Faithless

views updated May 21 2018

Faithless

Electronica group

For the Record

Selected discography

Sources

Faithless is unique among dance acts in excelling at both high-octane club tracks and fully-rounded, satisfying eclectic albums, according to Q magazine. The London-based trio has sold more than three million albumsincluding Reverence, Sunday 8pm, and Outrospective and four million singles worldwide with hits such as Salva Mea, Insomnia, God Is a Deejay, and We Come 1.

Sister Bliss, a classically trained pianist and the groups keyboardist, was born with the first name of Ayalah. She is hesitant to reveal her last name publicly for fear she could be stalked. Before joining Faithless she was deejaying at the London club Heaven and making demos on her synthesizer. Faithless deejay and rapper Maxi Jazz was born Maxwell Fraser in Brixton, England. He has been a clerical officer, hip-hop deejay, singer, and drummer. He has performed in numerous groups of varying genres, from soul, blues, funk, 1950s-style rock n roll, to the Soul Food Cafe Band, which landed a deal with the popular Acid Jazz record label in the early 1990s. He is a devout Buddhist who confessed to a passion for hugely powerful cars and automobile racing an interview with O. Maxi is a modern day preacher, Sister Bliss told the magazine. He tries to illuminate life and share what hes learned.

The groups producer, Rollo Armstrong, has admitted that he cant play an instrument, cant dance in time, and cant remember any melodies, according to the bands biography on the groups website. Q called him the musical genius who cant play or dance. Born Roland Armstrong, he is the brother of Dido, the popular British singer. (Dido has sung lead vocals on songs on all three Faithless albums, and Armstrong coproduced his sisters chart-topping solo record, No Angel.) Armstrong studied philosophy at York University and worked summers at the Why Not? bar on the Greek island of los. While traveling as a student, he negotiated a $30,000 advance from an Australian record company. The result was the 1992 dance hit Dont You Want Me, which he released under the name Felix. Maxi Jazz credits Armstrong with having an ear for hit songs. According to Maxi Jazz in O, Rollo has this genius of the common touch. If my boy likes it, you can pretty much guarantee that a lot more people will.

Ironically, Sister Bliss bought the Felix record before she ever met Armstrong, and returned it to the record store, unsatisfied with its sound. Naturally, she was reluctant when a mutual friend suggested she record a track at Rollos studio in 1993. Though she was frank with Armstong about her feelingsI told Rollo the Felix record was remedial, she recalled in QArmstrong liked her demo. Hers became the first record to be released on Armstrongs independent record label, Cheeky.

Faithless came together when the same friend introduced Maxi Jazz to Armstrong and Sister Bliss in 1995. They got along well and recorded their first single, Salva Mea, which was released to little fanfare later that year. Feeling definite chemistry between them, Armstrong wanted the group to record a full-length album; the result was Reverence, which took 17 days to complete and was released in 1997. The relationship between the three in the recording studio is telepathic, symbiotic, Sister Bliss said, according to the bands online biography. In Faithless theres a real sense of giving, she elaborated in Q. The album and its first single, Insomnia, were released on Armstrongs record label. Because there was no budget for marketing or promotion, neither the album nor the single received much notice until the Insomnia single was rereieased and became a top-five hit in England. Reverence ultimately sold more than one million copies and was R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipes album of the year.

Because funds were still lean, the trio took the grassroots approach to promoting themselvesthey packed up and hit the road to tour. So eager were the three to promote Reverence, the group literally took their music to any place that had shown an interest in the record, according to their online biography. They played the Arctic Circle, Puerto Rico, and under armed guard in Turkey, among many other exotic locales. The Reverence tour would be Armstrongs first and last with the group; for subsequent ventures and media appearances he elected to stay in his studio and let Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz be the public face of Faithless. After three years of nonstop touring and amid the breakups of each members romantic relationships, Faithless recorded its second album, Sunday 8pm.

For the Record

Members include Rollo Armstrong (born Roland Armstrong c. 1967), producer; Sister Bliss (born Ayalah), keyboards; Maxi Jazz (born Maxwell Fraser c. 1958 in Brixton, England), deejay, rapper.

Group formed, 1995; released Salva Mea, 1995; released Reverence, 1997; rereleased Insomnia, which became a top-five hit in England; toured to promote Reverence, 1997-99; released Sunday 8 pm, 1999; received nominations at the BRIT, MTV Europe, and Mercury Prize awards, 1999; toured for Sunday 8pm; released Outrospective, 2001.

Addresses: Office Faithless Live Limited, P.O. Box 17336, London, England NW54WP. WebsiteFaithless Official Website: http://www.faithless.co.uk.

Sunday 8pm created as wild a furor as Reverence had. It featured former Culture Club vocalist Boy George and sold more than 1.2 million copies worldwide. With the dance hits Bring My Family Back, Why Go?, and God Is a Deejay, Sunday 8pm established Faithless among the dance music elite, according to Q. The album received nominations at the BRIT, MTV Europe, and Mercury Prize awards in 1999. The use of the Faithless single If Lovin You Is Wrong on an ad campaign for British beer propelled the groups popularity even further.

After another rigorous performance schedule for Sunday 8pm, the trio spent 18 months apart, each pursuing his or her own interests. For Armstrong, that meant building a new recording studio and releasing a single, Always Remember to Respect and Honor Your Mother, and album, When We Were Young with keyboardist Mark Bates under the moniker Dusted. Maxi Jazz spent his time off racing cars. Sister Bliss released the dance singles Bad Man, Deliver Me, and Sister, Sister, and spent her time off from the group as a globetrotting deejay. She spun records in some of Americas biggest clubs, including New Yorks Twilo and Crobar in Chicago and Miami, as well as clubs in Southeast Asia, South Africa, and Brazil. Few women in dance music have risen to the ranks of Sister Bliss, fawned one critic in DMA magazine.

After a year and a half apart, the three were more than ready to enter the studio together again. Outrospective was written and recorded between the summer of 2000 and spring of 2001. Even before they had finished, Sister Bliss had high expectations for Outrospective. I want this next album to be a groundbreaking one. she said, according to the bands online biography. I want this to be the peak of our creative powers.

Outrospective hit big. DMA critic Sam LaBelle noted that Faithless was treading unfamiliar ground with Outrospective and that the result was an album of epic grandness. Sister Bliss stated as much in an interview with Mixmag : Bliss says the band will deliberately go out of their way not to repeat past successes by just following a Faithless formula; they will always try something different. Critic Steve Baltin called it a superb collection of genre-crossing grooves in the Los Angeles Times. Billboard critic Michael Paoletta called the album wickedly smart and steeped in lifes emotional depth charges. Said another way, its the human condition put to words and music.

Regardless of its intelligence or depth, the album was also danceable, including such tracks as Tarantula, Liontamer, Machines R Us, and One Step Too Far. It debuted at number four on the Music & Media European Top 100 chart, in the top ten on the charts in Norway, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Switzerland, and Finland, and climbed to number two in Hollandall in the same week. The albums anthemic first single, We Come 1, was already a dance hit in several parts of the world as it climbed the American Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. Its a juggernaut of a record, Sister Bliss told O about the single.

Selected discography

Reverence, Arista, 1996.

Sunday 8pm, Arista, 1998.

Testimony, Chapter I, BMG, 1999.

Back to Mine, Ultra, 2001.

Outrospective, Arista, 2001.

Reverence/Irreverence, Mushroom, 2001.

Sources

Periodicals

Billboard, July 14, 2001.

DMA, July 2001.

Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2001.

Mixmag, May 2001.

Q, July 2001.

Online

Faithless, All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (January 24, 2002).

Faithless Official Website, http://www.faithless.co.uk (January 24, 2002).

Additional materials were provided by the Arista Records publicity department, 2002.

Brenna Sanchez

Faithless

views updated May 29 2018

Faithless ★★★½ Trolosa 2000 (R)

Ullman again directs a Bergman screenplay about raw emotions and the pain of broken relationships. Evidently semi-autobiographical (it's set on Bergman's island home of Faro), an aging filmmaker (Josephson) in a spare office contemplates his newest screenplay when he's visited by an actress. This visitation is wholly in his mind, however, as Marianne (Endre) aids “Bergman” in writing about a painful affair in his past. Married to Markus (Hanzon), Marianne falls into an affair with close family friend David, who turns out to be the filmmaker in his younger days. The affair wreaks havoc on all three, while Marianne and David's daughter becomes a pawn. While the older filmmaker is thoughtful and even wistful, Bergman shows his younger, more reckless self little sympathy, while Ullman captures the director's languorous style. In Swedish with subtitles. 142m/C VHS, DVD . SW Lena Endre, Erland Josephson, Thomas Hanzon, Krister Henriksson, Philip Zanden, Marie Richardson, Michelle Gylemo, Juni Dahr, Therese Brunnander; D: Liv Ullmann; W: Ingmar Bergman; C: Jorgen Persson.

faithless

views updated May 09 2018

faith·less / ˈfā[unvoicedth]lis/ • adj. 1. disloyal, esp. to a spouse or partner; untrustworthy: her faithless lover.2. without religious faith.DERIVATIVES: faith·less·ly adv.faith·less·ness n.