From Mississippi Queen To Metal Princess, DEVON DE LONGPRE Is Screaming For Vengeance

MIAMI, FL – (APRIL 11, 2006 DMPR) – A muggy night in Miami. A bustling studio called Neon. A young singer with a grin that stretches from ear to ear. A producer who can not stop dancing.

This is songwriter/author/vocalist DEVON DE LONGPRE at work with producer/musician Sean Embry, adding the finishing touches to GHOSTS OF PRINCES IN TOWERS, an album that has excited them more than anything they’ve ever created before.

It’s a statement that sets the record straight at last, a work of art that goes where others have merely hinted.

In a brave but nonetheless triumphant attempt to establish herself as the rock singer she always was at heart, Devon has called upon her favorite artists and publicly embraced them. As she puts it herself, “I’m wearing my influences on my forehead.”

Shades of Zeppelin, shades of Jimi, shades of Janis, shades of AC/DC, Free, the Stones, Motorhead: there’s absolutely no doubt where this young lady is coming from and where she’s going to — these new songs, for all their powerful simplicity, their uncluttered attack, their immediate accessibility, simply scream to be played and heard live.

The outspoken vocalist is also quick to point out the importance of less obvious, but still vital influences that help make her, well, Devon De Delongpre: Julian Lennon, Randy California, and Johnny Thunders.

A DJ who came of age in the shadowy pre-Katrina world of New Orleans’ after-hours rave culture (a life she’s already chronicled in two books, THE BLURRED CRUSADE and BLEEDING HEART GRAFFITI), Devon initially recorded GHOSTS OF PRINCES IN TOWERS as a club friendly collection of trance/trip-hop tracks that showed a natural inclination toward accomplished and interesting rock, incorporating the most influential characteristics of Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties music.

But GHOSTS OF PRINCES IN TOWERS was not a realization in itself.

It was, in retrospect, more of a signpost, pointing to possibilities. The album displayed a sense of adventure and a searching spirit, an ability to utilize all sorts of diverse influences while creating something that was immediately the young artist’s own.

Ever the perfectionist, her dissatisfaction with the final result led the bloodied but unbowed singer to turn to the one person she felt understood both her voice and spirit – her boyfriend, musician Sean Embry.

Together and at great personal expense, the two quickly re-wrote and re-recorded the eleven GHOSTS cuts as pure, stripped-down Rock & Roll, with swirling synths eschewed in favor of a lean and metallic application of molten electric guitars, grinding bass lines, and booming drum tracks.

In some cases, the first take of a song, performed live in the studio, was chosen as the one to appear on the album.

Devon is suitably pleased with results, and gratified that the sound she’s always heard in her head has at last been captured on CD.

“Doing club music, my voice was buried in reverb and echo, and I would be tempted to sing to the effects, because it sounded so good. But I’m much happier to hear my voice up front and raw, with no overdubs.

“And I feel the same way about the music. Why have keyboards, when they just get in the way? Why have six guitar tracks, when one sounds more immediate? Everything feels so much better now. It’s less forced, more natural.”

Her voice broken from a spirited hippy shake to a soaring rock soprano, her once prim brunette locks now transformed into an unruly blonde mane, the rebellious singer has only one request:

Let’s have no more silly pseudo-intellectual talk of the “New Southern Gothic,” “Psychedelic Trance,” or “New Romanticism.”

Devon De Longpre sings Rock & Roll. With a vengeance.

You’ll see.

___________________

About Devon De Longpre’s GHOSTS OF PRINCES IN TOWERS:
Channeling Jimmy Page by way of Malcolm Young, Robert Plant by way of Bon Scott, GHOSTS OF PRINCES IN TOWERS deftly updates the classic fury of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC for the post-punk Warped Tour generation through the inspired writing and vocals of Devon De Longpre and the stellar production & musical skills of Sean Embry.
GHOSTS OF PRINCES IN TOWERS will be available late Fall, 2006. The first video and single, “The Love Reaction,” will be available for download later this Summer.
A rough version of the GHOSTS OF PRINCES IN TOWERS front CD cover is attached.