Carol Bui

Booking: booking AT carolbui DOT com
Label: corporate AT exohrecords.com, steve AT fiftyfourfortyorfight DOT com
In the three years since Carol Bui released her second record Everyone Wore White, the Tacoma, Washington resident developed two very intense hobbies: drums and Middle Eastern dance. Both of these new pursuits play a role on Bui’s upcoming third record Red Ship available 3/8/11 on Bui’s own Ex Oh Records. Led by the single “Mira: You’re Free With Me” to be released on November 16th, the material on Red Ship is a festive, fiery blend of celebratory Middle Eastern and North African percussion coupled with progressive pop melodic tendencies.
The single brims with the musicality that caused Pitchfork to call Bui’s previous album “.a punk-bred record where the guitar is loud but the tunes prevail” and My Old Kentucky Blog to proclaim it the completion of the rock trifecta that also includes Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyille and PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me. Bui sings, plays drums, guitar, an out-of-tune doumbek, and cabasa on the track. Her longtime collaborator, TJ Lipple of Aloha plays bass and Jason Merriman claps his hands zealously.
Where Lipple played most of the drums previously (in addition to his production contributions), Bui exercises her new habit on the singe and album, laying down the exotic back beat herself and conjuring a festive and joyful noise, written for movement and very much inspired by the seemingly disparate elements of Middle Eastern dance and post hardcore and punk rock.
The provocative content, lush production (once again by Lipple at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, VA), and unique arrangements demonstrate what Bui chooses to term “the primitive means of expressing joy.” She explains by asking, “What did people do to make music and express happiness back when there weren’t sophisticated instruments around? They hit things! And sang! And danced! This record is to invoke that spirit.”
Carol Bui has shared stages with Aloha, Joan As Policewoman, St. Vincent, The Rosebuds, Headlights, Monotonix, Maserati, Pattern Is Movement and many others. It is yet unknown what hobbies Bui might take up to influence her next album, but one thing is certain: no matter what, her listeners will reap the benefits of her muse.
Selected Press (visit carolbui.com for more)
Everyone Wore White
"Her fierce guitar, matched by cellist Jenny Petrow, creates soaring melodic hard rock with engrossing sincerity-- as Bob Mould has proven, you can't b.s. a cello. Credit Aloha's T. J. Lipple for the drum work and the stellar production, which translates her intensity to record without losing its beauty or nuance. In the tradition of her hometown of Washington, D.C., she's made a punk-bred record where the guitar is loud but the tunes prevail."
-Chris Dahlen, Pitchfork (Rating: 7.8)
"Thank you for Everyone Wore White (available Oct. 2 on 54o40' or Fight!), a record that manages to be culturally unique and universal, beautiful and harrowing, frequently within a single song.Thank you for taking the time to craft an entire album, one in which I find something new to like each time I play. Thank you for completing, along with Exile in Guyville and Rid of Me, a rock trifecta."
-Luftmensch, My Old Kentucky Blog
"Combining the lyrical weightiness with the spiky post-rock vibes of the music makes Everyone Wore White the sort of album one takes in slowly, over the course of a few close listens, rather than absorbing all at once. Those willing to take the time will be amply rewarded."
-Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
"On the new Everyone Wore White (54° 40' or Fight!), Carol Bui more than delivers on the promise of her self-released 2006 debut, This Is How I Recover."
-J. Niimi, Chicago Reader: Critic's Choice
"Everyone Wore White is a fine tuned post-punk album that appears to be about discovery. Discovery of one's self, discovery of the world around you and discovery of your place in that world. The more times you listen to each song the more you discover in the music and the lyrics. To me this is the record that the Evens have been searching to write. " - Jon Daley, Punknews.org
"a watercolor wash done in bright, saturated hues; multi-faceted, it is as much bluesy lament as it is pure pissed-off fury, as much catharsis as elegy."
-Andrea Feldman, Warped Reality Magazine
This is How I Recover
"This Is How I Recover is a remarkable album; it doesnt show promise, it delivers on it. Carol Bui deserves attention, and she wont be self-releasing her work for long."
-Whitney Strub, Popmatters
"It's smart and raucous, introspective and loud, and proof that the revolution's unofficial credo - i.e., women can indeed make sharp, intelligent, and universally appealing rock music without relying on the crutches of militant feminism - still lives on."
-Joon Kim, Delusions of Adequacy
".pure, unfiltered rock attitude and raw talent.Bui is the authoress of rock songs that live up to the potential of the genre, a dying art given her contemporaries.Thank you, Carol Bui, for making an album that demonstrates rock's essentials with beauty, personality, and wit."
-Andres Carrera, Upbeetmusic.com