It's high time we devoted an entire show to the music of San Francisco's elegant dark diva JILL TRACY — and there's no better time to do that than Halloween. We consider her a Bay area treasure...like Grafeo coffee, Scharffen Berger chocolates, and fine Napa Cabernets.
As a lyricist and songwriter, Jill Tracy plies the literary currents popularized by Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker, Edward Gorey and other 19th and 20th century storytellers of the netherworld: spinners of tales of the mysterious, the strange, and the macabre.
Her sound begins with an unadorned dark cabaret trio of contrabass, drums and parlor piano; it expands on recordings into the Malcontent Orchestra: violin, viola, cello, and low woodwinds, plus guitar, Chapman stick, electric bass, harmonium and the odd sarod. She calls it "Post-Classical Noir" and glams, goths and Dark Romantics of all ages love her with a crimson passion.
Building on an image-rich film noir foundation, she embroiders darkly seductive rhythms and a chilled layer of sly sophistication, delivered in a beguiling femme fatale vocal style that keeps you hanging onto every sinister turn of phrase.
Over the last 12 years, she's created three superb albums of original songs, instrumental soundtracks for Nosfertatu and other short films, and a powerful instrumental version of her 2008 masterpiece, The Bittersweet Constrain.
On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a potion brewed from dark Jill Tracy magick, including songs and instrumentals from Diabolical Streak and The Bittersweet Constrain, music from the soundtrack to Nervous96, and Under the Fate of the Blue Moon — "a waltz to make wishes come true."
HAUNTED — a JILL TRACY conjuration for Halloween...on this transmission...of Hearts of Space.
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