Shannon Stephens

I may be the only writer in the blogosphere to have covered all three of Shannon Stephens' albums, but what the hell, it's good stuff, if wildly underheard and underappreciated...Anyway, #3 reviewed at Blurt yesterday.

Shannon Stephens
Pull It Together
(Asthmatic Kitty

Shannon Stephens' third full-length is a rougher, harder-rocking affair than either 2008's Breadwinner or the reissued debut. Stephens puts a survivor's swagger into her jazzy, sinuous soprano, swallowing the bitterest stuff life can throw at her, and spitting it out in defiance. All but a few tracks smoulder with a blues-rocking heat, whether in boisterous, boot stomping style a la "Care of You" or in the minimalist thunder of "Wax and Feathers", Stephens' take on the Icarus myth. A couple of the slow ones - "Cold November" and "Responsible Too Long" - make you wonder what kind of torch singer Stephens might have turned into given half a chance, but for the most part, she's not here to mope and pine.

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Shannon Stephens

I’ve got a little review of Shannon Stephens first album up today at Blurt and, surprise surprise, I liked it a lot more than Pitchfork did.

Why?

You can start with Stephens' voice, pure at its core but smudged with shadows, as it veers off unexpectedly from breathy lyricism to darker, jazzier slides. She sounds young here, occasionally blunt and unfinished, but lovely. You can hear bits of Linda Perhacs' unearthly sun-splotched bluesiness in cuts like "So Gentle Your Arms" and "Welcome to NYC", traces of Lou Rhodes' gutsiness in "Panic." Stephens has a jazz singer's skill with dramatic swoops, lifting up or flying down in octave intervals and landing lightly, without effort. She sounds, most of the time, fresh and untouched, though her lyrics can be dark, even mordantly funny at times.

The rest of the review


“Catch the Morning Line”

Cool stuff I won’t be reviewing…

I’ve been listening to a big pile of CDs lately, most of them too late, too obscure or too popular to be reviewed…I seem to be off for the month at Dusted, so maybe I’ll just start posting about them here.

Volcano Choir, Unmap…Bon Iver was certainly the most popular record on my last year’s best list, and to be honest, I felt a little uncomfortable being on the same page with all those hipsters, no matter how lovely the record was. Here’s the cure, a new collaboration between Justin Vernon and the very avant Collections of Colonies of Bees. It has the same ghostly falsetto as Bon Iver, but a more open-ended and freeform instrumental structure…very beautiful and strange. It’s on Secretly Canadian, which is giving away this mp3 of “Island, IS”


The Reigning Sound, Love and Curses…another great one from Greg Cartwright, mixed with a lot more emphasis on the melody than Too Much Guitar…this guy is one of the best musicians working right now, and damn, I’m only halfway through the first time before I start to think about reshuffling my top 10. The turning point was “If I Can’t Come Back,” BTW. Here’s a preview video.



Shannon Stephens, The Breadwinner...really wonderful songwriter album by a long-time friend and former band-mate of Sufjan Stevens (where has he been, anyway?) Out next month on Asthmatic Kitty.

“In Summer in the Heat”