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bio

''Folk-gothic, ghost-ridden debut channels Marianne Faithfull meeting Nick Drake and punching him in the head.''-Pop Matters

reviews

In Tara Angell I hear a unique and beautifully vulnerable voice, refusing to sugar–coat bitter everyday tragedies, but instead fearlessly linger in mysteries dark, and then surprise with sweet eroticism and intangible self–empowerment. – Lucinda Williams

Tara Angell's "Come Down" is the darkest and truest record since early Black Sabbath. – Daniel Lanois

A beautiful record that is dark, heartbreaking and tough at the same time. – Ron Sexsmith

This New York singer–songwriter knows about heavy: the lonesome, quiet kind, where the sinner's wages of Marianne Faithfull's saloon songs meet the spectral defiance of Lucinda Williams' country blues. Produced by Joseph Arthur with the haunted touch of Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind, Come Down was one of 2005's pleasures: compelling, psychedelicized darkness streaked with reassuring light. – David Fricke, Rolling Stone Magazine

Occasional pop–toned musings brighten the emotionally raw tone without diluting Angell's gratifying, disturbing power. – Linda Laban, Boston Herald

Her songs are simply executed but crafted in a careful way, and that’s exactly where the bite is – it’s kind of like a sucker punch. Sometimes witty, sometimes sarcastic, and always lamenting, Tara Angell has found a way to forever be good. – Pulse Weekly ««««

Recorded two and a half years before its release and carried in her hip pocket until Rykodisc Records stepped forward with a record contract, Tara Angell’s lingering debut album samples a spectrum of emotions--from melancholy and misfortune one song to sincerity and splendor the next. Co-piloted by pal and producer (and applauded singer/songwriter) Joseph Arthur, Come Down’s ominous lyrics and twisting, twisted melodies are textbook for Angell’s husky, cigarette-singed vocals--imagine Marianne Faithful aping Polly Jean Harvey or Stevie Nicks fronting the Velvet Underground. The dozen original songs by the New York City artist are vast illustrations of maturity and dexterity, coalescing between a bookshelf of dog-eared paperbacks and Angell’s desolate encounters with the everyday. She can resonate as dark and deserted as the last person on the planet ("Silver Lining") or cleverly chirp over the echo of a cocktail party ("Bitch Please"). But either way, Come Down will gnaw at your soul on the first listen, and stay with you long after. -- Scott Holter-Amazon.com ««««

Lucinda Williams must enjoy her world–weary vocals and obvious love of late–1960s Stones (from the pop–shuffle of Hollow Hope to the slow, country twang of Untrue); the uber–producer Lanois, meanwhile, must rate the beautifully flawed production –by singer–songwriter Joseph Arthur –that (almost incredibly) was the result of only five days in the studio. That working week created one of the most fully realized debuts you'll hear for a long time. – London Times FOUR STARS

Angell's voice has shades of Patti Smith, Marianne Faithfull and Juliana Hatfield, but her attitude is one of a teenager who delights in death stares, drunken melancholia verging on pained hysteria. Words are uncomfortably drawn out, phrases repeated, and the ooh–ooh backing vocals are chilling. This is an evocative debut. – Betty Clarke, The Guardian

This is a recording so naked emotionally and so unapologetic musically it demands attention. Repeated listenings bring out the considerable songcraft gently in the lo-fi aesthetic and raw emotion. A winner. – All Music Guide

Citing James Purdy and the stark, uncompromising prose of Flannery O'Conner as influences in her own writing style, Angell is at turns reminiscent of Lucinda Williams, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and others. She doesn't come across as merely replicating the styles of these greats, either - the echoes of these artists are fleeting as she defines her own style, with a gritty roughness to her voice, calmly even in tone but undeniably firm. Angell doesn't scream, doesn't rage. She recognizes and accepts, presenting us with serious, solemn music in such a way that she helps us to see and deal with shadows and darkness. – Harvard Independent

The young New Yorker sounds like a cross between Marianne Faithfull's nicotine-stained wasted survivor and Lucinda Williams' fallen gothic angel- and it took them decades of dissolute living to sound like that. Angell's siren voice drifts through a narcotic haze to lure you into a nightmare world which songs as "The World Will Match Your Pain" and "You Can't Say No To Hell" turn human suffering into delicious indulgence. Enhanced by Joseph Arthur's haunting production, the effect is as dangerous as it is irresistable. – Uncut Magazine FOUR STARS

Tara Angell's debut Come Down is one of those records: one that once heard is instantly memorable. Produced by songwriter Joseph Arthur and recorded in only five days, it is a dark, harrowing, and vulnerable gem by a songwriter who understands the strengths of her many influences well, and filters them all through her own story. Traces of everyone from the Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams, Marianne Faithfull, Neil Young, Daniel Lanois, PJ Harvey, and indie rock heroes Low slide in and out of the mix, all harnessed by Angell's particular poetic lyrical gift and her ability to write a skeletal melody that grips instantly. "Hollow Hope," pops like an outtake from Exile on Main St.; "Untrue" offers the confessional side of darkness unapologetically yet utterly devoid of venom or pose; "The World Will Match Your Pain," with its ghostly organ and flawed guitar sound, caresses her words from the corner of the heart's own faltering stillness. The ramshackle mix on "Bitch Please," is held taut in the grip of Angell's words. The poignant, narcotic lilt of "You Can't Say No to Hell," is as world-weary as anything Williams has ever put on tape, and the sheer narcotic drone and distortion in "Uneven," offers a taste of darkness so alluring and sweet you don't even want to try it once. This is a recording so naked emotionally and so unapologetic musically it demands attention. Repeated listenings bring out the considerable songcraft gently in the lo-fi aesthetic and raw emotion. A winner. – ALLMUSIC.COM by Thom Jurek

With a voice like a tenor banshee in B minor, Tara Angell calls to mind the archetypal goth-girl rocker of the late 20th century. Her searing vocals sound like Aimee Mann, if Mann got up on the wrong side of the bed and tripped over a funky urban blues groove on her way out the front door. Drawing on an intensity forged of burnt emotion, Come Down captures the right mix of synthesized sound and Angell's natural fire streaming in an occasional rockin' guitar riff. She has long been a fixture on New York City's music scene; this, her first studio album, showcases a set of pipes that can hit the operatic low notes as well as rend the very air out of the high ones.

Angell's musical prowess could stand solo on any stage or CD, but she doesn't stop at semi-synthetic sound alone, instead adding a continuous lyrical punch behind the harmonies. She turns rejection into a love song ("When You Find Me"), and invokes a touch of angry-chick chic when she sings, "Don't blame me, don't blame the world/Don't cry for me, I'm not your little girl." The hipster-ironic "Bitch Please" brings a track of drunken giggles to the background as she belts out the oh-poor-you tease, "I'm sure it's hard to be a man." The occasional moment of raw sweetness contrasts with the bitter drive of tunes that declare, "There's no silver lining when it comes to you and me." Throughout, Angell's voice is weighed down with the jagged heaviness of lyrical flame and emotional heat--and lifted up by the inverse gravity of a soulful muse. – Bitch Magazine Spring (2005)

TARA ANGELL-Bio: She’s been giving, she’s been tapping in…

“Sometimes, we like to mess with your heads,” announced the promoter, the chatter fading as the audience focused on the stage. Their eyes rest on the girl with penetrant eyes of arctic blue. Standing beside him with an electric guitar, she’s beautiful, a little scary looking and all but aglow with a rare charisma. Encouraging welcoming applause, he concludes her introduction: “This is one of those times.”

It sure was. I will vouch for the crackling uncertainty of those first few moments, when this startling creature in bondage pants and a tartan kilt stepped forward to perform for a crowd slavering for the rather less edgy headliner... Before a chord was formed or a note was sung, I could feel a powerful experience ahead. It hung thick in the air like the smell of cold metal seconds before a storm. And as she started to play, the skies cracked open and drenched us all…

During New Yorker Tara Angell’s cogent set of rock ‘n’ soul-baring that evening in Brighton, England, back in 2003, a couple of things became very clear. Firstly, here was a woman unafraid of standing emotionally naked and vulnerable before all onlookers. Her brutally honest lyrics weigh heavy with anger, defiance, regret and longing, beckoning the listener into a dark, confessional world of shattered dreams and melancholic reminiscence. Each song is a compelling gothic vignette with an overarching mood of dysfunction, mirroring the harrowing themes and explorations of mental anguish.

Secondly, she positively drips rock ’n’ roll. You know she just breathes it, drinks it all in, lives it every day and that in her world there could be no sense in not hearing The Saints or John Lee Hooker at breakfast. And in her own interpretation, a raw sexiness collides with alluring mystique for an intense delivery, echoes of those informing her gorgeous, heavy music filtering through with devastating effect.

As NYC as Downtown 81 and the Gaslight Cafe, locked into the cadence of the city’s pulsating streets, Tara Angell represents a natural marker in the lineage of Big Apple rock music. The spirits of Lou Reed, Suicide, Ramones and Television all inhabit the Angell musical persona. Even so, the New York factor is merely the beginning.

As is so with most good troubadours, Dylan looks on and she’s a Neil Young devotee, but rocks equally to Hendrix, Sarah Vaughan, The Saints, Art Blakey, Bowie or Radio Birdman, etc...while taking further inspiration from arguably lesser- known artists like leftfield blues maestro Chris Whitley or Memphis-rockers Reigning Sound. It’s a potent brew.

The Tara Angell appearance staged by the promoter that sometimes likes to mess with our heads was booked on the strength of a clutch of songs on a sampler presented in unique, handmade packaging. This now precious artifact alone serves as ample illustration of the fierce commitment to her art that has seen Angell since shove her way into a crowded female singer-songwriter marketplace, release Come Down - her astounding, Joseph Arthur-produced debut album (Rykodisc: 2005) - and receive championing praise from giants including Ron Sexsmith, Daniel Lanois and Lucinda Williams. Not only have they been stunned by her songwriting prowess, but by her unique, spine-tingling voice.

Williams, in fact, Patti Smith (with whom, in Tony Shanahan, she shares a bassist), Marianne Faithfull and Thalia Zedek are vocal touchstones, her cracked voice oozing as much soul as Mary Margaret O'Hara. Surrounded by the swirling narcotic haze of her acid-country-tinged epics, it's a seriously muscular entity.

Maverick visionaries such as David Lynch and, as touched upon, the literary world also play their part in shaping Tara Angell’s music and thinking, with author James Purdy particularly significant. A man driven to convey his personal despair concerning the abuse and exploitation of the weak, defenseless and innocent, his obsession with such injustices is reflected in Angell’s exhaustive work for animal welfare in New York City.

As for Angell’s long-awaited, hotly anticipated sophomore album, it is coming. I guarantee you this: it will be dark and beautiful… and it will mess with your head.

– DAVID MORRISON Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada (June 2007)

www.taraangell.com

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