Wind-Up and Repeat One

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 | comments (2)
Casey Dienel has been in pretty heavy rotation on my iPod for close to a year now. Especially the song "Frankie and Annette," which I frequently put on "Repeat One," a setting also known as "OCD? What OCD?" Her solo album, Wind-Up Canary, left me scratching my head a bit at first listen. But something about it grabbed me and pretty soon I found my thumb spinning that click wheel to her name again and again. Her voice just floats over her songs, held up by this thin piece of yarn, which is worn and fraying a bit. And so you sit there biting your nails wondering if the damn thing will collapse right in front of you, quivering and broken on the ivories. But it never does. And I think it's the danger and recklessness of that ongoing tension that is so addictive and exciting about her music. And beautiful.

Casey Dienel is now playing with a band and they call themselves White Hinterland. I saw them last Friday at Cake Shop. They've got an interesting sound, kind of jazzy, only with a violin and some sort of eastern stringed instrument I didn't recognize. I do wish they had done more of the songs from Dienel's solo album, but it kind of sounds like maybe she has "moved on" from those a bit. They did do one, though: Doctor Monroe. Overall, it was a solid performance. And by the time it was over, I found myself wanting more.

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Comments

I think the eastern instrument you were hearing at the Cake Shop was actually a saw. There was a lanky, bearded guy in the back bowing one.

I agree with your "biting nails" comments. Her songs and performances feel so precarious (by which I mean not sloppy, but fragile like a delicate piece of Murano glass... or something like that), but she's totally in control of everything and it never falls apart. There are moments where you think her vocal or piano melody is going to derail, but she wraps it up in a way that makes the whole line feel perfectly composed, even if it was spontaneous. I've seen several recent shows of hers and every performance of every song is totally unique. It's sort of like listening to old Dylan bootlegs where every performance is fluid and experimental and different from the last. It's quite ethereal, and requires more than just casual attention to really appreciate. Especially the newer songs.

Yak yak. Anyway, I love her music and it's nice to read that someone else hears it in a similar way.

Posted by cep on Feb 13, 2008 at 11:33:22 AM
cep: Yes, the saw! I remember now during the mic check they mentioned it. I'm really glad you dropped by and cleared that up because that was going to bug the crap out of me. Thanks for commenting! And yes, it is indeed nice to find somebody who describes her sound with the same words -- you know, nouns and verbs and such, which are always wholly inadequate to describe something like music, but somehow we manage to arrange them in such a way so that we understand what the other is saying. And that's always kind of amazing to me. Anyway, maybe I'll see you at the next show.

Posted by rothko on Feb 13, 2008 at 5:15:50 PM
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