BOND

THE BIGGEST SELLING STRING QUARTET OF ALL TIME

BOND

RELEASE GREATEST HITS COLLECTION

~EXPLOSIVE: THE BEST OF BOND~

Featuring exclusive DVD content

Ever since they stunned the music world with their 2000 debut album Born, Bond have been defying convention and preconceptions. String quartets are not usually chased down the street by adoring fans or known to get high school boys to jump up and down manically at the front of their gigs - but then Bond are not exactly your regular strait-laced black clothed string quartet. To recap for the uninitiated: Haylie Ecker (first violin), Eos Chater (second violin), Tania Davis (viola) and Gay-Yee Westerhoff (cello) are classically trained musicians of distinction.

They set pulses racing with their look; and passions raging depending on what side of the musical divide you are on. Those unfettered by convention embrace their free-spirited approach to classical music. For the classical establishment it is a bit much.

Confusion over where they fit in was apparent from the off when Born went straight in at No. 1 in the UK Classical Chart. It was ejected one week later for its dance beats and not having supposedly enough classical content. That did not prevent the band being invited to open the Classical Brits in 2001 and 2003.

Bond’s first three albums - Born, Shine and Classified - garnered sales of over 3 million. In September 2004 after the release of Classified all three albums were in the Top 15 of the crossover chart in the States while in Australia, Classified was No 1 in the pop chart.

Now their best has been distilled into Explosive: The Best Of Bond including their hits Victory and Viva (Born), Fuego and Shine (Shine) and Explosive (Classified), plus three previously unreleased tracks. The disc also includes for the first time three Bond videos, a picture gallery, and all audio tracks in surround sound.

Born, Shine and Classified marked a journey of musical and self discovery for these virtuosi. At the core of Bond’s composition lies a love of their classical roots and all its different layers of meaning; the romanticism, the melodies, the drama, the sheer joy. This was reflected particularly in their live performances where Bond would sweep around the stage - they were mesmerising because you knew and felt they believed in what they were doing.

You could see their impact in the scale and type of audiences from the Royal Albert Hall to Sydney Opera House, from Hong Kong to Santiago, and record stores confirmed it; Bond were bringing in a new younger breed of listener who would not normally venture near classical music.

People were drawn by Bond’s high voltage sound fuelled by dance beats from hip-hop to salsa to chill-out. The public were intrigued and wanted to find out where this music came from. The band all have personal experience of fans telling them they were a gateway to taking up a musical instrument or to further explore classical music.

But it would be a mistake to think of Bond as just taking classical numbers and putting a beat behind them. Their forte is to take a classical theme and rework it with their own modern spin. It’s about making the music both relevant and alive, rather than bowing reverently to fusty museum pieces.

It helps that they are a visual feast. Their hyper-glamorous visual style is a natural extension of their personalities. Their look has inspired Issey Miyake to design a range of clothes around them. They have secured sponsorship deals from watchmaker Raymond Weill to American department store chain Marshall Fields. They have even had a cameo appearance playing themselves in the Bond spoof Johnny English with Rowan Atkinson.

Bond have performed in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and live from New York’s Times Square on Good Morning America. They have opened the Miss Universe beauty pageant in Panama City and performed at the opening of the Grand Prix in Australia.

In short, Bond are indisputably a global phenomenon.

Tracklist:

1. Victory
2. Explosive
3. Fuego
4. Viva
5. Shine
6. Wintersun
7. Scorchio
8. Duel
9. Gypsy Rhapsody
10. Caravan
11. Sugar Plum
12. Carmina

DVD contents:

1. Audio tracks in surround sound
2. Promo video - "Victory"
3. Promo video - "Fuego"
4. Promo video - "Explosive"
5. Picture gallery
6. Bond discography

Bondographies:

Haylie Ecker - Haylie Ecker from Perth, Western Australia, is first violin in Bond. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree with First Class Honours and a diploma in Advanced Solo Studies from London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She has played extensively around the world as soloist and continues her classical violin career in addition to playing with Bond.

Eos Chater - Eos Chater, second violin, earned an Honours degree from the Royal College of Music. She is from Cardiff, Wales. Before Bond, she founded and played in a string quartet dedicated to performing music by living composers. She also wrote string arrangements, and played with many pop groups including The Divine Comedy, Cocteau Twins, Lamb, and Julian Cope, as well as performing in music videos for Gabrielle and Mark Knopfler.

Tania Davis - Tania Davis is from Sydney, Australia, and plays viola in Bond. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree with First Class Honours from the Sydney Conservatorium and a Postgraduate Diploma in Performance with Distinction from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. She is also a violinist, and has worked professionally with orchestras including the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Symphony and London Symphony Orchestra.

Gay-Yee Westerhoff - Gay-Yee Westerhoff, from Yorkshire in England, is the quartet’s cellist and holds an Honours degree in Music from Trinity College of Music in London. Gay-Yee has performed with groups including Primal Scream, Spice Girls, Talvin Singh, Embrace, Sting, Bryan Adams and Barry Manilow.