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02/21/09 Casbah San Diego, California
Discography
03/05/09 Joe’s Pub New York, New York 03/06/09 The Mod Club Toronto, Ontario 03/07/09 Le Divan Orange Montreal, PQ 03/08/09 TT The Bear’s Cambridge, MA 03/09/09 Tin Angel Philadelphia, PA 03/18/09 Mercury Lounge Goleta, CA 03/19/09 Cafe du Nord SF, CA 03/21/09 Mississippi Studios Portland, OR 03/22/09 The Triple Door Seattle, WA 03/25/09 The Picador Iowa City, Iowa 03/26/09 Schubas Tavern Chicago, IL 03/27/09 Cedar Minneapolis, Minnesota 03/28/09 Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club Kansas City, Missouri 03/30/09 Hi Dive Denver, Colorado 04/01/09 Plush Tucson, Arizona 04/02/09 Pappy & Harriets Pioneertown, CA 04/23/09 La Maroquinerie Paris 04/24/09 Brotfabrik Frankfurt 04/26/09 El Lokal Zurich 04/28/09 Palace St. Gallen 04/29/09 Zakk Dusseldorf 05/01/09 Pumpenhaus Munster 05/02/09 Oosterpoort Groningen 05/03/09 O 13 Tilburg 05/04/09 AB Club Brussels 05/07/09 Vooruit Ghent 05/08/09 Knust Hamburg 05/10/09 Quasimodo Berlin 05/13/09 Registratur Munchen 05/15/09 Kino Ebensee 05/16/09 Schlachthof Wels 05/17/09 E-Werk Erlangen
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I felt the cover artwork (in addition to songs like "I Love Planet Earth" and "God Is Love") had an out-of-this world feel to it, black background with spiraling dots. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, the only credit to the artwork are "dots" by Alia Penner. You can see a sketch of it on her website.
Most of the album is pretty mellow, despite having a full band of guitar/bass/drums and the occasional horns and wind instruments. If you're into mild girl singer/songwriter-type of music, this is probably up there with the best of it.
The one "loud" songs are "Cracked", a song about losing faith in God because of someone's betrayal? "I'm cracked for you, my soul has been twisted. I'm cracked for you, my heart has been blistered." The song has a punk-ish attitude, which is what I liked about it.
The more I think about Mandell, her singing reminds me a bit of PJ Harvey, especially with "Pauline" from her album Thrill, and especially on the opening song "Artificial Fire".
"Artificial Fire" is a wonderful little song that doesn't seem to go anywhere, despite all the directions and maps and questions in the lyrics. That guitar-playing is very catchy as well! Mandell liked the song so much, they made a little music video for it.
Hey, she's on tour! It looks like she's coming to Minneapolis, at one of my current favorite sit-down venue, The Cedar this late March. I may do more writeup of her if I end up going to see her.
Information on how to get her records can be found on Zedtone.
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02/21/2009 14:00:38 ♥ vu (
) ♥ elenimandell.com ♥ myspace.com/elenimandell
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