Almost two years ago now (!!) I posted the brilliant pop album from 2001 by aspiring pop starlet Stella Soleil aka Stella Katsoudas. Unfortunately, her solo attempt at mainstream pop stardom never caught on despite great songs. I kept forgetting, until now, to post her debut musical foray as part of group (though really it was mostly her baby) Sister Soleil. According to legend, the Chicago native recorded a 7 track demo EP, and after getting no reaction from labels, created her own label Katharis and acted as her own A&R rep, eventually releasing the EP as Drown Me In You. Universal Records were impressed and signed her, re-recording some tracks from Drown Me In You and releasing them as part of a full album. She got a band together and though they had some underground success, they failed to catch on. As I mentioned previously, the music was very rock-oriented, with large doses of techno and industrial, reminiscent of Garbage or previous Isle postees like Transister. It was even less accessible than those groups, IMO, and remained an acquired taste, with the singles "Torch", "Blind" (which utilizes vocal "inspiration" from Peter Gabriel) and "Butterfly" relegated to late night alt-rock radio. Stella took some time off to reassess her career and 'Stella Soleil' was born a couple years later. After the failure of the Stella Soleil project, she made some guest vocal appearances and formed the rock group Whorse in 2002. They released one self-titled album in 2003 and then split. Eventually Stella reclaimed the name and sound of Sister Soleil. A few demos as Sister Soleil and an EP as Stella Soleil later appeared but that project once again ended when she formed an experimental rock group with Slipknot percussionist Shawn Crahan in 2009 called Dirty Little Rabbits, who released an album in 2009. But Stella was drawn back to the Sister Soleil project and they most recently independently released a mini-album in 2011 entitled Eskimo, focusing on a more accessible sound. Check out the first video for "Water".UPDATE: I just found a link to Dirty Little Rabbits' debut album! It's a very strange trip indeed! Go HERE.
Video for Torch
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| 1 | Feel My Love | |
| 2 | Red | |
| 3 | HB's Dream In Red | |
| 4 | Torch | |
| 5 | Chair | |
| 6 | Stella's Obsession With Satie | |
| 7 | AOL | |
| 8 | Dial Up | |
| 9 | Hit Me | |
| 10 | Little Girl | |
| 11 | Blind | |
| 12 | "Alright" | |
| 13 | Liar | |
| 14 | Strength | |
| 15 | Lounge Lizard | |
| 16 | Jacquie And The Bob-Elvis | |
| 17 | Butterfly |
I love this album to death! I had her independent release prior to this but stupidly sold it on ebay years ago. I remember being give a free promo of the video for Torch at a record store, after some 'substances' were consumed (hey it was the late 90s and we were in college...lol) we watched the trippy video (pun intended) and were all in awe. Immediately bought the CD. It's great, especially "Red" and a constant fave of mine and my roomates was "AOL", "I got your little message on AOL..."
ReplyDeleteAny chance of re-uploading this? All the links seem to be dead.
ReplyDeleteThe Megaupload link still works. ;)
ReplyDeletewhat a wonderful site you've created...so many musical memories!!!
ReplyDeletei have another cd by Stella Soleil titled Dirty Little Secret that i'm pretty impressed with...keep up the good work
Thank you! Glad you like it. And I have Dirty Little Secret featured on here as well. ;) Love it!
ReplyDeleteThis was great! Then she sold out and ditched her band and tried to compete with Britney Spears and failed. Hahahahaha.
ReplyDeleteSister Soleil is horrible.
ReplyDeleteId love a link to get a copy of this please, Loved dirty little rabbits and i read corey taylor does a track on thi s too.
ReplyDeleteThe link still works. Just wait for the links to load at the bottom and choose one. ;)
DeleteMany of her albums (including this one) appear to be available via Sirona-Record (http://www.sirona-records.com/download-list.html)
ReplyDeleteReup?
ReplyDelete