What If Tori Recorded a Daytrotter Session & Nobody Knew?

Rather out of the blue, Daytrotter, a music website which brings artists in to their Rock Island, Illinois studios to record exclusive sessions that are shared for free, posted a session Tori did for them! As with most Daytrotter sessions, it’s four songs long, including “Lady in Blue,” “Ophelia,” “Pink and Glitter” and “A Silent Night With You.” All four tunes are available to stream and, if you register with the site, to download as well. Every session includes an artist’s rendition of the performer (this one is courtesy of Johnnie Cluney) and a written piece about the recording which is worth a read.

Thanks to Eliot Lear for being the first to catch this and let us know!

The Lioness Vists The Artists Den

The third jewel in Wednesday’s slate of promotional appearances was a taping of the public television program Live From the Artists Den. The program describes itself as “featuring extraordinary artists performing in extraordinary settings,” and the episode with Tori will be no exception as it was recorded at the Park Avenue Armory, the former home of New York State’s Seventh Regiment of the National Guard which has been retooled as an alternative arts space.

Thanks to @SharonIsAwesome, @districtbelle and alison, we have the setlist posted in the Tour section. The performance opened with “Ruby Through The Looking Glass” and also featured “Girl,” “Ophelia” and “Toast.” Interestingly, no songs from Midwinter Graces were played so one would expect the airdate for the episode to be sometime well into next year — though when it will be shown has not yet been announced.

If you happened to attend this taping and would like to share your impressions of the evening and performance, please leave a comment on the show’s page in the Tour section!

Connecting the World

Wednesday, December 9th was a busy day as Tori also appeared live on CNN International’s Connect the World where she spoke with host Becky Anderson about Midwinter Graces and RAINN and also answered questions submitted by readers of Connect the World’s blog. Video of the appearance was posted on CNN.com the following day and was also used as source material for an article on CNN World.

Thanks to Mark-Alexis, “Mike Holliday* and Bille for catching this one!

Soundcheck, Soundcheck, 1, 2, 3...

Dressed, as she emphatically pointed out, as “a very friendly nutcracker,” Tori appeared on the WNYC radio program Soundcheck on Wednesday, December 9th to promote the release of Midwinter Graces. Due to high interest, the live broadcast was moved to The Greene Space, the station’s performance studio, allowing a small audience to attend the broadcast. For those not lucky enough to get tickets to the event, video of the broadcast was also streamed live on the web.

During the appearance, Tori spoke with host John Schaefer about the genesis and evolution of Midwinter Graces and she performed “Star of Wonder,” “A Silent Night With You” and “Pink and Glitter”.

If you missed the live broadcast, you can stream or download a mp3 of the appearance from WNYC. Unfortunately, the video stream does not appear to have been archived but WNYC has kindly put “Star of Wonder” up on YouTube:

If you were one of the lucky few who were able to attend the broadcast, we’d love to hear about it — please post a comment on this performance’s entry in the Tour section!

SPINHouse Live Hosts Secret Show

This past Tuesday night — as I was last updating the site in fact — Tori was playing a secret, invitation-only set for a hundred or so people at the office of SPIN Magazine for their SPINHouse Live series. The six-song set included, as the photo of the setlist shows, “Ophelia,” “Wednesday,” “A Silent Night With You,” “Star of Wonder,” “Pink and Glitter” and “Snow Angel.”

SPIN reviewed the event the following morning and their article includes some excellent photographs, courtesy of Kathryn Yu and Ben Rowland, of Tori at the piano.

OUT’s Popnography and Gothamist also covered the performance, with the latter adding video clips of “Pink & Glitter” and “Ophelia” as well.

Jump the cut for a couple short twitvid clips of “A Silent Night With You” and “Snow Angel,” courtesy of @rbrockington and @flatbushctylmts respectively.

Thanks to Mark-Alexis, Lucie_S, Jeremy Mitchell, Josh and fourseraphs for sending in links for this story!

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Two More Solo Video Surface on Culture Jam

Culture Jam is offering videos of Tori performing four songs from Midwinter Graces — “Jeanette, Isabella,” “Star of Wonder,” “A Silent Night With You” and “Pink and Glitter” — as well as an electronic press kit about the album in exchange for a little social networking. By connecting your Facebook account to Tori’s facebook or letting them post a tweet to your Twitter account, you’ll be able to view these clips.

“A Silent Night With You” and “Pink and Glitter” have already surfaced on Yahoo and AOL Music and the EPK is cribbed from the video interview included in the deluxe edition of the album so the other two songs are the new additions.

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Keyboard Interview (December 2009)

This is not a shocking album. In fact, the shocking thing about this record is that there’s nothing shocking on it. I don’t have that hidden track called, “She’s A Hussy, Merry Christmas.” At the start, Doug said to me, “Tori, you’ve proven yourself. You’ve shocked us enough for many lifetimes, so can you just do something beautiful and ephemeral?” And I said, “Yeah, I can do that.”

Tori is the cover story for the December issue of Keyboard and the feature interview is up on their website. In the long article, Tori and Michael Gallant discuss the usual topics regarding Midwinter Graces but in the greater depth that a longer piece allows for. Additionally, they get into some of the technical aspects of producing and recording the album which hasn’t really been discussed in other interviews.

Thanks to Devin for pointing us to this excellent piece!

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Bizarre Magazine Interview (December 2009)

This time of year if you’re in our hemisphere is about the re-birth of light. But light means knowledge, light means consciousness. Everybody can attain that and have that in their life. Consider the idea that it’s inner God. It’s in every child that’s born; every child carries this ability within them. And I like that sentiment.

In the lull between the European and Australian legs of the Sinful Attraction tour, Eleanor Goodman interviewed Tori for Bizarre Magazine and the article was published in their December issue and also made available on their website today. While somewhat outside the Bizarre’s usual fare, the piece is still a good one with some new tidbits about Midwinter Graces. Additionally, Tori also discussed her continuing friendship with Neil Gaiman, her thoughts on Amanda Palmer, the possibility of working with Kate Bush and the latest on The Light Princess.

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Recapping the eTown Holiday Show

We covered the setlist of last night’s eTown Holiday Show taping on Twitter and while things got a little mixed up at times it’s all sorted out eventually.

Tori’s set included “Lady in Blue,” “Star of Wonder,” “Silent All These Years,” “A Silent Night With You,” “Gold Dust,” “Pink and Glitter” and “Winter.” There was an interview segment as well during which Tori chatted with the show’s host, Nick Forster, about the background of Midwinter Graces and told an amusing anecdote about Tash. At the end, Tori joined Loudon Wainwright III and The eTones, the eTown house band, for a performance of “Children, Go Where I Send Thee.”

Several folks have already added their thoughts about the evening to the page for this show in the Tour section. If you were in attendance and would like to share your opinion of the performance, please do so!

If you care to, you can also read these reviews of the evening’s proceedings from The Bowery Presents and NY Press.

The show was recorded for the episode of eTown slated to be broadcast between December 23rd to 29th. eTown is carried by many radio stations in North America, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Philippines and, of course, the Internet. Additionally, the show is podcast so any and all should be able to listen to this performance once it is available.

Pitchfork Disgraces Midwinter Graces

Every year around this time, Pitchfork skewers the worst album covers from the past twelve months on their trident and, as you might have guessed from this article’s title, Midwinter Graces has landed on their 2009 list. It’s all the way down at the bottom — not sure if that makes it #1 or #20 — with the quip, “Just take that Final Fantasy cutscene and run with it, girl!” Perhaps not the jab we’d make but, well, let’s just say the cover wouldn’t make our Best Covers of 2009 list.

Thanks to Astred and the others who brought this to our attention.