Liesl’s Wet Dress was first conceived in early 2001, when Antonette Goroch came to Global American Studios in San Francisco to record a handful of songs she’d written. With several cassette tapes worth of rough demos, recorded on a digital eight-track at home while her children were sleeping, Global American’s founder, elton, encouraged her to come to his studio and record an album. Through a haphazard twist of fate and timing, Elton paired Antonette with Greg Turner (guitarist for the Chantigs and a frequent collaborator for many the recordings on Global American’s companion label, Rodent Records) to record and produce the nine songs.
It was the unexpected combination of Antonette’s haunting vocals and plaintive folk ballads with Greg’s Virginia twang and fuzzy psychedelic rock sensibilities that would become the core of Liesl’s Wet Dress, with the 2002 CD release of Shedding Skin on Rodent Records. The debut recording was a dark yet playful carnival of twisted tales and retro-rock, interlaced with moments of country, folk and blues.
With comparisons ranging from Mazzy Star/Opal to Pentangle, reviews have called the release “an impressive debut that breaks new musical ground,” with “nightmarish and colorful lyrics.”
Since the release of Shedding Skin, Liesl’s Wet Dress has performed internationally with highlights that include the 2003 NXNE music festival in Toronto, Canada and a tour of Germany in 2004.
In the summer of 2004, Liesl’s Wet Dress released it’s second recording, a vinyl single on Rodent Records, demonstrating a further evolution in the pair’s echoing oscillation between the far out and the soulful. “Gingerbread Aliens” tells a compelling, and absolutely true, retro-psych-folk story of alien abduction. On the flipside, a melancholy country-esque melody imbibes “Sparks,” dripping with vintage reverb and self-reflective interrogation.
