Opal, saw Going Home and liked them enough to produce a record with them. Sandoval and Roback became friends. Then, while Roback and Opal singer Kendra Smith were touring, Smith decided to make a getaway. Hope joined Roback mid-tour and has been the voice of Mazzy Star since. The transition from being a local artist to touring the world, selling out shows and performing live on national television was not easy for Sandoval. "For me recording is better," she told Rolling Stone. "Live, I just get really nervous. Once you're on-stage, you're expected to perform. I don't do that. I always feel awkward about just standing there and not speaking to the audience." When you listen to her music and see her perform, you get a sense that she's too fragile for this world. She's like a person who grew up in a happy place with lots of family, warmth and love, but was ripped away from all that and thrown into a harsh world. A flower in a stainless-steel garden. Maybe that's why she offers so little of herself at every sold out concert. "I feel obligated to sing well, and that's it," Sandoval said during an interview with Ray Gun. She's philosophical about her unwillingness to give of herself publicly. "I sense (a desire for audience interaction) from them, yeah, and that's what makes it uncomfortable. I mean, it's not so bad now; most people who come to the shows realize it's not going to happen, and they accept it, but in the beginning ... people would demand it. Like, they demand a show." If you want to understand Hope or find out what inspires her to write music, you won't have any luck with a direct approach. She's not an open or obvious person, and neither is her music. She's shy. She's private. She's genuine. She's an enigma -- not by choice, but by nature. And at the same time, her music is very personal. When you listen to her music, you get the feeling she's reading from her diary, with all the names deleted, of course. On Mazzy Star's third, and newest, album, Among My Swan, Sandoval's haunting lyrics speak of lost love, love that never happened, love that could have been, but with just enough disinterest it almost seems to be about someone else. Listening to songs like "Disappear," "Cry, Cry," "Take Everything,""Still Cold," "I've Been Let Down" and "Rose Blood" is as close to knowing her as you're ever going to get. "Cry, cry for you/Just like you knew I wouldn't do," she croons. You'll never get an answer one way or the other about what the songs mean to her. "I think people sort of project their own feelings into the lyrics to coincide with what's going on their lives," she says, not making any judgments about the fact. She goes on to say about the level of personalization in her songs: "I think most people, probably everybody who writes lyrics, they are talking about themselves, even if they attempt to sort of talk about their friend, it is themselves, it's their feelings, it's their opinion of the situation. So I think most people, if not everybody, is talking about themselves who write lyrics." While some critics have expressed disappointment that Among My Swan explores no new territory musically, Sandoval has said she isn't concerned with living up to expectations now that the band has international fame. "Things are basically the same," she told Rolling Stone when the album first came out. "We're just sticking to our ways. Writing the way we've always done it. There's really no need to change." The band's first two albums, 1990's She Hangs Brightly and 1993's So Tonight That I Might See, placed Mazzy Star firmly in the alternative rock star firmament. With the heavy MTV rotation of their video, "Fade Into You," Sandoval's angelic Chicana features became familiar to teens and college kids nationwide. The hitch is, the fact that she's Mexican-American is little known outside of East L.A., where everyone has a story about how they used to go to school with her, or with one of her siblings or cousins . In that sense, though we'd like to claim her, just knowing she's out there is enough. So maybe it's when she seems to be saying the least that she's actually saying the most: "You just keep playing and singing music, and it's just sort of whatever happens, happens."
Thanks, Jennifer.	Rolling Stone’s ALT-ROCK-A-RAMA By Scott Schinder and the Editors of Rolling Stone Mazzy Star. Change of pace for me. Their songs are beautiful, as are Hope Sandoval’s vocals. When I hear this music, I can feel good or cry, depending on my mood. ©1996 Rolling Stone Press
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