MICK STRAUSS - IN THE DARK

In the organizer's words:

Mick Strauss, alter ego Arthur Bartlett Gillette, is the guitarist of the French-American band Moriarty, who mixed old and new world music a few years ago: Country met chanson, swamp blues met cabaret.

As Moriarty are taking a creative break, the band members are devoting themselves to various other projects. The Mick Strauss' In The Dark project is an experience. An experience in which the senses normally used for a concert are limited to hearing alone. The audience is plunged into complete darkness and guided by the voices and instruments of the artists. In this way, listening is total, the music comes alive and accidents - such as not finding the bow or the right fret for a guitar fingering - become events. An experiment.

Together with Jennifer Hutt - who has played with Will Oldham, among others - and the French cellist and singer Maëva Le Berre - a welcome guest in many top-class French rock and folk bands - Mick Strauss takes his laconic singsong to the higher shores of the stupendous and brute string arrangements. A little Jonathan Richman, Bill Callahan, Lou Reed, Neil Young, Skip Spence and Dolly Parton when she sings hits...

Mick Strauss is set to release his second album In The Dark this fall - a collection of folk songs dealing with loss, signs of coming change and the ease of discovering and taming our inner beasts.