 SWEET SOUBRETTE "Siren Song" | 
Sweet Soubrette, joue du ukulele, mais pas dans le genre parfois un peu "cliché" qu'on entend trop, non elle écrit et chante ses propres compositions, dans la grande tradition du "songwriting".
Ce CD est son premier album, maturé tout au long d'une année riche de concerts à New York, durant lesquels elle a pu peaufiner textes et arrangements.
Ces derniers sont parfois remarquables, légers mais très prenants, rappelant un peu, même s'il n'est pas utile de la convoquer systématiquement, le travail de PJ Harvey, qui semble influencer beaucoup de monde (ou bien être l'icône d'une tendance très riche en parution et en qualité).
Sweet Soubrette appartient donc à la mouvance "néo folk" (?), qui mêle avec bonheur une certaine tradition avec un avant-gardisme de bon aloi. Le ukulele confère à ses chanson une couleur complémentaire et s'insère parfaitement dans le style.
Il s'agit ici pour l'instrument d'une réelle innovation, d'une ouverture vers de larges horizons. Tant mieux pour lui, pour nous et pour Sweet Soubrette, qui fera plus tard figure de pionnière.
Sweet Soubrette plays the ukulele, but she's no novelty act; this sultry songwriter sings about love (mainly the doomed kind) with wit, depth, and charm. With a sound that brings to mind artists like Regina Spektor and the Magnetic Fields, her songs are wickedly captivating—playful, tender, and wry.
Sweet Soubrette is New York native Ellia Bisker, whose musical influences range from early popular song, musical theatre, and blues, to folk icons like Leonard Cohen, to contemporary artists like PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, and Fiona Apple. Some of her songs evoke alt-folk artists like Joanna Newsom, Cat Power, and Feist; others are reminiscent of classic Tin Pan Alley numbers. What they all share is a single sensibility: as her song “Suckerpunch” asserts, “there's nothing more romantic than a doomed romance.”
Following a year performing in New York's independent music scene, including appearances at Galapagos Art Space, Mo Pitkin's, and Sound Fix, Sweet Soubrette has just released her debut album, Siren Song (MH Records), produced by Tim Cohan, frontman of indie-pop group Tryst. Bust Magazine recently described Sweet Soubrette as “Brooklyn's fishnet-clad femme fatale,” and it can't be denied that this 12-track CD is dangerously seductive.
Each track on Siren Song is different: in “Lucky to Be Here,” loops and beats provide a heartbeat for a cautious avowal of love; in “Homewrecker,” a stirring string arrangement expresses the lyrics' underlying tension; “This Little Song” is an unadorned live recording of a duet with Cohan that is as simple as it is heartfelt. On the album's title track, a mermaid sings to beguile a shipwrecked sailor, and shimmering harmonies evoke a sea of beckoning mermaids. The album itself is a similarly irresistible invitation into deep new waters.
Tracks List
1 Can't Stop Thinking
2 Lucky to Be Here
3 Pacemaker
4 Suckerpunch
5 Cut-Up
6 Tears That I've Cried
7 Unlucky in Love
8 Siren Song
9 Homewrecker
10 This Little Song
11 Safety in Numbers
12 Ukulele Love Song |
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