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“A local singer-songwriter with a unique vision is extremely rare these days. That’s what makes Mark David Ashworth’s debut a thrill. ”
“Viceroy comes across as a warped travelogue that envelopes the listener with its eccentricities.”
-Austin Chronicle
“consistently enchanting and beautiful”
-Gorilla vs. Bear
“a road map, a notebook of an impressionist in mocking who wanders through the city, who rests on the terraces of cafés, who stops under porches, climbs to gazebos, visits chapels, and stretches out in the gardens.”
-Le Blogotheque
“Ashworth has an anthropologist’s ear, and rather than dictate or impose an understanding of the world, he lets it unfold naturally within his songs. “
-Austin Sound
(photo by Michael Kohr – click for larger version)
Over the years, singer/songwriter Mark David Ashworth has developed a highly personal musical style – incorporating a love of things as diverse as nick drake sytle british folk, spanish and latin american cantautores, pink floyd psychedelia, contemporary classical music, Townes Van Zandt, and the protestant hymns and choral music of his youth. His recordings are a painstaking process of creating something sui generis out of a lifetime of influences and observations, always at the service of his gentle, poetic compositions. He started writing and recording songs in junior high and high school in Dallas. Then, after earning a degree in Anthropology and playing in several bands in Austin, he decided to venture off on his own and work under his own name. He traveled throughout Latin America and recorded his first album there (mostly in Mexico City). That album, Viceroy, was released in 2007 on Autobus, the record label he cofounded with his cohorts in Austin. After moving to San Francisco on a whim, he found the ideal collaborator in bassist/arranger/orchestra teacher Tristan Arnold. They spent a year and a half recording in between Ashworth’s mission district apartment and a middle school orchestra space just north of the Golden Gate bridge. The result of these recordings is Mark David’s second album, a thickly orchestrated affair that will be released this fall on Autobus.
contact: markdavidashworth@gmail.com