Crystal Beth is what happens if you cross Frank Zappa, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, and Janice Joplin
Crystal Beth unleashes her first full-length studio record, PUSH THRU, a solo incarnation using wailing vocals, amplified clarinet, beat-boxing and electronics to weave a sonic universe all her own. The album will be released on Trey Gunn’s 7D Media on October 18, 2019. Beth has been described as “world music from an imaginary planet..quite compelling & magical” (Seattle Times), “a supremely versatile and virtuosic maverick” (The Stranger), and “one of the most fearless and innovative musicians in the city…” (Earshot Jazz). Known for crafting aural rituals that encompass industrial chants, alien disco breaks, heart gushings, and robot love songs, Crystal Beth redefines the possibilities of the voice and clarinet in tight experimental pop songs and undulating, cathartic noise cries. Crafting moments that ricochet between meditation and a full body purge, she is an electric, adrenaline inducing performer voted Seattle’s Best Classical Musician and nominated for NW Vocalist of the Year.
Rooted and defined by singing in her own syllabic language, Crystal Beth began in 2010 and she performs solo using loop pedals and delays, and a five-piece rock outfit (the Boom Boom Band) to craft and explore her idiosyncratic and distinctive original music. Seattle’s The Stranger magazine writes “You can find {Crystal Beth} fearlessly indulging her wildest creative inklings whenever she materializes in a musical forum…Crystal Beth & the Boom Boom Band falls somewhere between the grisly skronk-punk of Stickers and earthy freak-indie of tUnE-yArDs, but even fans of those left-of-center acts will be thrown for a loop. Wailing vocals not bound to any conventions but {her} own, paired with percussive ‘Bethnic chants,’ are set over freely drawn jazz figures and world-y rhythms.”
The music on this record is primal and visceral, sweet and expansive. It’s a completely solo work- recorded in 2 days of full live takes at Studio Litho with engineer Floyd Reitsma (Pearl Jam, Audioslave, Dave Matthews Band), mixed by Marcel Fernandez (Foo Fighters, ZZ Top, Molotov), and mastered by Michael Cozzi (Sky Cries Mary, Security Project, Bill Rieflin). With artwork by Mexican artist Ale De la Torre, Crystal Beth’s PUSH THRU is available on vinyl, CD, and digitally.
With the reflexes of a mongoose, Crystal Beth spins cathartic hardcore purge pop art punk – sweaty,
Crystal Beth has 20 years of professional international performances under her full name, Beth Fleenor, where she has been featured on recordings with polymaths including Wayne Horvitz, Jherek Bischoff, and Julie Slick, and includes performances with David Byrne, Terry Riley, Butch Morris, Bobby Previte, Trey Gunn, Robin Holcomb, Joshual Kohl/Degenerate Art Ensemble, Matana Roberts, Skerik, Tamar Kali, LaFrae Sci, Seattle Symphony, Wordless Music Orchestra, Samantha Boshnack, Led To Sea, Mirah, Soko, William O. Smith, Eyvind Kang, Malcom Goldstein, Jessika Kenney, Paris Hurley / Object As Subject, Timothy Young, John Tchicai, Gretta Harley, Mike Dillon, Briggan Krauss, Parenthetical Girls, Gino Yevdjevich/Kultur Shock, Amy Denio, and Shane Parish & Ryan Oslance / Ahleuchatistas – often doing upward of 170 shows a year in different genres.
Her work has been heard in 100,000 seat rock festivals, maximum-security prisons, and some of the most prestigious concert halls, museums, clubs and theaters in the world. Believing that “art is the discipline of being,” Fleenor uses sound to open the channels of communication between and within individuals and environments. Her work as been heard in live music, recordings, theater, performance art, installation, modern dance, and film. She believes that “an emphasis on creativity in a culture gives rise to creative solutions to social problems.”
Along with the straight-forward stamp of “excellent” from the New York Times, Fleenor has been called an “exceptional clarinetist” by the Seattle Times, and The Seattle Weekly writes, “If you’re getting tired of music that’s even remotely formulaic, Beth Fleenor is for you. Her experimental mixing of genres is powerful and refreshing.” Earshot Jazz has described her as “one of the most fearless and innovative musicians in the city…” and City Arts Magazine remarks “Beth Fleenor transcends labels – a multi-talented, creative force in Seattle.”
Crystal Beth began after Fleenor spent years collaborating with other musicians and artists, when she starting bursting at the seams with her own compositions. After years as a free improviser, Crystal Beth is Fleenor’s first project that focuses entirely on her original songs.
She speaks personally about the project, “I believe in the power of sound to clear the body and cleanse the soul. Music is a powerful tool as a listener and as a maker. It changes the state of things internally. I think we need a way to deal with ourselves so that we can better deal with each other….and when we have that, it leads us to a different way of conducting ourselves – a way of empathy, compassion, awareness, consideration, communication – a mutual respect of shared experience. We need focusing agents that help us process experiences – a way to make sense of it all – a way to get it to move through our bodies. Transcendent happiness, and deep tragedy, and everything in between, we need some kind of a ritual to catch up with ourselves in the present moment, to be able to move forward in a state of personal alignment. Crystal Beth is how I deal with myself, how I heal myself, how I Push Thru to the deepest parts of myself, and begin again every single day. My hope is that by sharing my most vulnerable self, perhaps it will offer a moment of the same catharsis and solace to others.”
RECORD RELEASE PARTY
Thursday, October 24 at Substation (Seattle)
Crystal Beth with special guest Alex Faide, Trey Gunn, RGK + the Alternative Facts, and Devils in Skirts
Fleenor holds a Bachelor of Music in Jazz and Classical Clarinet Performance from Cornish College of the Arts. Her work has been supported by Jack Straw Productions, 4Culture, Allied Arts, Artist Trust, the Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. Crystal Beth’s solo record PUSH THRU was brought to life through patrons on the Indiegogo platform. Born in Bristol TN/VA, she has been based in Seattle since 1998.
Here’s what the press have said about Beth Fleenor:
“Beth Fleenor transcends labels – a multi-talented, creative force in Seattle.” (City Arts Magazine)
“Crystal Beth creates her own sonic cult through stage thrashing her way through ‘cathartic hardcore purge pop,’ and wielding psychedelic clarinet melodies and bethnic chants.” (The Stranger )
“Crystal Beth – is an undeniable, unstoppable musical force, and one of Seattle’s treasures. She uses her voice and clarinet to channel strange, disturbing, and beautiful sounds into existence from beyond most of our imaginings. ….Beth’s chants and shrieks bypass the language centers of the brain and drill directly into the deepest, primal folds, beckoning you to surrender to sound, to find peace and clarity through a modicum of musical insanity.” (Ball of Wax)
“If you’re getting tired of music that’s even remotely formulaic, {Crystal Beth} is for you. Her experimental mixing of genres is powerful and refreshing.” (Seattle Weekly)
“…a supremely versatile and virtuosic maverick” (The Stranger)
“exceptional clarinetist” (Seattle Times)
“Crystal Beth & the Boom Boom Band are what happens when accomplished jazz musicians decide to take a reckless holiday in the rock realm…. a kind of artful, deranged rock that recalls the Dirty Three and the Geraldine Fibbers at their most agitated and, alternately, at their most lugubrious.” (The Stranger)
“one of the most fearless and innovative musicians in the city…” (Seattle’s Earshot Jazz)
“alternately buoyant and ponderous, transfixing and exceptional” (City Arts Magazine)
“….fare perhaps best described as world music from an imaginary planet….quite compelling and magical….” (Seattle Times)
AUDIENCE REFLECTIONS
“Some crazy combination of Bjork & Mike Patton, but with a voice truly her own.”
“Brian Eno meets the Beastie Boys in Mumbai and they have a spirited discussion about Alice Coltrane”
“Crystal Beth is what happens if you cross Frank Zappa, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, and Janice Joplin”
“Experimental primal scream punk meets world meets prog meets jazz meets the Dali Lama…and I’m not exaggerating…”.
To purchase:
https://crystalbeth7d.bandcamp.com/album/push-thru
For more information:
Web: www.crystalbethboom.com
Instagram: @crystalbethboom
Facebook Band: https://www.facebook.com/crystalbethboom/
Facebook Personal: https://www.facebook.com/beth.fleenor.3
Video links:
SOLO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl_U0KF3LzM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbbH1am8X8o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IuQAJ9BDCw
BAND
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsNwOWLRCe8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TC6XvnnsfU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_GKGPStYMY
INSTALLATION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNcph-F92VI
