11 Songs - Liz Pappademas

If you were introduced to Joni Mitchell chronologically, or if you were lucky enough to have lived during the anticipation of each of her releases, then you are aware of the moment when you were listening to Ladies of the Canyon that it suddenly became clear Joni was not just a "good" songwriter. That in fact something special was happening. It only took her one album to answer those promises with Blue. I first heard that promise in Liz Pappademas (2) a couple years back, when I picked up a copy of her first EP 5 Songs From Laurel Street, after a professor we shared in school introduced us.

I recall sitting at dinner that night and our professor asking her if she had found a solid group of writers in town. She responded that no one was as technical. Ultimately, that is a word I may have chosen in an attempt to describe her skill. Liz can write lines I would have deemed unsingable and turn them like Dylan Thomas. In "Neighbor Boy" from the aforementioned EP she sings a line that still levels me every time it curls out of my stereo, "where did you come from/where did you come from/the tree in your yard/its roots in my basement/breaking up my foundation."

Since her last effort with trio Hurts to Purr (2), Liz has systematically been stripping the excess from her music. At times this even includes discarding rhythm, or functional harmony, or both to properly accent phrases. Some of it disturbing, often clever, and occasionally reminiscent of the young childhood Liz seems to spend so much creative time reliving.

The sparse appointments of her new record, 11 songs, provide a window into the unique space she has built around herself. Almost an intrusion into her life at times, this is her Nebraska, or her New York Tendaberry. The program is uncompromising, and emotionally engulfing. Going back to Joni, Blue has always been a record that demanded no less than 3 full listens before it can conceivably come out of my stereo, and in the past several weeks since I pulled the shrink wrap off of 11 songs, the Joni standard is one I am finding once again applies to Liz as well.