Sometimes You're Nothing But Meat

Once upon a time (okay, it was 1996) Tori included a photo of herself breastfeeding a piglet in the booklet for Boys for Pele. This taboo-tackling photo stuck in a lot of people’s minds for a long time after the hullabaloo died down. Heck, some people are still thinking about it, 15 years later. Lucas de Lima offers his take on the porcine photograph, saying, “As a disorientation of the ‘Madonna and Child,’ the image achieves its sacred glow precisely through profanation. In the piglet figured as Jesus, we see an improperly Christian separation of life–an unthinkable and unnamable cross-species encounter that awes us because of the nonhuman infant it exalts.” Click on over to read the whole essay for yourself. Thanks to Erin for sending us this!

Guardian Sings Choirgirl's Praises

Sometimes when musicians have a new album on the way, it’s fun to go back and revisit their older work, just to see how far they’ve come. The UK newspaper Guardian is running a series of articles by its music critics, asking them to write about their favorite albums. Today, Alex Macpherson unveiled My favourite album: Tori Amos – From the Choirgirl Hotel. Reading his treatment of the album might put you in a nostalgic mood, particularly for songs like “Playboy Mommy” and “Hotel.” Cheers to Mario, Stoff, and Brian for this tip.

Night of Hunters Vinyl Release

Amazon.com has added a listing for a vinyl edition of Night of Hunters, to be released on Tuesday, September 20th. As with the regular CD and deluxe CD/DVD editions of the album, they are taking pre-orders, though it certainly doesn’t hurt to shop around as one might find a better deal elsewhere — either online or, once the release date comes, in a local record store.

Also, it’s worth noting that September 20th is clearly shaping up to the release date for the album in the United States and Canada. Between retailers such as Amazon listing that and the official confirmation of a September 19th release date in the United Kingdom in the release sent to UK press last week, the 20th looks to be the day over on this side of the pond.

Thanks to ToriAmosjp for the tip about the vinyl edition!

Tori Comes "Out" On Night of Hunters

It’s crazy right now and people’s lives are changing in a day. With what happened in Oslo? I’ve been to Oslo many times and you would never think that carnage would be coming out of that city. If you had made me list 100 cities [where that could happen], Oslo wouldn’t have been on it. It’s hard to predict where the next tragedy is going to happen, but there’s another side to when these things happen — there’s a place of looking at your own life and how you want to make changes and what changes you want to make if you’re still alive. If you have another day, would you still be doing the exact same things tomorrow as today?

A brand-new interview with Tori is online today at Out magazine, and it’s full of juicy tidbits about Night of Hunters, the upcoming tour, her family (including her dad’s new musical venture), and her continued avoidance of the Internet. Click past the cut to read the interview, or go on over to Out’s site to follow all the links embedded in their copy.

Thanks to Shannon, Eric, and Whirljack for sending this in!

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New NOH Details, Photos, Title Track Radio Debut

Today dawned with a new press release, issued in the UK. It confirms a number of details about Night of Hunters, including the tracklist and guest musician info we recently shared. It also includes some new information, such as:

• Tash will portray a character named “Annabelle”
• Tori’s niece, Kelsey Dobyns, portrays “The Fire Muse”
• John Phillip Shenale is back, and arranged all the strings/woodwinds

In addition, Amazon.com unveiled a few new photos from the album shoot. Check out the thumbnails below, or click on them to see them larger:

Lastly, radio station WXRT in Chicago announced that it will play the title track from Night of Hunters Thursday (August 4) as part of New Music Thursday. That feature happens throughout the day, starting at 6:00 AM Central. WXRT streams live, so keep an ear to the tuner for a chance to hear new Tori! Turns out that WXRT did NOT play anything from the new record today. Sorry for the false alarm!

Thanks to all today’s newsgatherers, including Mark, Mario, Sean Paul, Julia, Diana, and Kory! And to Jamie and Mike for the WXRT stream link.

New Night of Hunters Promo Photo

While new information about Night of Hunters continues to prove elusive, the website Klassik Akzente, a German website that focuses on classical music and releases, dropped a new promotional picture on their Tori Amos page:

Unfortunately, the album cover in the image on Klassik Akzente links to details about a new release of Kissine and Tchaikovsky Piano Trios rather than Night of Hunters — but one expects that to change before too long…

Thanks to Mario for finding this and passing along the tip!

More NOH Details

[Update: We’ve been told that the performer credits posted on Amazon.co.uk are based on preliminary information and are not final. As we alluded to below, the wheels are still in motion and information found on retail sites at this point isn’t set in stone.]

Amazon.co.uk has added some additional information about Night of Hunters to one of their listings for the record. In addition to a track list that matches what was previously posted on Play.com (but has since been removed), Amazon is showing what appears to be the musicians for each track on the album — and what enticing performer credits they are! For instance, Tash’s name appears with a few tracks, including “SnowBlind,” “Cactus Practice,” “Job’s Coffin,” and “The Chase.”

Peruse the list and you’ll see four names repeated a lot: Pawel Zalejski, Bartosz Zachlod, Piotr Szumiel, and Piotr Skweres. Together, they’re the quartet known as Apollon Musagète, a Polish ensemble whom we posted about last weekend and have recorded recently with Tori in Cornwall.

There’s also Andreas Ottensamer, principal clarinetist for the Berliner Philharmoniker; oboeist Nigel Shore ; bassoonist Peter Whelan ; and flautist Laura Lucas (whose website is currently on the fritz).

Of course, we hasten to remind everyone that nothing’s final until it hits the stores and the airwaves this Fall. Given the late June studio session with Apollon Musagète, it seems that Night of Hunters is still a work being forged, so plenty can change.

And on a related note, the release date for the record on Amazon.com’s listing for the deluxe edition of the record has been changed to September 20th. However, all the UK retailers still maintain a September 26th release date, so there seems to be some wet concrete on that point as well.

Cheers to Luke, Tony, Mark-Alexis and Zach for all the information!

Had Some Eastern Lads, Well, Not Exactly Had ...

If you haven’t heard heard of the Apollon Musagète Quartett, you will. According to the Polish quartet’s Web site, the group spent June 20-23 in Cornwall, recording with Tori — likely for Night of Hunters. Founded in 2006, the quartet (which includes Pawel Zalejski and Bartosz Zachlod on violin, Piotr Szumiel on viola, and Piotr Skweres on cello) scored a number of wins at the ARD Music Competition in Munich, and by 2008 became international stars. They now have three albums under their belts.

If you listen to their music, you can imagine why Tori latched onto these lads: they’re hip, highly talented, and deeply into mythology. Their name comes from the composition by Igor Stravinsky, in which Apollo, the god of music, dances with the muses, leading them to Mount Parnassus.

According to the Oehms classics Web site, “We want to fulfill the Apollonian,” say the four Polish musicians in a conversation with the chamber music journal Ensemble (1/2010). Their goal: “To bring all the arts together. We want to think multidimensionally and shape all aspects of the music: its sound as well as its theatrical possibilities.”

If that doesn’t sound like it’s up Tori’s alley, we don’t know what does. The quartet is playing a number of concerts in Europe over the next year that fans across the pond may want to check out; details are on their site. Many thanks to Luke for this tip.

Tori To Judge Lomography Contest

Lomography.com is holding a contest, and the winner will receive a limited edition TORI Diana F+ camera. Contestants will send in 5 photos inspired by one of 10 cities Tori will play during her Night of Hunters tour: New York, London, Philadelphia, Berlin, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Chicago or Amsterdam.

Tori herself will judge the contest, picking 10 winning images to be included in the NOH tour program. Winners will also receive a signed copy of the program, a Night of Hunters CD, an official tour shirt and their images will be featured on www.toriamos.com the day that her tour stops into the winning city. 90 runners-up will receive a limited edition TORI Diana F+ Cameras and copy of NOH. That’s a lot of winners!

mayfly, do you think you’ll enter the contest?

Night Of Hunters Tracklist?

Play.com turned up some details on Night of Hunters, including what may very well be the tracklist for the album:

1. Shattering Sea
2. Snowblind
3. Battle Of Trees
4. Fearlessness
5. Cactus Practice
6. Star Whisperer
7. Job’s Coffin
8. Nautical Twilight
9. Your Ghost
10. Edge Of The Moon
11. The Chase
12. Night Of Hunters
13. Seven Sisters
14. Carry

Whether this is legit or not remains to be seen. Still, many thanks to PaganPoet and Armen for the heads up!