New Ari Hest EP 'The Green Room Sessions,' Available Now on Columbia Records

Columbia Records has released The Green Room Sessions, the new five-song EP from singer-songwriter-performer Ari Hest.

The Green Room Sessions is a raw and intimate musical experience, written (with the exception of a striking cover of Fleetwood Mac's classic "Little Lies") and arranged by Ari. The album was produced, recorded and mixed by Ari on his laptop computer using Apple GarageBand software.

Tucked away in the green room of his Brooklyn, NY apartment this past summer, Ari played all the instruments -- including acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, keyboards, harmonica, and percussion -- and sang all the vocals on his new EP.

"It was very satisfying to record myself the way I wanted to, and ideal to do it in the place I was most comfortable," Ari says about the recording process behind The Green Room Sessions. "I tried to use anything that was lying around the apartment, an old drumhead that happened to be lying in a corner somewhere, a sea salt container, water noise from my pipes -- anything that sounded interesting -- to add to the basic tracks."

The Green Room Sessions provides a welcome first taste of the musical directions Ari is taking on his eagerly-awaited upcoming full-length album, The Break-In, recorded with producer Mitchell Froom (Elvis Costello, Ron Sexsmith, Bonnie Raitt) and slated for release in March 2007.

"I had just come back from California where I worked on my album with Mitchell," Ari says of the origins of The Green Room Sessions, "and that experience went so well that I just felt inspired to keep writing and recording."

Of the four new Ari Hest-penned songs premiered on The Green Room Sessions, two of them -- "So Slow" and "Just As Well" -- are EP versions of songs slated to appear on The Break-In while the other two -- "Upstairs" and "Them" -- are exclusive to this release.

The Green Room Sessions is Ari's first major label release since his critically-acclaimed 2004 full-length album, Someone To Tell and 2005's Guilty Hearts EP.

SOURCE: Columbia Records

CONTACT: Benny Tarantini of Columbia Records, +1-212-833-5858,
Benny.Tarantini@sonybmg.com

Web site: http://www.columbiarecords.com/
http://www.arihest.com/
http://www.myspace.com/arihest