***** Today’s post is from an artist that I’ve featured here on Single of the Day in the past. The first artist whom I didn’t know that I met when she played a show in LA. The first artist to provide samples for me to use in a song – typewriter sounds. She’s a go getter with an eclectic taste. EN-Joy! *****
I am forever delighted at the surprise I feel when I find the best songs in the least likely places. While playing a charity show in Houston, TX at Poor David’s Pub, I witnessed a spectacle of a performance by Kristina Morland — shocking and arresting in its quietude, understatement, beauty, grief, if that’s possible. She barely touched her nylon-string guitar and whispered into the microphone, and between songs she looked as though she wanted to hide. I remember liking her lyrics but wishing she had the confidence to deliver them. I asked for her album and gave her mine in exchange (the traveling musician’s currency) and didn’t think of it again for weeks.
Eight thousand miles further into my road trip, my copilot ripped Kristina Morland’s CD out of its shrinkwrap and dropped it in. We’d listened to everything else. But I nearly stopped the car in astonishment by the third song: this album is a gem. It’s imperfectly produced and reaching for more, but the music is so entirely winning that both my copilot and I made it a desert island disc before the end of the trip. It didn’t leave my car stereo for months.
This song is one of my favorites from the album. It’s gentle, and it unfolds beautifully — and though it’s liable to start as background music, don’t be surprised if on second or third listen you find it hard to pay attention to anything but Kristina’s music. Her first album “Pidgin Music” is available at http://cdbaby.com.
Marian Call