Rie spent her time growing up in the theater. She began performing at a young age. Songwriting on the other hand started out as a way to please two of her imaginary friends, Wana and Bealy. Aside from being influenced by the music of Burt Bacharach, Ray Livingstone, Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore, catchy commercial jingles served as one of her biggest inspirations during childhood. With a strong desire to write more music, Rie started learning to play the guitar on her own. Upon learning the guitar, she was able to hone her songwriting skills to perfection.

Rie spent years learning the ropes “below the line,” and on the business side of entertainment. She also did modeling for big companies like IBM, Kodak, and AT&T. It wasn't until 2004 that Rie got a big break in her songwriting gig. It was that year when her friend Bob Hartry introduced Rie to a contact at ABC Studios. Since then Rie has been writing music for ABC/Disney, where a majority of her songs have seen airplay.

Whether performed by Rie herself or other vocalists, her lyrics and melodies have captivated a wide range of fans, from indie followers to loyal daytime viewers. Not only was she the voice of SOAPnet’s first original series General Hospital: Night Shift, but numerous placements on various networks for many other primetime shows (like Ghost Whisperer, Dirt, Law & Order, Samantha Who, Bionic Woman, and other various MTV, ABC & NBC shows) demonstrate the composer's eclectic range. Her first theme song made its debut August 26th 2009 as the CW Network launched Blonde Charity Mafia.

To maintain full control over the music that she puts out, Rie launched her own indie label called I Miss You Records. On this newly-minted label, she released her very first EP titled Glow (Produced by Bob Hartry) in January 2006. The EP was followed by a full-length album, On The 5th Floor, which is essentially a collection of songs she wrote for TV shows. In February 2007, Rie dropped 3 other bittersweet love songs into an iTunes only release, Falling In Love.

Early in 2009, Rie launched a project with Abandoned Pools’ Tommy Walter, called Oliver The Penguin. Oliver was an unexpected collaboration between the two that began during a writing session one afternoon in June ‘07. The first album, Button Pusher, was officially released in March 2009. Button Pusher contains songs that are more of the indie electro-pop genre, as opposed to Rie's dark yet poppy ballads.

This December 2009, Rie is about to launch her official "debut" album titled A Moment You Never Dreamed. Although On The 5th Floor was the first full-length Rie put out, A Moment You Never Dreamed consists of songs written with an album in mind. The new album promises to finally capture Rie's dark, moody, atmospheric tones and epic melodies.

KGRL is very proud to present our November 2009 Flower-Powered Artist, Rie Sinclair. Singer/songwriter Rie Sinclair, along with Allison Ash (on piano) and Noelle Crabtree (on cello), joined KGRL in the studio for an exclusive performance shot in high-definition video and audio. Check out our CD review of A Moment You Never Dreamed and marvel at the exquisite photos shot by our good friend Jeff Koga. There's also a comprehensive interview with Rie Sinclair, featuring Bryan Head as the interviewer, in video, audio, & transcribed form.

We're giving away 3 signed CDs of A Moment You Never Dreamed (The CDs might not ship until December). Just e-mail us at contests [at] kgrl.fm and tell us why you deserve to win. Don't forget that you can request a FREE copy of the FPA live session DVDs as well!

Maybe it's the years of writing catchy hooks and choruses for her TV songwriting gig that made Rie a master of writing elegant pop songs. The album's opening track, Neptune's Bed, certainly shows the strength of her songwriting skill – and not just in terms of the music but the lyric as well, with a dash of Greek mythology thrown in. The aaahs and pam-pams of the background vocals give it a bit of a classic retro feel that fits in perfectly with this track's gorgeous melody.

In A Moment You Never Dreamed, Rie offers a good variety of genres. A couple of the album highlights come in the form of "dreamy" and moody slow ballads. Sweet Violet is such a surprise with its slow-tempo, hazy-effect vocal stanzas, and church organ-like accompaniment that turns into an emotional stunner by the time its powerful chorus hits. The track Victoria slowly inched its way, and eventually borrowed deep, into our musical senses with its almost lo-fi groove and mesmerizing beats.

The heaviest-sounding rock track, Tell Me (The Way It Ends) is an instant favorite. I never actually pegged Rie Sinclair as a rocker but this track showed that there's more to her than just a balladeer. The gritty and aggressive guitar plus the slinky hook melody all point towards a solid rock song, sans Rie's delicate non-rock vocals.

For a seasoned balladeer like Rie, writing highly melodic songs comes as second nature. High Time is an epic-sounding track that is taken a notch higher with the blissful arrangement of the rhythm section. The bass, drums and especially the cello (doesn't it seem like every song with cello sounds great?) are perfectly blended into the mix and add a whole new dimension and class. Different Here is another ballad that sounds reminiscent of Rie's songs for television. It won't be a surprise if this track shows up in one of the TV shows you're watching.

It's not without misses though, as the album also possesses some weakness. Rock-tinged track Come December begins with a good intro and stanzas, but falls short on the promise when the chorus comes in. The electro-pop song Island Of Hope suffers the reverse, with its forgettable stanzas and memorable choruses, while the track Easy To Fail unfortunately failed to impress.

The folk-pop, acoustic guitar-driven title track A Moment You Never Dreamed closes the album. This track is perhaps the sweetest-sounding song on the record, aided by Rie's dreamy vocals. The subtle strumming of the electric guitar and playful bassline provide a counterpoint to the song's saccharine nature. The layered background vocals at the end of the song make for an exquisite final touch.

It's amazing to hear how polished many indie recordings have become nowadays. Rie Sinclair's A Moment You Never Dreamed is one of these, perhaps because Rie spared no expense in producing her official debut album. A Moment You Never Dreamed was mastered by three-time Grammy winner Gavin Lurssen, so it's not surprising that the record sounds well-polished. It also helps that a lot of the songs sparkle on their own. A Moment You Never Dreamed is Rie's biggest project to date and it certainly reflects on the amount of love and care that she put into it. If you're in the market for a classy and well-polished indie pop album, why don't you give Rie Sinclair's A Moment You Never Dreamed a try? We highly recommend it.

High Time
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Listen to Rie Sinclair' responses in High Quality MP3 Stream using the player below:




Transcription excerpt from the interview:

Bryan: What's your songwriting process like? Do you start with lyrics? Do you start with music? Do you play the guitar or play the piano, [or] all different ways?

Rie: I get a melody, melody and rhythm, and then kick out some sort of structure and then I don't know. The vibe dictates what it's about. Usually if I'm in the middle of writing something for TV, I'll kick out a bunch of different things at the same time. Earlier this year I was asked for a bunch of really really morbid stuff. Let me tell you, having your head in Morbidland for a very long time does not make a happy person. It's all about dwelling on the negative. It creates negativity. Luckily I didn't break anything. Right now I've been breaking lots of things, like my mug.


Bryan: How long did it take, from beginning to end, to finish this record?

Rie: Three years, sort of.

Bryan: That's not unusual, especially for an independent artist. It's not easy.

Rie: No. Actually, let's see. High Time was written in England a few years back, and I think that Tell Me (The Way It Ends) (sort of louder tunes) was written on somebody's couch, just hanging out with a bunch of other musicians. So everybody is in their own head-space anyway. The funny thing is, here I [was] writing that song and...I had just met my cousin Gwen at a Glasgow train station. I'm waiting for her and it's just sort of the flair of the moment. You think about—I just have a very big imagination—what if you were sort of starting a relationship with somebody and it just wasn't going to work out? Sometimes you know upon meeting them. Well this is cute and fun.

All of them were written in different spaces....I was staying with some friends in England for a while and they had this messy little tiny kids' room, and there was a piano. [There] was like a studio place that I was trying to rent out to go to just to work out songs on piano and it wasn't working out, and since I was staying for three months I asked them if they minded if I bought a piano. "Hey, do you mind if I get an upright?" But really, somebody was giving away their incredible full-sized upright for free. I just had to pay the moving costs which were £80 at the time.

Then we had this sort of northern-British piano tuner who was sort of an undiscovered comedian—chubby, rosy cheeks, slightly kooky character. He comes over and starts tuning the piano. The thing is so out-of-tune. He's like punching notes. He starts cracking up, and then he starts playing these crazy songs. They should be in key but they are completely out-of-key, and he starts making up words to them and laughing himself silly. I kid you not. And then telling jokes. I can't even think of anybody I can even compare this to. It was just the greatest scene on earth. It was like one of those Tarantino films. The comic relief in the middle is some crazy piano tuner, and maybe he's going to slice somebody's head off afterward, but in the moment he's just kooky and quirky and funny and cute, sort of. So anyway, there was this big piano in the kids' room and toys everywhere, so you're crawling over little bits, and I guess he found tonnes of little rat droppings inside the piano. He's like "This is why they wanted to get rid of it."

I brought a girlfriend over, Louise, who lived just down the road. She had the exact same piano in her house when she was little. It's some Russian name that you haven't even heard of. Isn't that funny?

Bryan: Yeah.

Rie: That's a really long story.

Bryan: It's a good story. So, in addition to your solo stuff and stuff you're writing for TV, you have a band called Oliver The Penguin.

Rie: Oh, yes.

Bryan: Tell us about that.

Rie: It's a band with Tommy Walter.

Bryan: Tommy walter from—

Rie: —Abandoned Pools.

Bryan: Yeah.

Rie: You were originally in that band.

Bryan: Oh, that's right. Yes.

Rie: Yes. That's funny. And you actually introduced us.

Bryan: I did, yeah.

Rie: At—

Bryan: —The Troubadour

Rie: One fine evening, on Ross's birthday. Ross [Golan] is in Tommy's other band called Glacier Hiking. But Oliver The Penguin started out kind of randomly. In fact Tommy and I would get together because I [had] hired him to mix some tunes for General Hospital that I was working on. This was before Night Shift was starting up.




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