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Geoffrey Armes

Geoffrey has honed a musical approach that walks a knife-edge between the singer-songwriter and ambient club or world fusion approach to music making. Improvising is an important process in Geoffrey's intuitive composing style.

The UK born multi-instrumentalist (guitars, keys, percussion), composer and singer- songwriter has built a career for himself in New York City on the back of six CD releases, a steady stream of work with Theatre and Modern Dance Companies, and a reputation as a stellar solo performer.

Early influences included Gordon Lightfoot, Celtic harpist Allan Stivell, Ravi Shankar, and Umm Kulthum. Living in multiracial Brixton as a child, with reggae on the streets, pop and art music at home, gave him a deep appreciation of the breadth of the art. He played bass in an improvising jazz/punk band whose members' credentials included the Soft Machine and Third Ear, jammed with Reebop Kwaku Baah, studied Electronic music and harmony at London's Goldsmiths College in New Cross, and assisted in building Falconer's first studio, alongside the Eurythmics.

In Holland, later Berlin, he composed and performed under the auspices of The British Council, created sound-montages for the expressionist painter Ter-Hell, wrote music for the local Contemporary Dance community, performed with 'Jazz Noise' collectives with unlikely names such as Purity of Essence, and took part in Performance Art events in NeuKolln and Ernst-Reuter Platz.

A partnership with American singer Lisa Lowell eventually brought him to New York City for the first time, performing at rock clubs such as CBGB, the Bitter End, classical venues like the Juilliard Theatre and the Merce Cunningham Westbeth studio, and site specific events such as Ruby Shang's Cooper Union Event.

Interwoven with this aesthetic journey is the arc of Geoffrey's spiritual life; how he arrives is as important as where. Without being precious he tries to do things the right way. What use is the note if it is laden with wrong action in its making?

Gear

Guitars: Gibson J45, Gibson J 185 Basses: Fender Jazz Fretless, ESP M IV, Percussion: Udu, Ubang, Talking Drums, Congas, Djembe, Handsonic 15,Wavedrum etc, Keyboards: Korg SV-!,Korg Triton Extreme, Korg Poly six, Korg R3


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Take Five With...

Take Five With Geoffrey Armes

Read "Take Five With Geoffrey Armes" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Instrument(s): Guitars, Percussion, Keyboards, Voice.I knew I wanted to be a musician when... It was emotional and inarticulate in that I heard sounds and knew that's where I wanted to live; it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I realized I had both the courage and the compulsion to make a go of it. In other words this sense of “where I want to live" meant “me" creating music.Your sound and approach to ...

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83

Recording

Lost Journal Inspires New Album; Singer/Songwriter Geoffrey Armes Releases “Inside A Wall”

Lost Journal Inspires New Album; Singer/Songwriter Geoffrey Armes Releases “Inside A Wall”

Source: ISL Public Relations

Critically acclaimed singer/songwriter GEOFFREY ARMES' next album, “Inside a Wall," is slated to be released on October 28th, 2010. Now a resident of NYC, the British musician spent the majority of his adult life globe trotting, picking up a wide array of musical and cultural influences, evident in his music. ARMES' work has been described as an enticing fusion of jazz, ambient, electro-acoustic, and world music. “Multi-colored strands of sound weave a beautiful space; a cathedral of sound a flow ...

285

Recording

New "Environmental Sound" Hemisphere Released

New "Environmental Sound" Hemisphere Released

Source: All About Jazz

New Downloadable Format for Geoffrey Armes' Latest Musical Creation The new release from Geoffrey Armes represents a number of ‘firsts’ for the UK born NYC/Berlin residing composer. Not only is it his first ‘live’ recording but it is the first he is offering for sale via download on his own GeoffreyArmes.com website. He is also introducing a new concept of ‘environmental music’ where the sonics of a specific live environment are melded with subsequent overdubs and the imagined space of ...

123

Recording

Geoffrey Armes Releases New CD/Download "Hemisphere"

Geoffrey Armes Releases New CD/Download "Hemisphere"

Source: Michael Ricci

This is to let you know that Geoffrey Armes has a new CD/Download release entitled HEMISPHERE. The music is freewheeling 'live' ambience, richly detailed for the listener using headphones. Thanks very much for listening... and indeed buying... you can now download directly and using code COOLFRIEND obtain tracks for as low as 69 cents each. One track will be offered for free download via AAJ as well. The official press release reads: The new release from Geoffrey Armes represents ...

121

Recording

Anima 91: Free CD Release from Geoffrey Armes

Anima 91: Free CD Release from Geoffrey Armes

Source: All About Jazz

Geoffrey Armes examines both his songwriting and peregrination of the last three decades in his latest disc, Anima 91, available as a free download via his GeoffreyArmes.com website. “This is collection of songs I wrote during the nineteen eighties and nineties," he notes, “interspersed with a few instrumentals created in 2007. They were originally created for friends, public figures, and figments of my imagination, and this is the first time they have been released. “ As well as advancing his ...

187

Recording

New CD From Geoffrey Armes Inspired by a Sufi Princess

New CD From Geoffrey Armes Inspired by a Sufi Princess

Source: All About Jazz

London-born, New York-based world-fusion songwriter and composer Geoffrey Armes announced the release of his sixth solo CD, a suite of music inspired by the life and death of Noor Inayat Khan (1914-44). Noor, an accomplished musician and writer in her own right, was the daughter of well-known Sufi commentator and musician Hazrat Inyat Khan, and led an eventful, if short life, that ended in Dachau, September 1944.

Geoffrey says, “Discovering the life--and death--of Noor Inayat Khan, especially in the context ...

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

HEMISPHERE

Unknown label
2009

buy

Anima 91

Self Produced
0

buy

Noor

Habibi
0

buy

Ambient Black

Self Produced
0

buy

Spirit Dwelling

Self Produced
0

buy

A Still Place

From: HEMISPHERE
By Geoffrey Armes

Tudor

From: Anima 91
By Geoffrey Armes

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