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Bek-Jean
Stewart entered the Australian Music scene in the
early 90’s as vocalist and songwriter for indie-pop band
Eva Trout. The band was signed by US label Trauma
Records and toured both Australia and the States.
The song Beautiful South received significant radio
play and the band appeared on GNW, VH1 and US TV programs.
Stewart’s other musical involvements include working
with Perry Keyes & Give My Love To Rose, performing
drums and vocals on his recordings and live shows. She
also played drums and sang on Grant Shanahan's album - The
Leisure Suit, " Into the Antipodes Sun ".
Stewart’s solo career was launched with “Junior
Years” in 2007. Released in Australia and
Europe through Laughing Outlaw, the album was lauded by
the critics.
Junior Years
tells the story of the struggle between love and
hate. “A superb female rejoinder to Ryan Adam’s
Heartbreaker.” David Cowling, Americana UK, June
2007. Winter Summer Suburban
Exile is Stewart’s second solo, releasing through
Laughing Outlaw in August 2010.
Bek-Jean Stewart uses rich and beautiful melodies to tell stories of
loss, love and redemption. The spirited, at times
joyous, style of her music often starkly contradicts the
depth of content contained in the emotional landscape
portrayed by her words. Stewart uses music as a
vehicle to communicate her realities and intimate
connections with the world around her. Inspired by
storytellers of a personal nature she drew early influence
from the likes of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Aimee
Mann.
Winter, Summer Suburban Exile is a
collection of songs that prelude the idea of an album as a
whole organism. The evolution of Stewart’s
songwriting progresses throughout the album as she
arrives, at its conclusion, to her strongest authentic
voice as a storyteller. Winter, Summer Suburban
Exile is a journey exploring freedom versus restraint,
raw and unapologetic in its coverage of such complex
terrain. With an emphasis on vocal clarity, the
music is allowed to serve as a fertile background for the
narrative. The album spans from anthemic songs, with
St Marys’ Bells and Henson Park Skies,
through darker times with No Sunrise, No Sunset and
Diving Bell, to the lightly romantic Money Never
Spent on Romance and Only One of You.
Recorded at Leisure Suit studios, near Mangrove Mountain,
NSW, with long-term collaborators, Grant Shanahan, Matt
Galvin and Michael Carpenter, who jammed together laying
down tracks in a couple of takes, with an emphasis on
understatement ensuring nothing was sonically overworked.
Creative direction was driven by Stewart, herself, with
engineering and co-production support from Shanahan. The
result is an album that is strong and instinctive in its
melody, and at moments -- such as the rise in St
Marys’ Bells – humbling
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