First became aware of Company of Thieves when they made their television debut on Carson Daly's show earlier this year, when they performed "Oscar Wilde", and I was immediately fascinated by the explosive performance by singer
Genevieve Schatz.
Ordinary Riches is the debut album from Company of Thieves, an indie rock trio based in Chicago. Genevieve Schatz does the vocals, backed up by guitarist Marc Walloch and drummer Mike Ortiz. The most noticeable quality of this album is
that it doesn't sound like a debut offering. There's not a track where the trio doesn't sound like they're quite polished, and really have their act together. After listening to the album it's quite apparent that Company of Thieves is not the
stereotypical "girl singer with a backing band" type of group. The songs were all composed by Genevieve Schatz and Mark Walloch, and it's good to hear such good, originally material being performed so well.
According to the group's info, "Oscar Wilde," one of the the feature tracks on the album, was filmed at Sycamore Elementary School in Kokomo, IN in December 2008. There were 23 lighting setups in this Rushmore-inspired video, and it
was shot on Kodak Vision3 500T 16mm film using an Eclair ACL camera with 12mm and 14mm wide lenses. The footage was digitally transferred to uncompressed 10- bit format and edited using Final Cut Pro 6.
The liner has the following quote:
Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
~ Oscar Wilde
That sounds quite appropriate for this excellent debut re-release, and this listener must admit to be quite taken by Genevieve Schatz's amazing voice. I'll be following Company of Thieves to see what they come up with next. See the full review in my
journals.
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