| OFFICE
bio OFFICE’s debut album, A Night At The Ritz, has been five years in the making. What began as a one-man sculpture/visual art project in London years ago has become a full-fledged musical sensation. The brainchild of songwriter Scott Masson, OFFICE has blossomed into a creative collective of like-minded artists and musicians working together to create some of the most unique and exciting pop music in America today. While it was the uncanny (and extremely prolific) songwriting ability of OFFICE that first attracted Scratchie Records label co-founder and ex-Smashing Pumpkin James Iha to the Chicago band, it was the cohesive energy and genuine camaraderie of guitarist Tom Smith, bassist Alissa Noonan, drummer Erica Corniel, keyboard/hand percussionist Jessica Gonyea and vocalist / rhythm guitarist Masson that prompted the rock icon to offer the band a home on his label. Officially signing to Scratchie/New Line Records in October of 2006, OFFICE effectively put an exclamation point on a year that included a sold-out, month-long residency at historic Chicago venue Schubas in May, inclusion in the coveted “free download of the week” spot on iTunes that yielded over 300,000 downloads in June (busting into the Top 20!), a slot on the Q101 stage at Lollapalooza in August, and accolades in nearly every local publication, as well as nods from such national outlets as Billboard, Magnet and NPR to name a few. With A Night At the Ritz, the band shows no sign of slowing down. The project incorporates the very best of five years of recording with a host of freshly penned material. On the album, Masson muses, “This album has easily been the most grueling recording project I've ever been a part of, but also the most rewarding. It's not like this was setting up a band in the studio, and pressing the record button. There are tympanis, keyboards, concert percussion, electronic flourishes, broken machines, studio tricks, tape contraptions, choral vocals, and acoustic nuances. It was years of revision, reworking, rethinking, subtracting, adding, and re-recording until it got to where it is now.” He adds, “I feel like we live in completely surreal times, and this album is a reaction to that. There are lovely things, and dirty things happening behind every corner. The same idea can be applied to this music.” Taking a few weeks off from the confines of the studio to put their stamp on Austin, TX, OFFICE packed their second SXSW experience with six shows in four days, including sought-after performance slots at the FADER Fort, The NYLON House, Metro’s 25th Anniversary party and, of course, The Scratchie/New Line label showcase, where they put on one of the most talked about performances of the entire festival. Recorded in various apartments, bedrooms and recording studios, OFFICE put the finishing touches on A Night At The Ritz in May at Scratchie co-owners James Iha and Adam Schlesinger’s Stratosphere Studios in New York City. The album will be released this September with extensive touring to follow. press "Their confident blend of pop meets sweet sensibility partners up nicely in some seriously smart songs." -URB Magazine, 2007 Next 100 "Stuck on Repeat" Highlight -Idolator.com, July 2007 "Q&A is the best local release in a year filled with excellent local releases. The quartet's high-gloss, sexy alt-pop connects from the very first bars of the opening track and never lags for the duration of the 12-song disc.” -Chicago Reader "exuberant hooks…[and] crisply enjoyable rock…The white-collar world has rarely sounded so enticing.” -NPR's Song of the Day “A blast of electro-pop perfection” -Billboard "A jaunty collection of stuck-at-work daydream anthems and state-of-confusion pleas that fits in nicely between Nick Lowe and Nik Kershaw...pretty irresistible stuff." -Magnet "OFFICE delivers punchy, in-your-face guitar pop with no apologies...The year-end report looks good: they're going to be in the black for a long time to come." -Popmatters.com "[Masson's] music is fueled by the sunny, optimistic daydreaming of the temp worker who wishes he or she was anywhere else. It should be pumped over the Muzak systems of every company in the Loop." -Jim DeRogatis, Chicago Sun Times contacts listen OFFICE "Big Bang Jump" take me to: ARTIST MANAGEMENT | Hollywood Holt | L.D.W. DJs | Tigercity | Tom Schraeder |
