SINGSONGPR NEWS : Mask

MASK – Sonja Kristina revealed …

Sonja Kristina has not let the grass grow under her feet since the 1990 demise of Curved Air, the individualistic avant-garde band she fronted that proved so emblematic of the burgeoning progressive rock genre.

In addition to raising the children of her marriage to Police drummer, Stewart Copeland, the former stage and TV actress has forged an eclectic solo career spanning acid folk, jazz and new age. 

Now, in her latest project, she is immersed in ambient, electronica, trance and classical music that reaches new levels of originality. 

MASK is Sonja in collaboration with the highly talented multi-instrumentalist and ambient producer/composer Marvin Ayres. The project combines experimental voice and string soundscapes, and mixes extemporisation with structured songs and beats. 

Replete with audio-visual installations, special lighting and use of film, dancers and actors, MASK is a highly theatrical experience live, an artistic fusion the two dub: "New Wave Cabaret".

The act has been touring the UK festival circuit in the build to the release of the band’s debut, "HEAVY PETAL - The Tenebrous Odyssey of Jack and Virginia" on the Mandalic label in the UK. 

A US release on Globe Media Arts is scheduled for November 2005. 

A new format Dual Disc (CD and DVD) album, "HEAVY PETAL" constitutes 15 audio tracks and a 5.1 Surround Sound DVD entitled ‘Healing Senses’ including film performances of three of the tracks that interweave sound with filmic imagery and visual atmospherics to add a further and immersive dimension to the music. 

MASK has performed recently at UK festivals, Rhythms of the World, Riverside Festival, Glastonbury, London Green Lifestyle and Off the Tracks amongst other performances. 

At the time of writing, at least three MASK tracks are being re-mixed by prominent London DJs. 

UK label Market Square meanwhile is extending its catalogue of Sonja Kristina album reissues with a first ever CD release of her 1979 debut, "Sonja", with rare bonus tracks from her 1980s output.

The Album:

Title: ‘Heavy Petal’

Cat No: MDC001

Bar code no: 5 035980 111960

PPD: £7.19

Label: Mandalic

UK Distributor: Nova/Pinnacle


Track Listing: Side 1/CD

1. Dark Murmur 

2. Global Incantation 

3. Paean

4. Healing Senses 

5. Blue Words

6. Shelter Skelter 

7. Free 

8. Sliding Universe 

9. Lambent Spire 

10. Beloved

11. Living Inside My Head 

12. Waking The Dream 

13. The Sound of Tears Forming

14. Those Ghosts

Total time: 60 mins approx 


Track Listing: Side 2/DVD

1. Free

2. Healing Senses 

3. Lambent Spire

Total time: 40 mins approx.


Sonja Kristina: Career Time-Line

1967 

A trainee at drama college in London, Sonja starts her musical career, armed with an acoustic guitar playing in London's Folk Clubs alongside such folk luminaries as Al Stewart, Buffy St Marie and Sandy Denny. At venues such as the Troubadour, she begins her own 'psychedelic folk nights' of mixed media musicians, dancers and poets – much to the horror of organisers. Dave Cousins invites her to be guest vocalist with The Strawbs and she tours with the Humblebums: Gerry Rafferty and Billy Connolly. 

1968 

A star in the original London stage version of "Hair" as Chrissie (and featured on the Original Cast Recording album), Sonja is very much a part of the London scene. She hangs out with Donovan, is close also to Brian Jones (Rolling Stones) and sits in on the recording of the band’s psychedelic "Satanic Majesty’s Request". The alternative, psychedelic rock crowd and bands such as the Pink Fairies and Hawkwind begin to leave their mark on the rising star.

1970 

On January 1st, Sonja meets Darryl Way and Francis Monkman. Both play in a band called Sisyphus and are providing a live soundtrack for another West End Production of the time. The three decide to get together and form Curved Air. The line-up is adventurous: Way is the first English electric violinist playing in a rock band - Jerry Goodman in US outfit Flock has pipped him to the global post. Monkman's pioneering use of the VCS3 synthesiser is a creative sparring partner for Way. Sonja is hailed Britain’s first female progressive rock singer and is to appear in the top three female singers in the music weeklies’ readers polls over the next few years.

The band’s debut, "Air Conditioning" on Warner Brothers (the label’s first British rock signing) is also the first picture disc LP. The album spawns a single in "It Happened Today" and is a huge critical and commercial success.

1971 

"Second Album", with lavish packaging and rich and varied content is an adventurous follow-up, and includes ‘the world-wide hit single "Back Street Luv". The band tours the US with Jethro Tull, Edgar and Johnny Winter and BB King and conquers the UK on its first major tour, supporting Black Sabbath.

1972 

Classic tracks "Melinda" and "Marie Antoinette" are highlights amidst some weird and wonderful happenings on the band’s third release, "Phantasmagoria" – their third consecutive Top 20 album.

1973 

Darryl and Francis go their separate ways. "Air Cut" is released soon after Sonja puts together a new band featuring youthful prodigy Eddie Jobson (of later Roxy Music, Frank Zappa, JethroTull fame) and Kirby of Stretch (a Top 5 act with the hit single "Why Did Ya Do it?")

Sonja does an acoustic tour of colleges and universities with Country Joe Macdonald.

1974 

Returns to the West End for a reprisal of her role in "Hair". A highly successful re-union tour of the original Curved Air spawns the "Live" album (the band now on BTM/Decca) that remains amongst the band’s finest and a fabulous memento of the band as a performance act.

1975 

Darryl and Sonja are the only two original members on that year’s Curved Air release, "Midnight Wire", which features new member Stewart Copeland on drums

1976 

"Airborne" is released. Curved Air tour and are headlining festivals.

1977 

On tour in Newcastle, Stewart and Sonja meet Sting. Curved Air breaks up.

1978 

Inspired by the punk bands now enjoying their time in London clubs, Sonja forms Escape whilst Stewart forms The Police. 

1979 

Escape tours extensively.

1980 

Sonja releases a debut solo album, "Sonja" (Chopper Records) produced by Police producer
Nigel Gray. Sonja is also working on other projects including backing vocals with Chrissie Hynde on Mick Farren's "Vampires Stole My Lunch Money".

1981 

Sonja returns to her acting career playing in BBC TV show "Curriculee Curricula", written by Dave Greenslade and playwright Alan Plater.

1982 

Sonja tours the UK in the play, "The French have a Song for It" with Amanda Barrie and Helen Shapiro. She also plays Shakespeare's Juliet at the Grove Theatre in Hammersmith, west London and is a night club owner in Marsha Hunt's "Man to Woman" at the Zig Zag club.

During the early eighties Sonja continues playing the occasional acoustic set at the famous Half Moon in Putney and at universities, experimenting with different line-ups, sometimes with harmonica and strings, or synths, or other guitarists. 

With The Police and Stewart Copeland she travels extensively to Japan and the Far East, India, Africa, South America as well as the States. In 1982, she marries Stewart Copeland in 1982 and they have two sons in 1983 and 1986. The family moves to the Buckinghamshire countryside.

1984 

With Darryl Way, Sonja records a single "Renegade" and does a small tour of UK arts centres.

1985 

With the band, Tunis she completes a small national tour and records a 12" single version of Bacharach’s "Walk On By" with William Orbit and a haunting version of Carl Orff’s "O Fortuna".

1988 

Back in theatre-land Sonja takes the part of the schizophrenic lead in "Shona". She also returns to her previous musical haunts, finding energy and intimacy in what was loosely termed ‘the new acoustic scene’. Encouraged by leading lights Miro and again enjoying the subtleties of the acoustic performance, she writes new songs and works with Miro’s cellist and violinist.

1989 

Sonja’s new sound is ‘beefed-up’ with talent plucked from the acoustic clubs including the firey brothers Ty-lor on guitar and percussion and fiddler Paul Sax.

1990 

The band, supported by Ty-lor, tours the UK extensively, playing acoustically in some folk clubs and also performing in arts centres and rock clubs. The original line-up of Curved Air reform for a BBC documentary and play two sell-out London gigs. They record the "Curved Air Alive 1990" album. Sonja’s second album, "Songs from the Acid Folk" is released and attracts rave reviews. 

1991 

Sonja's marriage breaks up and she moves to London with her two young sons. The focus of her life over the next ten years becomes her children. Around their routine she studies performance and singing from an academic perspective. She gains a reputation as a gifted voice coach, helping singers in the throes of recording and touring.

1995 

Juggling a career with occasional performances whilst raising her children, Sonja’s releases a further album of ‘acid folk’ songs, "Harmonics of Love" (HTD). She is invited to be resident lecturer in Rock/Pop musical theatre singing at Middlesex University.

1997 

Sonja appears on a double bill with old friend Al Stewart at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire.

1998 

She takes a Masters Degree in Performing Arts at Middlesex University and studies overtone chanting and sound healing. She also begins exploring jazz repertoire.

2001 

Introduced to the music of acclaimed ambient composer/producer/cellist and violinist Marvin Ayres via his album "Neptune", Sonja is excited by the ambient music world and the possibilities of mixed media performance. 

2002 

Sonja records a set of classic jazz and musical theatre songs. Seeking a contemporary stark, atmospheric, ambient atmosphere Sonja asks Marvin to co-produce and arrange and play layered strings around the parts already recorded as a live set with plenty of space between the notes for his special sound.

2003 

Ambient jazz album "Cri De Coeur" is released (Market Square) and is performed in concert at
The Spitz in East London against a backdrop of films especially created for the tracks by French film maker Jean Henri Meunier. 

Sonja starts composing and recording new material with Marvin Ayres, material that will become MASK’s, 'Heavy Petal, the Tenebrous Odyssey of Jack and Virginia' (Mandalic).

2004 

Marvin and Sonja source filmmakers to work closely with MASK to provide an audio-visual setting for the music on recordings and at live concerts. They find a kindred spirit in Outerbongolia (Bongo) a radical environmentalist and visionary film-maker whose visual interpretation of the songs resonates perfectly with MASK's vision.

Begin playing at leftfield clubs with their films and VJ Dave Simonetti.

2005 

MASK play concerts and festivals including Glastonbury. "Heavy Petal" is released in August in UK with a November release date scheduled for the US (Global Arts Media).


SONJA KRISTINA: Backgrounder

"From Rock Goddess to Mother, to Cult Heroine" - Max Bell, Evening Standard

"The beautiful ingenue who fronted the seminal art rock band of the early Seventies" – Sting

"I formed Human League because I was such a huge Sonja Kristina fan - I still am" - Phil Oakey 

Born "somewhere in Essex, England" in April "sometime in the 1950s"
Daughter of a criminologist specialising in the vagaries of youth; granddaughter of Swedish film star Gerda Lundequist
Educated by "an assortment of hkojas, gurus, munshis, mahatmas and anthroposophists" besides the tutors of mathematics, literature, metaphysics, agronomics and other subjects who came twice weekly to the approved school which her father supervised
Sonja Kristina first came to public attention in ‘the summer of love’ of the 60s. As a solo folk singer, she toured the clubs and festivals alongside Al Stewart, Buffy Saint-Marie and Sandy Denny, before being talent-spotted for a star part in the original London West End cast of rock musical "Hair".

Her musical breakthrough came when she joined Curved Air. Their 1971 hit single "Back Street Luv" won them a dedicated fanbase who remained loyal despite the band’s ever-changing personnel. But Sonja was the one constant member of the group, with her highly individual voice regarded as the key factor to the band’s continued success.

Her vocal talent – in addition to striking looks – kept Sonja regularly voted Top British Female Vocalist in music weekly annual polls. She has inspired some fans to pursue musical careers of their own, including Phil Oakey, who recently recalled that "when I formed The Human League it was because I was such a huge Sonja Kristina fan, and still am". 

Sting, in his autobiography, considered Curved Air ‘the seminal art rock band of the early ‘70s’.

In 1977, after seven albums, the band split up, and Sonja and her then boyfriend Stewart Copeland, Curved Air’s last drummer, frequented the Roxy and the Vortex, inspired by the creative energy of the newly-born punk scene.

Sonja paired up with Chrissie Hynde (shortly to found The Pretenders) to record joint vocals for Mick Farren’s album "Vampires Stole My Lunch Money". 

Meanwhile Stewart founded The Police with Sting, and Sonja had to take a break from her musical career as she dedicated herself to bringing up their three sons, and helping Stewart deal with the demands of being the biggest band in the world. 

In the ‘80s Sonja returned to acting, starring in several West End shows and on TV. She released her first solo album, produced by Nigel Grey (producer of The Police’s first three albums), and recorded a single with William Orbit. 

Inspired by the acoustic revolution in the early ‘90s, she released the albums "Songs From The Acid Folk" and "Harmonics of Love" with a band of new friends. This group established themselves as a successful live band, appearing regularly at Glastonbury. 

Seeking yet more fresh possibilities, Sonja took time out to study for a Performing Arts MA. She studied Sound Healing and Overtone Chanting before returning to record explorative jazz and musical theatre classics in sparse, ambient settings on her 2003 album "Cri de Coeur", co-produced by Marvin Ayres.


MARVIN AYRES: Backgrounder

"Poetic and stimulating" - The Wire

"A bold new force in ambient music" - i-vibes

"An odyssey of spectacular and hanting beauty…" – Diffusion Magazine


A graduate of Trinity College of Music, London, Marvin Ayres contributed to other bands and solo artists throughout the late ‘80s and ‘90s – notably Culture Club, Simply Red, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Neil Conti of Prefab Sprout. 

He released two self composed, played and produced ambient albums, "Neptune" and "Cellosphere", to critical acclaim and in early 2001 came to the attention of Jaki Liebezeit (Can) who invited him to remix tracks and tour with his new band Club Off Chaos. 

Marvin has collaborated with visual artists on audio-visual installations, which have been exhibited in major galleries and art houses in Europe and the US. In 2000 the prestigious ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) in London commissioned him to compose and produce their first-ever DVD exhibition. He also composed the soundtrack for the film ‘Scape’ which is part of a permanent exhibition at the Tate Modern. 

In 2004, he released a DVD of some of his filmic collaborations in Sensory (Burning Shed) together with two albums based on his sound tracks for Scape and Cycle. 

Now, this growing collaboration between Sonja and Marvin was to be the well-spring from which MASK would emerge…

More information online at:

http://www.mask.uk.net/

www.sonjakristina.com 

www.marvinayres.com 

www.singsongpr.biz 

ends

Information released on behalf of Mask by

Singsong Entertainment Publicity

Contacts: Peter Muir; tel + 44 (0)1296 715228 email peter@singsongpr.biz 

Market House
Market Square
Winslow MK18 3AF
UK
Tel 00 44 (0)1296 715228
Fax 00 44 (0)1296 715486 

Pat Tynan tel + 44 (0)1895 636935 email pat@singsongpr.biz 

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