Music
Press
"Rock the fuggout to the openers. Or gently sway. Husbands, Love Your Wives was the pre-headliner last night, Jamie Spiess’ now-it’s-fragile, now-it’s-stoic one-woman acoustic show. Her songs burrow deeper, become more personal and subliminal, with repeat exposure. TMTS’ Scott Reitherman sat in on drums, adding percussive punctuation to Spiess’ poetic ballads on love and loss and cake."
-Jonathon Zwickel THE STRANGER - the Stranger
"(Chop Suey) Capitol Hill library on a late weekday morning: A graying, stubbled man gazes out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, muttering to himself, while at an adjacent table a middle-aged woman in a tattered coat flips through a magazine and glances up occasionally to say something out loud to no one, her long-nailed hand bobbing in time with her words. The hushed unquiet is eerie, somewhere between noise and silence—kind of like the music of Husbands, Love Your Wives. The one-woman project of Jamie Spiess is gentle at first, Spiess's acoustic strumming and plain-sung vocals subdued and soothing. But her lyrics detail a deep, strange world of candle-lit memories, impassioned tributes, disjointed parables, and Grimm-like imagery. Haunting, certainly, but like a faded rose, where there's beauty in both life and death." JONATHAN ZWICKEL-THE STRANGER - the Stranger
"Following Valentine was Husbands Love Your Wives, a duo made up of one Jamie Spiess on guitar and her new drummer (who I have shamefully forgotten the name of). Spiess offered up a set of quiet dark folk songs, and brought the nearly full bar to a respectfully quiet murmur."- Sound on the Sound - Sound on the Sound
""Put The Hatchet Down" is a minimalist little folk song that probably wouldn't catch the listener's attention that much if it weren't for Speiss' adorable voice; the way Speiss pips up over the mellow and slightly dreary folk on HLYW's tracks pretty much encapsulates the feeling of a Minnesota winter. Since everything on HLYW MySpace is in demo form, production and mixing are obviously not top priorities. But ultimately, it's a good thing when someone sits down with a guitar and arrives at a sound this nice without any production tricks. "- MFR
- Minneapolis Fucking Rocks
"Sparse and naked, the open chord strums and delicate finger plucks of Husbands Love Your Wives (aka Jamie Spiess) remain unaccompanied by other instruments. Appropriate, for many of her songs touch on the longing ache for a displaced love. Woven over top of the beautiful, barren base are heart-wrenchingly precious, sweetly sung lyrics that impart tales of childhood horses, apple trees, and loneliness. Delivered at times with a soft, throaty twang, she charmingly strays out of tune in just the right places, increasing the endearment factor tenfold. "AJA PECKNOLD -The Seattle Weekly - the Seattle Weekly
"Something about these songs just absolutely kills me, though I can't quite put my finger on it yet. Plenty of people record simple lo-fi bedroom songs, and most of the time, honestly, they are fairly unremarkable. But these aren't. They feel right. Listen to a song like "Sleepytime for Jamie" and tell me you're not moved." Chad- ECEU.
- Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands
"#7 on the front of the Hill Pop movement, is Husbands, Love Your Wives -One-woman-band crafts lo-fi, folk-tinged bedroom pop" Paired with Tiny Vipers, Band of Horses, Cave Singers, J Tillman, Grand Archives, Fleet Foxes, Sera Cahoone, and Jesse Sykes-
SEATTLE SOUND MAGAZINE - Seattle Sound Magazine
Discography
HLYW has an upcoming release in the summer of 2008 called "As My Body Sank Into the Folktale" a full length record on Baskerville Hill Records.
HLYW gets airplay on KEXP, and on KPSU portland with demo tracks taken off her myspace.
Photos
Bio
Husbands, Love Your Wives is the project of Jamie Anne Spiess. Formed just about 3 years ago, while she was living in Germany and actually being held captive in a basement of an au pair situation turned horror movie. Before this time, she had never played music. Apon eventually returning to Seattle, Jamie began to use HLYW as a tool to cope with her life, and the songs kept writing themselves, and the stories kept coming out of her. Damien Jurado caught wind of these songs, and so did Scott Reitherman of Throw Me The Statue, and the three started playing together, making Husbands a full project. They have both been rotating in and out of HLYW for over a year now, depending on their own musical schedules. HLYW has nearly 100,000 plays online with her music, and has been playing shows all over the Northwest, including Seattle FOLKLIFE festival, and with the likes of Damien Jurado, Michael Hurley, Ramona Cordova, Throw Me The Statue, Thanksgiving, Carrie Biel, and many more.
The music itself is very tender, raw, and honest. Coming from a place Jamie didn't know existed, stories and tales of eerie love affairs, death, ghosts, babies, blackberries, horses.....families, etc.
Influenced musically by Dusty Springfield, Damien Jurado, Iron and Wine, Smog, Serge Gainsbourg, Pedro the Lion, Laura Nyro, Phil Elverum.....
What sets HLYW apart is the songs themselves, well being simple and gentle, remain haunting and intense for the listener.
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