Isis Ashton

Isis is in preparation for a series of  overseas events and rumour has it she has returned to the studio.

Drum Media Live Reviews, 29^th October 2002

Review by Daniel Shore

Isis Ashton, Lansdowne Hotel

18^th October 2002

  “I went to see Isis Ashton at the Lansdowne, with high anticipation. Having heard her briefly in collaboration with Trapazoid I was keen to see her in her own performance. My expectations were not only met but exceeded. From the moment she started to sing she captivated the room with the sound her emotive voice.

She has a highly evolved individual style, which is amazing Considering her age. She and her band convey a delicious mix of influences from jazz to folky pop with elements of funk and delivered with at times a sultry soulfulness that engages the audience. The songs have a sense of sophistication… .Jazz-modern-urban-soul-folk if you will, yet still maintaining  a pop accessibility.

The rapport between the band and their effortless groove was another factor. The natural, unprocessed sound and the intimacy of the small, dark venue were also great collaborators as were the guitar, bass and drums and for a number of songs the warmth of added harmonies by the four backing vocalists who joined Isis for a couple of tunes in each set. 

Simon Olsen’s guitar at times reminded me of Antonio Carlos Jobim, or David Byrne. The jazzy, sometimes boppy, sometime funky and always well placed guitarist was very enjoyable, and between Isis’ two sets, the band stayed on stage and played their own set. Olsen assuming vocal responsibilities for a half a dozen songs before a short break and then Isis’ return. Her voice has a smoothness and warmth that only the very fortunate singers are blessed with, like a well made instrument each note is alluring and really comes alive. Her phrasing, nuance and the honesty of her delivery combine in a stellar performance. Her one cover was Gabrielle’s “dreams”, the rest of the songs were her self-penned lyrics, music by Ashton/Olsen. The supporting musicians, in particular Olsen with his clean jazzy-acoustic pickings, were a treat and he and Isis are very well suited and have combined to form a genuinely distinctive style.” 

The Lansdowne tonight was heartened by this musically gifted, sincere woman who sang with a beauty and veracity that really spoke volumes.

3D World     Issue 625 October 7 2002

Soul singer, Isis Ashton, has just spent six months touring with Australian outfit Trapazoid. Accomplished singer, dancer and songwriter, she’s soon to release her debut solo album, Shining, and will be showcased at The Lansdowne’s new Thursday night, Musicianship.

You collaborated on Trapazoid’s ‘I’m Staying’ yet feel that this isn’t a true representation of your sound – how would you describe what your true sound is?

I write soul songs that are designed around inspiring lyrics so in this sense I would describe my sound as contemporary gospel with a twist.

Your father is West African and mother is Australian – how much have your cultural origins affected your style?

I have travelled around a fair bit. Living for a number of years in South East Asia and as a child attending a Japanese school. I have always appreciated all sorts of musical styles. However, the music that has influenced me most is that of artists like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross and Whitney Houston. One of my earliest memories is of my mother turning up the music in the living room and dancing around trying to get my brothers and I dancing.

And how influential has travelling through South East Asia been on the style you have developed?

To be honest, the travelling has given me experiences to draw from in order to write lyrics. As far as the musical sound of the record is concerned, it really is a style that was developed during the process of recording. Simon Olsen worked catchy guitar riffs in to a bed of solid lyrics and a well thought out melody. And we built around those original ideas. Some of the songs we have left fairly raw, in their acoustic state. Those songs we felt captured the experience we were hoping to create. 

Would you consider yourself a songwriter or a poet? Are you writing everything that will appear on Shining? 

I see myself as a songwriter because I write with a solid melody in mind. If I were a poet, I think that I would spend more time thinking about grammatical construction rather than trying to exude a feeling with a well-rounded existence. I see a song like a sphere, the lyrics are like the ribbons that run through and around it. And yes, the lyrics that appear on Shining are mine. The music is a combined effort between myself, Simon Olsen, Marc Scully and David Grindley. 

You studied dance for twelve years – is that something you want to pursue or are you wanting to focus on singing and songwriting? 

I love to dance; it is a way for me to really let go. However, I am more interested in the music. The dancing is like the party at the end of a long day’s work. I often think of music in terms of dance before it has become music. I will think of a move I would like to make and design a melody to work with a move. It is making me laugh thinking about it. 

Tell us a bit about your collaborations with Marc Scully – what have you been working on and how did it come about? 

The work that Simon Olsen and myself had done definitely had great potential, but it was a little too earthy and lacked the polish of modern production skills. Marc Scully really brings that polish to what we were trying to achieve musically. Marc really blew me away with his programming skills and we seem to work really well together creatively. We are currently working on some remixes and some more up-tempo Latin House tracks. 

What’s the concept behind musicianship and what will your involvement be? 

Musicianship is a monthly residency at The Lansdowne Hotel where they showcase an artist each Thursday for the month in an attempt to build a fan-base. Each week there are 50-60 people in the room drinking when you first start so it gives you a platform to build from. The act that preceded me – Lior – ended up with between 150-200 on his last night so he’d be more than content.  

Drum Media 1st October 2002

Isis: Goddess of Song
Isis Ashton introduces herself to Michael Smith

The First most of us heard of Isis Ashton was her vocal contribution alongside New Yorker Leroy Brown, to the song I’m Staying, from Trapazoid, and since the release, she has accompanied Trapazoid on a number of his gigs in Melbourne as well as Sydney, now the stylish young singer songwriter is ready to step out front in her own right with her debut single Shining.

"I actually come from a position of being a lyricist rather than a vocalist," Isis admits. "Singing is something I didn’t really take up till I was 18, though I’ve always done performance, mainly physical – dance and theatre – and always written poetry, and then somebody said one day, ‘Why don’t you try and sing some of it’. And I have to say, for a number of years, I really wasn’t that great! But I persevered because I just really enjoy it – I just love to perform – and now I’ve sort of found my own niche as far as a vocal style is concerned."

While she quietly gained confidence in her vocal abilities, Isis has travelled extensively through South-East Asia as a consequence of which she’s also fluent in Indonesian and reads and writes Japanese. Not that those more exotic elements are evident in the music she has released yet – and Isis is herself a quintessential expression of bridging the gap between cultures, as the daughter of a west African dad and Australian mum – but there’s certainly a subtle spirituality that underlies the message in Shining.

"The music is an opportunity to share something positive with people and is designed to be uplifting and supportive. It was really a whole journey of self-discovery, becoming a parent, learning how to grow up and how to look at things positively. The rest of the album is being made in the same vein. I wrote a lot of the lyrics for this record when I was pregnant and I was really quite depressed during the whole experience, and rather than remember it as something depressing and negative, I wanted to remember the pregnancy as something really positive. They’re so happy ‘cos they really came from such a dark place. I call it transmitting energy from negative experiences in to a positive form. That’s the theme that I’m working on in making the album, and now that I’m actually happy, it’s like, ‘Hang on, I’m not going to write sad song now!’ But juggling baby, career and the rest of it is just more life experience to draw from and she’s inspirational."

The debut single features three mixes of Shining, including a very different reading in the second track by Trapazoid.

"I was very pleased with the Trapazoid mix because it is so opposite to the original version; which is sort of a sweet, melodic little number, but it’s tuned into quite a good almost industrial, drum’n’bass cross techno type thing, along with sitar which was actually recorded live, which he used really well.

The next step is translating what Isis, her songwriting partner Simon Olsen, and their producer Marc Scully have been creating in the studio for her forthcoming album into the live realm.

"Our lineup features four backing vocalists so it’s a really vocal driven show. Accoustically it just comes up a dream because of all the sweet harmonies. It’s very gospel as a live experience. Then we’ve got a three-piece behind us – Peter Firth on Bass, Simon on guitar and Junior Jones on drums."

Isis plays a month of Thursday nights at the Lansdowne, the Musicianship nights, kicking off Thursday October 3.