Further info at Chris Familton Publicity - chrisfamiltonpublicity@gmail.com
Jo Meares launched his full album 'Dream Hotel' on November 11th 2022 at The Factory, Sydney
‘DREAM HOTEL’ Jo's last album, is a collaboration with Melbourne bassist and musician/ producer Anth Dymke from the Ponyface band.
‘Dream Hotel’ is a magnificent tour de force: an assemblage of pure emotion that breathes softly down your neck and take possession of your very soul. Enchanting, transfixing, mesmerising: weaving an indelible spell. This is pure magic' - Arun Kendall, Backseat Mafia 9.5/10
Jo and Anth have been exploring their musical partnership over the last three years, taking inspiration, shaping and re- contextualising each others ideas as they built an album’s worth of atmospheric sonic landscapes around Meares’s evocative and poetic songs.
The pair’s first single, ‘The Dirty Game Of Art’, was a dark dive into temptation and sin.
‘Reasons’ continued their hypnotic exploration of ambience, mood and poetry with electronic pulses creating a beautiful tension for its earthy electric guitar and gentle waves of strings, while ’Just Dreams' attempted to make sense of the last two years the world has gone through.
That combination of Jo's songwriting, his Cohen-esque weathered tone, halfway between a whisper and a growl, and Anth's textured sonic terrains with their soundtrack-like emotionality, is the absolute key to why these two continue to create such compelling music.
Along the way they’ve called on the wonderful talents of Michael Bridges (saw/violin), Dave Milne (piano) and Jessica Cassar & Jessie Newling (backing vocals) to embellish and complete the recordings, with drummer Reuben Alexander and guitarist Matt Galvin adding further depth and detail to the live band.
"‘The Dirty Art of Game’ is epic, cinematic musical prose that has a satisfying air of a life steeped in indulgence, pain and joy. Utterly cathartic. An album is in the cards, which I, for one, cannot wait to hear."
On 'Reasons' - "Meares has a voice that evokes a life lived to the fullest – tired, weary and battling the endless vicissitudes of life with a stoicism and resolve. And he expresses this in a milieu of impossible beauty and clarity of thought that sends shivers down your spine. Subtle rolling melodies amidst an environment of shifting sounds, noises and aural shadows form a veritable architecture of sound that moves around Meares’s deep, sonorous vocals."
"This is the very epitome of the description cinematic – visual poetry that evinces the mood and stunning nature of the song itself and a mesmerising tableaux that induces awe and wonder. This collaboration between Meares and Dymke is creating some extraordinary." - Backseat Mafia (Arun Kendall)
The JO MEARES BAND are:-
JO MEARES - guitars, vocals
ANTH DYMKE - bass, guitar, mellotron, keys
MATT GALVIN - guitars
REUBEN ALEXANDER - drums, harmonica
MICHAEL BRIDGES - violin, saw, keys, percussion
JESSIE NEWLING - backing vocals, guitar, keys
JESSICA CASSAR - backing vocals
JO MEARES' SILVER BULLETS are:-
JO MEARES - guitars, vocals
MARK MCCARTNEY - guitars
MARK CARSON - upright bass
CHARLIE BARKER - backing vocals, saw
SCOTT BENNETT - drums
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'BACK TO THE WORLD' was released in June 2018.
Recorded over 2 years in Sydney and Melbourne it involves an extraordinary range of musicians.
Vinyl can be ordered through this website.
Also available on Bandcamp and Spotify.
https://jomeares.bandcamp.com/album/back-to-the-world-2
Jo released a French version of most of the songs on 'Back to the world as 'LA BAIE DE DIAMANT' available on Bandcamp link here: - https://jomeares.bandcamp.com/album/la-baie-de-diamant
'...this an album that does something for you and something to you. In a live setting at one point I would probably shed a tear. Magnificent just doesn't seem to cover it and if I would give a higher mark I would. Outstanding...' 10/10 - Ernest Platt, Wildspiritz Rising, November 2018
'Back To The World' is another of Meares’ mini-masterpieces. The 10-minute closer, An Old Dog And A Shotgun, would be worth your time alone, would be the album standout, the reason to come here to hear this – but there’s not a single dud track. Once again he’s taken time to create something ‘whole’, a piece, an album that could, in another setting, stand up as film or book, a graphic novel, a macabre ballet. - Simon Sweetman, Off The Tracks, October 2018
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'KING OF THE CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN' was released in June 2014
Produced by Charles Jenkins it features the guitar work of virtuoso Jeff Lang and the sublime harmonica work of Reuben Alexander and Kari Pihl's beautiful piano work.
The haunting backing vocals were recorded by an all girl choir in an old church in Helsinki, Finland.
From Simon Sweetman at Off The Tracks....
'...the whole album hit me in a way that some albums do; something by Richmond Fontaine, say. Or Springsteen's 'Ghost of Tom Joad'. A complete thing, a completed album that plays out like a movie or a book or a stage-play. It’s there. It unfolds for you. You’re listening to it but you can see it in front of you – you can imagine, the mind wanders due to the beauty and intensity and integrity of the music and the lyrics. Big bold stories. Real'.
From Chris Familton's 4 star review at The Music....
Mood and atmosphere are key factors in the creation of immersive and transportive music and Jo Meares' new album is richly imbued with both. Eerie, forlorn harmonica; delicate and heart-wrenching piano; slow, shuffling drums; and exquisite guitar courtesy of Jeff Lang are the backdrop to Meares' tales of love, pain and emotional turbulence, rendered in the talk/sung style of Leonard Cohen yet invested with the gothic country ambience of Howe Gelb (Giant Sand) and Wovenhand. King Of The Crystal Mountain is a richly detailed and beautiful set of recordings from start to finish.
Vinyl can be ordered through this website.
Also available on Bandcamp and Spotify.