Okay, so I'm having serious trouble reviewing this in a clever, quotable way so, as one of JoAnna's card carrying top 5 fans, let me just drop a tangent on you. I effing love this record. Jo and I have spent countless hours in Boston coffeehouses or sprawled across municipal lawns arguing the finer points of lyric writing, and in my awkwardly verbose nature we have traded hundreds of pages worth of emails on the subject, even if that quantity is weighted heavily in my favor. Tracks like "Closer To You" and "Shut Out The Lights" clearly demonstrate her intuitive storytelling, single lines filling out the scene like a deliberate pan across the room before settling on the action.

But lets get down to why I keep coming back to listen to JoAnna, and it's not because we're friends. Jo sings from the gut in a way that is almost unsettling for such an unassuming little girl. She's goofy, skinny as a rail, and can't weigh more than a buck o' five, but start her singing and she blows down houses like a hungry wolf. Yeah, she can ball you up on the floor when she sings:

I turn the key, make a wish, flip the switch
Is this all that there is, is this it?
And I slide down the apartment door
I'm alone. Nothing to go home for any more.

But she doesn't need the power of a strong lyric to empty your last box of kleenex. Wait till she hit's the chorus in "Christina" and just repeats that name over and over again. I even knew what was coming on this song, I probably read down 10 drafts of it as she filled a small collection of notebooks trying to finish it, but I still wasn't prepared for the impact the first time I finally heard it. Even on the 20th listen it's still leveling. When she hits that first B in the chorus and lets it drag just a moment before breaking into vibrato, you can hear the microphone begging to redline, you can hear the dimensions of the room, and you can hear the frustrated cry of a woman who has entirely let go.

Order the EP, the poster, and other goodies online from JoAnna's Myspace.

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.

Long awaited Bad Habits EP release!!

My good friend JoAnna Lynne plays at The Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach, VA tonight to celebrate the release of her debut EP Bad Habits. For everybody on the inside, this has been a long time coming. I watched a lot of these songs take form through the endless drafts she emailed me and our friend Justine for revisions, and I can't tell you how excited I am to finally hear them coming out of my stereo. Jo is one of my favorite singers and I don't think you'll get deep into these 5 tracks before she tops your list as well.

Stay tuned for a forthcoming review which I'm finding difficult to write because it's about my friend (you should have seen how long it took me to write the bio for her upcoming website) and also online ordering information for all of us not lucky enough to live on the beach.

Check out the third name on the second line. It reads, "MUSIC BY PAKK HUI." Pakk happens to be one of the first people I met during my first semester at Berklee. He's in LA now persuing a career in Film Scoring, and this month a short he scored, Illegal, was featured at the Tribeca Film Festival (scroll down.) Check out a brief example of his work in the trailer, or hear full clips on his website and myspace pages.

My good friend Kenny is on VH1! Check out the dreaded-out black guy playing keys. His brother Tony shows up at the end in a red track jacket. Look for Nya Jade on tour to see Kenny playing.

If the youtube link is down, try VH1.