Zee Avi

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biography

The whimsical, jazzy singer/songwriter Izyan Allrahman, better known as Zee Avi, landed her first record deal thanks to the buzz generated by her YouTube channel. Avi was born in Borneo in 1986. She moved to Kuala Lumpur when she was 12 years old, and started playing the guitar when she was 17. After completing her studies in fashion design at the American InterContinental University in London, England, at the age of 21, she returned to Kuala Lumpur and started playing live gigs around town. When one of her friends couldn't attend one of her shows, Avi made a recording of the performance and posted it on YouTube. This marked the beginning of Avi's YouTube career; the video garnered some positive feedback, and Avi went on to post more and more videos. Singer/songwriter Kris Rowley stumbled across one of her videos soon after she started posting; Rowley took a liking to the videos, and in turn started posting Avi's clips on his YouTube channel. The buzz just kept growing over the course of the next year; by the time she posted the song "No Christmas for Me" on her channel (this was her self-proclaimed "last video" on YouTube), Avi found herself swamped with offers from interested record labels. Among these was an e-mail from Monotone Records' Ian Montone, who had discovered Avi's YouTube recordings by way of Patrick Keeler, drummer for the Raconteurs. Avi signed with Monotone Records/Brushfire before 2008 was out; her self-titled debut album was released on that label in the spring of 2009. ~ Margaret Reges, All Music Guide

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- - What??
  - - By Kenedy81
    - 1/1/0001 00:00:00
  - Just wrong to have a show on Tuesday midday while we all work.
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- - at this point, only 700 plays
  - - By acedotcom
    - 1/1/0001 00:00:00
  - Zee Avi came as a complete surprise to me. Normally "viral video" performers talents are highly dubious at best, Avi delivers in every way that most youtube sensations fail, providing more then just pop covers, her self titled debut delivers original content in a style that lie somewhere between Regina Spektor and Feist. All of the songs are carefully arranged, usually between the subtlty of her delicately strummed guitar and her hauntingly soothing voice. Her songs like "first of the gang to die" is hard to recognize as a ballad about gang violence except from the title, her guitar and vocals disguises the subject in a way that i haven't heard since the first time I heard "Pink Moon" by Nick Drake (oh yeah, i went there). Listening to the 30 second clip of "Zee Avi" isnt going to give her a fair shake...if you have a Zune Pass or are willing to drop some points, then you NEED to give this album a full listen. Honestly its the best album so far of 2009.
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