Shirey mixes dry vocals with multi-instrumentalist stylings on his new album. Critic Milo Miles says A Bottle of Whiskey and a Handful of Bees is an original and engaging work.
Pop Matters
SXIP SHIREY FOUND RECENT SUCCESS WITH "WOMAN OF CONSTANT SORROW", AND NOW DISCUSSES ROBOTIC BELLS, THE PLEASURE OF COMPOSING FOR CIRCUSES, AND HIS NEW ALBUM A BOTTLE OF WHISKEY AND A HANDFUL OF BEES.
Billboard
Sxip Shirey says his upcoming album A Bottle Of Whiskey And A Handful Of Bees is "about searching for home and being placeless." And that's certainly true of "Woman Of Constant Sorrow," a rework of the early 20th century folk classic featuring Rhiannon Giddens.
Brooklyn Paper
Electro-acoustic composer Sxip Shirey may be best known for the cerebral and experimental side of his music, but most of his music has both a melody and a groove.
The High Regard Show
Episode 66 of the “High Regard Show,” “Sxip Shirey,” features an interview with composer, musician and true creative Renaissance man Sxip Shirey. Sxip will release his latest album, "A Bottle of Whiskey and a Handful of Bees" on Jan. 13.
He talks to us about bringing his many artistic worlds together for the album release show on Jan. 9 at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, who inspired him to make music using found objects and what downtime looks like for a creative who fires on all cylinders.
That Mag- Circus Life of the Sxip of All Trades
Sxip Shirey is a composer/producer and performer who is based out of Brooklyn, NYC. His diverse career includes creating music for circuses (Bindelstiff Family Circus, Anti-Gravity, LIMBO), playing in a gypsy/tango/klezmer punk band (Luminescent Orchestrii), writing for film (Neil Gaiman’s Statuesque, Douglass Keeve’s Hotel Gramercy Park, Stoya’s Graphic Depictions) and as a touring solo artist (including support act for Amanda Palmer and The Dresden Dolls).
Take Two NPR
An accomplished composer and performer on a number of things (multi-instrumentalist seems an insufficient term), the New Yorker has built a distinct log of credits from brash Amanda Palmer and her Dresden Dolls to the Boston Pops, with others including Reggie Watts, co-founding the Luminescent Orchetrii, composing for a short film by Neil Gaiman and a mini-opera for the English National Opera and "The Gauntlet," a choir performance in which the audience members walk between two rows of singers.
SF Classical Voice
Sxip Shirey has become a poster boy of this ultra-eclectic approach, and his freewheeling new recording, A Bottle of Whiskey and a Handful of Bees is something of a manifesto for it.