EPK
SHORT BIO
If you’re hellbent on breaking big you probably shouldn’t call your band Please Don’t Tell. After all, the name itself is hiding something and, further still, practically begging all of us to keep whatever it is to ourselves. But like all good secrets, Please Don’t Tell harbors a truth worth revealing to the world.
A trio of players with mixed musical backgrounds including classical, goth, and bluegrass, among others. These musicians have played venues that range from punk houses to The Kennedy Center. Please Don’t Tell just finished their first professional recording at Fatback Sound in Nashville, TN with Gabe Rabben (Bill Medley, Ira Raibon) and Sam Wilson (Sons of Bill, Emmylou Harris). The EP is comprised of 6 songs and set to be released in 2024.
Vocals and Piano: Christina Fleming
Cello and vocals: Nicole Rimel
Violin and vocals: Anna Hennessy
FULL BIO
Vocals and Piano: Christina Fleming
Cello and vocals: Nicole Rimel
Violin and vocals: Anna Hennessy
If you’re hellbent on breaking big you probably shouldn’t call your band Please Don’t Tell. After all, the name itself is hiding something and, further still, practically begging all of us to keep whatever it is to ourselves.
But like all good secrets, Please Don’t Tell harbors a truth worth revealing to the world.
Brainchild of songwriter, lead vocalist, and pianist Christina Fleming, Please Don’t Tell operated as a duo for years with Nicole Rimel accompanying her on cello and backing vocals; emerging from the pandemic in 2021 for a one-off show joined by violinist and vocalist Anna Hennessy, the three-piece idea stayed put. The Charlottesville, VA-based trio offer an intriguing, off-kilter mix of bedtime anxieties, folk witchery, and parlor naughtiness from an unnatural concoction of acoustic instrumentation. Yet despite all the old time-y bugaboos creeping under the melodic buoyancy of their songs, there’s nothing particularly retro about the music other than the fact that it could very well have been reproduced centuries earlier—and with nary a missed note.
What the music lacks in drums, it usually makes up for in Fleming’s percussive piano and her high-ceilinged operatic vocal delivery. When taken together, the sound of the three ladies and their varied influences peers down from the rafters in the menacing shapes of classical and choral strains, decades of goth club exposure, and the unshakeable shadow of bluegrass mountain sounds seeping in from their Central Virginia locale. In discovering that they are veteran performers of squalid punk holes and, well, The Kennedy Center, shouldn’t shock anyone paying attention.
Lyrically, the compositions waver between recounting the difficult stories of extraordinary women and more personal meditations, often dredging up the kind of painful punchlines only found buried in hardship, while others forgo any comic defense and let the heartbreaking realities of Fleming’s reflections on our dire existence hit the listener full on in the face. But more often than not, bleak misery comes with a knowing wink of contemporary black humor pointedly aimed to take down abusive husbands and skewer psychiatric conundrums of our contemporary world alike.
Placating the longstanding rage of their desperate fans who have waited for any semblance of a release, Please Don’t Tell are finally delivering. Having wrapped their first professional recording at Fatback Sound in Nashville, TN with Gabe Rabben (Bill Medley, Ira Raibon) and Sam Wilson (Sons of Bill, Emmylou Harris) at the controls, the debut, six-song EP is set for release in 2024. We can only hope and expect that whatever they have committed to unleashing will carry forth a haunting half-dozen dark ditties bursting with the irrepressible skeletons they’ve managed to push back into their musical closets for so long.
They can plead, but they know all too well: we’re going to tell. We’re going to tell everybody about them.
– CM Gorey
PRESS PHOTOS
Photography by Tristan Williams
Nestled in the quaint embrace of Charlottesville, VA, this trio’s repertoire, a whimsical blend of nocturnal worries, folkloric charm, and the kind of mischief one might expect in a dimly lit Victorian parlour, emerges from an unlikely medley of acoustic instruments. And yet, for all the spectral echoes of yesteryear that dance beneath their tunes, there’s a timeless quality to their music, suggesting it might have effortlessly found its place in the annals of history, serenading an era that never knew it needed them, without so much as a discordant whisper.
THE SPIRIT BALL
A record release party meant to raise the spirits
of the living and dead alike. With Charming Disaster,
Nouveau Vintage plus DJ Cadybug
THE SOUTHERN CAFE & MUSIC HALL
DURTY NELLY’S PUB
Our first time at this legendary venue in Charlottesville, Va.
Join us for a delightful evening as we open for The Prabir Trio, a
Richmond based rock band that blurs the boundaries between
American rock and roll and Indian traditions.
FRIDAY MARCH 29
DURTY NELLY’S PUB
RAPUNZELS
Opening for the magical all female Shenandoah Valley group
The Hot Mama’s in one of central Virginia’s longest standing
music venues.
THE SUMMER SERIES
Dark Dreama Productions presents: The Summer Series Showcase.
With Severed Skies and The Visionary. Dark clothing designers, vendors, and dancing.
THE SHIPYARD
With Boy Meets Pearl (your victorian music hall, dream pop daddy,
a queer fronted sea shanty crooning ensemble of uniquely curated instrumentation.
Ciders from Mars
At Ciders from Mars, a unique and thoughtful Cider brewery in Stanton, Va.
Guaranteed to be a spooky forward event with The Hot Mama’s close harmonies
and thoughtful song weaving and Please Don’t Tell bringing the dark whimsy.
epk
SHORT BIO
If you’re hellbent on breaking big you probably shouldn’t call your band Please Don’t Tell. After all, the name itself is hiding something and, further still, practically begging all of us to keep whatever it is to ourselves. But like all good secrets, Please Don’t Tell harbors a truth worth revealing to the world.
A trio of players with mixed musical backgrounds including classical, goth, and bluegrass, among others. These musicians have played venues that range from punk houses to The Kennedy Center. Please Don’t Tell just finished their first professional recording at Fatback Sound in Nashville, TN with Gabe Rabben (Bill Medley, Ira Raibon) and Sam Wilson (Sons of Bill, Emmylou Harris). The EP is comprised of 6 songs and set to be released in 2024.
Vocals and Piano: Christina Fleming
Cello and vocals: Nicole Rimel
Violin and vocals: Anna Hennessy
FULL BIO
Vocals and Piano: Christina Fleming
Cello and vocals: Nicole Rimel
Violin and vocals: Anna Hennessy
If you’re hellbent on breaking big you probably shouldn’t call your band Please Don’t Tell. After all, the name itself is hiding something and, further still, practically begging all of us to keep whatever it is to ourselves.
But like all good secrets, Please Don’t Tell harbors a truth worth revealing to the world.
Brainchild of songwriter, lead vocalist, and pianist Christina Fleming, Please Don’t Tell operated as a duo for years with Nicole Rimel accompanying her on cello and backing vocals; emerging from the pandemic in 2021 for a one-off show joined by violinist and vocalist Anna Hennessy, the three-piece idea stayed put. The Charlottesville, VA-based trio offer an intriguing, off-kilter mix of bedtime anxieties, folk witchery, and parlor naughtiness from an unnatural concoction of acoustic instrumentation. Yet despite all the old time-y bugaboos creeping under the melodic buoyancy of their songs, there’s nothing particularly retro about the music other than the fact that it could very well have been reproduced centuries earlier—and with nary a missed note.
What the music lacks in drums, it usually makes up for in Fleming’s percussive piano and her high-ceilinged operatic vocal delivery. When taken together, the sound of the three ladies and their varied influences peers down from the rafters in the menacing shapes of classical and choral strains, decades of goth club exposure, and the unshakeable shadow of bluegrass mountain sounds seeping in from their Central Virginia locale. In discovering that they are veteran performers of squalid punk holes and, well, The Kennedy Center, shouldn’t shock anyone paying attention.
Lyrically, the compositions waver between recounting the difficult stories of extraordinary women and more personal meditations, often dredging up the kind of painful punchlines only found buried in hardship, while others forgo any comic defense and let the heartbreaking realities of Fleming’s reflections on our dire existence hit the listener full on in the face. But more often than not, bleak misery comes with a knowing wink of contemporary black humor pointedly aimed to take down abusive husbands and skewer psychiatric conundrums of our contemporary world alike.
Placating the longstanding rage of their desperate fans who have waited for any semblance of a release, Please Don’t Tell are finally delivering. Having wrapped their first professional recording at Fatback Sound in Nashville, TN with Gabe Rabben (Bill Medley, Ira Raibon) and Sam Wilson (Sons of Bill, Emmylou Harris) at the controls, the debut, six-song EP is set for release in 2024. We can only hope and expect that whatever they have committed to unleashing will carry forth a haunting half-dozen dark ditties bursting with the irrepressible skeletons they’ve managed to push back into their musical closets for so long.
They can plead, but they know all too well: we’re going to tell. We’re going to tell everybody about them.
– CM Gorey
PRESS PHOTOS
Nestled in the quaint embrace of Charlottesville, VA, this trio’s repertoire, a whimsical blend of nocturnal worries, folkloric charm, and the kind of mischief one might expect in a dimly lit Victorian parlour, emerges from an unlikely medley of acoustic instruments. And yet, for all the spectral echoes of yesteryear that dance beneath their tunes, there’s a timeless quality to their music, suggesting it might have effortlessly found its place in the annals of history, serenading an era that never knew it needed them, without so much as a discordant whisper.
SHOWS
THE SPIRIT BALL
A record release party meant to raise the spirits of the living and dead alike. with Charming Disaster, Nouveau Vintage plus DJ Cadybug
THE SOUTHERN CAFE & MUSIC HALL
DURTY NELLY’S PUB
Our first time at this legendary venue in Charlottesville, Va. Join us for a delightful evening as we open for The Prabir Trio a Richmond based rock band that blurs the boundaries between American rock and roll and Indian traditions.
FRIDAY MARCH 29
DURTY NELLY’S PUB
RAPUNZELS
Opening for the magical all female Shenandoah Valley group The Hot Mama’s in one of central Virginia’s longest standing music venues.
THE SUMMER SERIES
Dark Dreama Productions presents: The Summer Series Showcase. With Severed Skies and The Visionary. Dark clothing designers, vendors, and dancing.
FOREST RECREATION CENTER
THE SHIPYARD
With Boy Meets Pearl (your victorian music hall, dream pop daddy), a queer fronted sea shanty crooning ensemble of uniquely curated instrumentation.
Ciders from mars brewery
Guaranteed to be a spooky forward event with The Hot Mama’s close harmonies and thoughtful song weaving and Please Don’t Tell bringing the dark whimsy.
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 09
ciders from mars