Each track on Empire of Light is one take, one guitarist, no overdubbing. Julia Crowe is a unique American artist – a fingerstyle solo electric guitarist whose music conveys a highly evocative and otherworldly quality with a rock edge along with her ability to make a single Gibson sound like a symphonic legion of guitars.
Ms. Crowe's debut album, Smoke & Steel, has been featured on National Public Radio - searingly nasty blues, punkabilly, dazzling electronica and hauntingly ethereal melodies in a sonic memoir detailing Ms. Crowe’s evolution from a classical guitarist into an electric fingerstyle player original.
Empire of Light, her second release, offers a cinematic landscape of ten original new tracks, each delivering its own compelling and lyrical story painted with 6 strings. Ranging from the sinuous Middle Eastern melody of 'Topkapi Blue' to the spiraling vortex and flight pattern of 'Vaux's Swifts,' the album also features the spookhouse rock n' roll romp of 'Cattle Rancher's Haunted Mirror. '
‘Roses in October,’ reflects all the sweetness and discovery of unexpected blooms encountered from Glagow and all the way down to London.
'In a Dark Woods,' has the distinction of being named among the ‘Top 100 Picks of Both Youtube and Myspace’ by Musea blog writer Tom Hendricks.
'Moth,' recently featured on John Schaefer's New Sounds Program on WNYC/National Public Radio, conveys the whorling, illuminated skirts of the legendary Belle Epoque dancer, Loïe Fuller, who had served as a muse for both Toulouse Lautrec and Augustin Rodin.
'Sa-ni-a-kia' is Zuni language for 'the prayer that awakens the power of the hunter.'
'Ice Wing' reflects her childhood memory of exploring winter ice castles created by frozen waves along the shore of Lake Michigan with the water eddying below.
And the title track is a musical evocation of time and light named for Rene Magritte’s painting.
Dubbed a ‘Guitar Sorceress’ by Paul Barrosse, supervising producer of VH1’s Behind the Music series, Ms. Crowe was selected by Dusty Wright, the former editor of CREEM Magazine, to participate in a forthcoming film documentary by Kerry Shore on women electric guitarists, which includes interviews with Wanda Jackson and Jennifer Batten.
