Piers Faccini Tearing Sky CD

Within two seconds of hearing them sing, there are some singer/songwriters who you know you're going to hate. Their styles are so affected or goofy that it doesn't matter how pretty the melodies or how clever the lyrics, you're not going to be able to enjoy them. Then there are others whose vocal affectations are equally distracting, but who hold your attention anyway because you can tell there's something deeper beneath the surface, and maybe even something that justifies the vocal goofiness. Piers Faccini's vocal style can't really be called goofy, but it's definitely on the willful side -- quavery and often on the thin verge of falsetto, his singing voice sometimes comes across like a frailer approximation of Tom Waits. The similarity may not be entirely accidental, either; on this, his U.S. debut album, he opens with a song that features scratchy violin, junkyard accordion, a creaky vocal, and a stunningly gorgeous melody -- the recipe for about half the songs Waits has written. But Faccini is also capable of surprising you, as he does on "Sharpening Bone" (which starts off lightly funky and then lapses into a sort of dubby acoustic reggae) and on "Sons and Daughters" (which features something that sounds startlingly like prepared guitar along with something that sounds startlingly like a fiddle being slowly eaten by a dinosaur). When he goes for minimalist ethereality, the results are hit ("Come the Harvest") and miss ("Days Like These"). Hits outnumber the misses on this album. This guy bears watching. ~ Rick Anderson

Tearing Sky reviewed:from URB MAGAZINE 4 1/2 Stars!From the organ that opens up this LP to Piers Faccini's heartbreaking voice that shelters and simultaneously shatters as he sings "and the ocean knows each wave that breaks is comin' home," this is music that captivates and captures your imagination. Before long, the rhythms of "Sharpening Bone" and "If I" are having its way with soul, making it groove and soar. Faccini, already popular in his native France, worked with Ben Harper/Jack Johnson producer JP Plunier on Tearing Sky, recording it in less than two weeks in Los Feliz, California. Plunier has a way of bringing out the details in his nuanced artists and his work with Faccini is no exception. He has the quiet, whispering, plate-shifting soul similar to that of Harper and Johnson and, like his contemporaries, he isn't afraid of rising to the occasion or opening up the experience to sounds from across the world, other rooms, galaxies. It's sometimes eerie, sometimes haunting and also consistent. An all-around standout that manages never to show off. "...uses just a few instruments and echoes of Celtic tunes to whisper of grand mysteries." - The NY Times"...the songs on Tearing Sky showcase worlds that he has truly inhabited: Southern California colors with rainy British folk, Malian Blues and tribal percussion that transcends (or predates) nations...he's starting to master the recipe." - Planet Magazine"If your ears love Ben Harper they will also love the sound of London-born vocalist Piers Faccini...Sheer musical bliss." - CBS-5, San Francisco, CAPiers Faccini Tearing Sky BiographyCall it a netherworld, a sweet spot. That’s where the songs composing Tearing Sky, the U.S. debut from Piers Faccini, rest, where they come alive—some sort of intangible middle ground that exists between English folk, the blues of the Mississippi Delta and the rhythms of North Africa.And if the songs sound as if they were culled from all over the musical map, well, then that would be appropriate, as the nomadic Faccini fancies himself and his music as very much a cultural and musical collage or hybrid drawn from the various races dotting his lineage, and years spent splitting time between London and Paris.Born in London, Faccini speaks four languages and considers himself a “mongrel” of sorts, one who has gypsy, Polish, English, Irish and Italian blood running through his veins—which he thanks for creating an open