Gwyneth Herbert - All the Ghosts
Saturday, May 8, 2010 at 11:59AM 
British singer/songwriter Gwyneth Herbert posesses a remarkably tough and tender voice that has been called "bewitching" and "a knowing mix of honey, steel and gravel". Originally pegged primarily as a jazz vocalist for her 2004 debut album, Herbert left the standards far behind with her second album, 2007's Between Me and the Wardrobe, an inventive self-penned, self-released effort that with critical raves was eventually picked up by Blue Note for European distribution. She says simply, "I wanted to tell my own stories."
Latest album All The Ghosts, finally arriving June 8 in the U.S., grew out of songs recorded for a special on-line project commissioned by Peter Gabriel and recorded at his Real World studios last year. At turns whimsical, sentimental, dispassionately observational and practically oozing with emotion, Ghost's ten tracks are completely and unabashedly original utilizing a wide-ranging array of instrumentation, mood and atmosphere. British music hall piano romps are mixed alongside jawdropping balladry and modern, sometimes dissonant rhythmic backing that recall everything from Nina Simone to Kurt Weill to Regina Spektor to Annie Lennox. There's even a nearly straight-ahead jazz track "Some Days I Forget", a song that still manages to add Herbert's own idiosyncratic signature notes: an unexpectedly timeless voice, soul-baring lyrics and a goose-bump enducing personal delivery. It's THAT good. Highly recommended.
Gwyneth Herbert - "So Worn Out"
Gwyneth Herbert - "Some Days I Forget"
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Gwyneth Herbert will be performing at the Living Room New York on Thursday 17th June at 10 - 11pm
http://www.livingroomny.com/