Alum Partners with Red Cross to Release Benefit Album for Japan

To help sustain awareness of the recent devastation in Japan and raise money for relief efforts, From the Top alum and violist Lauren Chipman and her band The Rentals have teamed up with the Red Cross Los Angeles Region and Ernest Jenning Record Co. to release ‘Resilience,’ an album featuring 18 orchestral compositions that will be available on May 3. All profits from the sale of this album will go directly to the disaster relief efforts in Japan.

Lauren told us, “I wrote, performed and produced all of the music on the record along with Matt Sharp and am very proud of every second of music that we made.”

Lauren on From The Top at in Granville, Ohio, November 2009. (Photo by Timothy E. Black)

“Resilience’ will be available for purchase through iTunes or as a CD or a 180 gram vinyl record. You can pre-order it now on the band’s official website.

Lauren shared some additional information with us about this special album:

The album was originally recorded as part of Songs About Time, a photography, film, and music project that brought together a large group of accomplished artists who devoted themselves for 365 continuous days to create what the Germans call Gesamtkunstwerk—a total work of art. Originally titled Tokyo Blues, the album is a collection of eighteen original scores that were composed for the films of Songs About Time.

The original title of the album was inspired by Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s fifth novel, ‘Norwegian Wood’, which was re-titled ‘Tokio Blues’ for the Spanish translation. And now, appropriately enough, what was once Tokyo Blues has become Resilience.

The change of title is appropriate in more ways than one: The music collected has a touch of melancholy but ultimately, when one listens attentively, it expresses hope and a quiet countenance. With its orchestral gestures, delicate piano and poetic interludes, the music paints a fitting tribute to the character and resilience of the Japanese people.

Guests contributors on the album include Portuguese actress Dalila Carmo, Nikolai Fraiture of The Strokes, Rodrigo Amarante of Little Joy/Los Hermanos, French musician Emilie Simon, Gorka Urbizu of Berri Txarrak, and renowned violinist Danielle Belen.