Emily Wells

Really interesting amalgam of folk, country, classical, R&B and blues from Emily Wells, reviewed today at Blurt
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Emily Wells
Mama
(Partisan)

Emily Wells sings in a cracked country-blues soprano, with the natural swing rhythm of an old jazz hand, the flexibly-pitched emotional heft of a Karen Dalton or Nina Simone. She plays violin, too, quite well, and in a variety of ways, like the classically trained, Suzuki-schooled musician she is. And she builds beats and synthetic arrangements that pop and slink and shuffle, sounding very much like the kind of person who might collaborate with, say, Dan the Automator. (She has done this, too.) She is good at all these things and, even more important, manages to bring them together in a coherent, wholly original way, so that you hardly see the edges. You also don't worry much, while you're listening, about whether this hybrid makes sense.

More

Emily Wells

Emily Wells has one of those fascinating, cracked voices, pitched somewhere between country and blues, mostly grounded but with this crazy, otherworldly upper register, not angelic or witchy or any of the usual adjectives, but absolutely skewed from conventional reality. She's also a very accomplished violin player and, here's the kicker, has a real interest in electronic music (she's working with Dan the Automator on her next project). All of which means that her new album Mama is extremely hard to pin down, with its gap-toothed, country-girl vocals, its sleek, classically tinged strings and its eerie electro-beats and tone-washes. It's out on Partisan (also the home of Deertick and the Avett Brothers), and there's certainly some traditional music in there, but shot through time from the past to the future without ever really touching down on the present. I like it a lot.

You can check out Passenger" if you want a taste.