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Sarah Winters: Not Mine
We recently received a press release this past week from St. Paul musician SARAH WINTERS and were quickly mesmerized by one of her public videos accessed through the musical paradise known as blip.fm. Sarah’s natural timing, melody control, and vocals all culminated together in the homegrown video I viewed, where she modestly takes her place at a piano and starts building something that takes on a life of its own, transcending the amateur-grade medium. There’s something special going on here, and it will be interesting to watch the musical development take root over the next handful of years.
Here’s a few select bits taken from her publicist:
The new album from Sarah Winters (“Smallest Bones”) highlights her signature heartbreaking lyrics and intimate vocals. It was released April 9th at the Acadia Cafe, and features her with a band: Kristopher Schoen on drums and Baylen Wagner on cello. The album, titled “Smallest Bones,” is an assortment of love songs: falling in love songs, falling out of love songs, being in love songs, and wishing you were no longer in love songs.
The lyrics Sarah pens are often true stories from relationships past, like opening your diary and hearing it sung back. They are painfully honest and painfully intimate. Sarah plays the piano in a very deliberate patterned style, similar to Kate Bush or Regina Spektor. This provides the perfect backdrop for lyrics and vocal melodies, which are the focal point of the songs.
On cello, Baylen commands a massive range of both bowed and plucked sounds, acting as bass, guitar, and backup vocalist all at once. In fact, many times his cello becomes like a human voice, harmonizing with the vocal melodies or mimicking their movement. Album-wise, the cello parts are thick and layered. There are rarely less than two going on at any one time.
The album is very sonically inspired by The National, and Kristopher’s drums are a big part of that. Even when placed far in the background, his drums still drive the song. He uses plenty of creative auxilary percussion, layering various cymbal crashes with bells, tambourine, and shakers. At moments on the album, his beats sound like they could have been sampled from a hip hop song.
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