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Birdie Busch
The Ways We Try
Ariel View: If the 25-year-old Emily "Birdie" Busch is this good on her first album, we're expecting greatness by album No. 2. Her girlish voice and poetic style comes on strong, breathing vivid life into the country-inflected opener "The Cup" and the old timey swinger "Gigi."
Sounds Like: Gillian Welch, Beth Orton, Norah Jones
Confessions of a: "And I think it's alright/ If I feel both heavy and light/ Put your trust in me, mama/ And I won't lose sight." - vh1
birdie busch
the ways we try
(bar none records)
Born and raised in the quiet metropolis of Philadelphia, Birdie Busch grew up listening to Paul Simon, Gillian Welsh, and Neil Young. Those influences are evident on their records, but Busch injects personal touches of class and grace into the tracks that speak louder to this reviewer than any past influence could.
Her newest Bar None release is a collection of tasteful, lazy Sunday songs. The Ways We Try is a fabulous collection of feel-good music with tasteful acoustic guitars, percussion and Busch’s soulfully elegant voice. Her melodies float over the music, providing the perfect compliment to the subtle textures of this country-rich record. Good stuff, check her out as soon as you can. (Think: Cat Power.) - pulse
Discography
Low Rent EP - Summer 2004
The Ways We Try - Bar/None Records Feb 2006
Radio airplay on over 40 AAA stations nationally including WXPN, KCRW, WFUV primarily on 'Gigi' and 'Secret Hour'. 'Secret Hour' also featured in Joan of Arcadia episode last year.
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Four years ago I was living in a vampirical state. I was hostessing at an upscale Cuban restaurant in the center of Philadelphia and living in a terrible apartment that maintained the temperature of forty degrees for the five months I was living there. I worked nights, slept days, and knew there was something I wanted to do to get to where I belonged, which really is just wherever I am but with this addition: I would have something that gave me endless vitality, something that helped me through joys and sorrows, a constant through inconsistency and a blessing to pass on to everyone else. I made the executive decision that this something would gather itself in song and started telling my lifes experiences through words and melodies, rhythms and rhyme. I started to scrappily pick up the guitar and opened my mouth to sing. The bio then came a little later
.after signing to Bar/None Records.
The music of Birdie Busch is natural. There isnt pretense, nothing forced or processed, just delicate melodies and deceptively simple lyrics that resonate upon further discovery.
Born amidst a great wealth of talent residing in Philadelphia these days, Birdie just finished her first studio recording in the spring of 2005 entitled The Ways We Try and the recording has all the warmth, atmosphere, and feeling of the best of the classic records in your collection. The album, recorded in a converted auto garage in the marshlands of South Jersey, was created somewhat the opposite of how songs are usually recorded, with two guitars leading the rhythm, bass and drums chasing off-kilter meters, and piano and organ coloring the lyrics and adding width and depth to the melodies.
With radio play from WXPN, and the song South Philly included on the stations new WXPN Philly Local-Right On Track album produced by station programming veteran Helen Leicht, the media support is taking her and her band into the best clubs and halls in the city, including the Tin Angel, the Theatre of the Living Arts, World Café Live, and the North Star. She has shared the stage with a diverse group of artists including Regina Spektor, The Mosquitos, Dar Williams, Mason Jennings and Amos Lee.
Her natural writing style, open public emotions, and family influences are the character of The Ways We Try, and also the invitation to share these experiences with Birdie Busch. May she leave you feeling a little less troubled and a little more comforted,
her crackled rosiness drawing you into her songs as would a painters smallest strokes.
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