Fonda
- The
Strange And The Familiar
See
the video for "Close To Home", directed by
Ted Raimi!!! 
Emily Cook: Vocals
David Klotz: Guitar, Vocals, Bass
David Newton: Guitar, Bass
Adam Flanders: Drums
Emily Cook (singer) moved from
London to Los Angeles in 1994 to work in the film industry.
A chance meeting with David Klotz (guitarist) on a movie
set led to the friendship that would soon form Fonda.
Sharing an adoration for vintage
keyboards and the technicolor musicals of French film director
Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), they started writing
the songs that would make up 1998's Music For Beginners
EP (Top Quality). It¹s breezy pop sensibility soon
captured the hearts of indie-pop fans across the country
as evidenced by selling nearly every copy of the EP within
months of its release.
David Newton, a long time friend
of the band and former member of Sire/Reprise artists The
Mighty Lemon Drops joined the band after producing their
debut album The Invisible Girl in the Fall of 1999.
With a host of close friends filling in on bass and drums,
Fonda self-released the album in November 1999. It was embraced
by college radio, peaking at #39 on CMJ¹s album charts.
Songs from The Invisible Girl would be released on
compilations in Japan and used in various films and TV shows
including Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
After a brief tour, Fonda started
work on their 2nd album entitled The Strange and The Familiar.
The band’s knowledge of the recording process as well
as their writing and arranging skills had clearly come a
long way. The Strange and The Familiar is a gorgeous
collision of melodic indie-pop and gracious dreampop sonics
punctuated by angelic female vocals and a wash of guitars.
The album covers a wide variety of sounds from the 60¹s
girl group inspired opener "Sun Keeps Shining On Me" to
the sparse melancholy beat of "Cape May." From
sweet jangly love songs ("Close To Home") to tales
about losing the one you love ("Dance in the Light"), The
Strange and The Familiar makes mundane life seem strangely
beautiful.
The
first single, "Summer
Land" is Fonda’s twisted love song to Los Angeles the
town Fonda love to hate. According to vocalist Emily Cook. "Summer
Land” is about getting away to that perfect place you
know doesn¹t really exist. It was born out of frustration
of living in Los Angeles, but we must have been having a
bad day because we do like it here…really!"
Filmmaker Ted
Raimi is making a video for Fonda¹s song "Close
To Home." The video will premiere on Fonda¹s
web site in February. www.fondamusic.com
"There must be something
to California, something in the air, in the sunshine or the
water, but it seems like no matter how much Britpop psychedelia
Fonda drapes over itself, there's still unmistakable traces
of the sun, the surf and the sea breeze in The Strange and
Familiar. Maybe the murk of London's overcast skies and ancient
architecture are necessary settings for producing by-the-numbers
psychedelic Britpop…" -Aversion.com
A message from Fonda:
Hi - this is Dave from the band Fonda to tell you about
our new Hidden Agenda album, "The Strange and The Familiar". It's the follow up to our
debut CD, "The Invisible Girl". We spent the latter half of last
year recording the album intermittently at our home studio. And since the last
CD, we've come along way with respect to knowledge of the recording process
as well as our writing and arranging skills. We were able to record the songs
as we had imagined them to be and are really proud of them!
"The Strange and the familiar" is 11 tracks of female/male vocal guitar-pop.
From the 60¹s girl group inspired opener "Sun Keeps Shining On Me" to
the wall-of-noise dreampop of "People and Stars", our album is layered
with all manner of guitars (electric, 12-string, jangly, acoustic, fuzzy) , hi-fi
sounding drums and lovely sweet vocals by our singer, Emily.
Though we draw lyrical inspiration from some of our favorite films & books,
we find a lot of things in mundane life to be strangely beautiful. Sad break-ups,
crush stories, relationships and loneliness all make for great pop songs!
hope you enjoy our new album.
-dave
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