Liv Mueller
Austin, Texas, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2010 | SELF
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A Long Overdue Look at Liv Mueller’s Haunting Solo Album
by delarue
Over a year ago, Milwaukee songstress Liv Mueller sent her album Liv Sings – Love Songs for the Forlorn and Misguided over the transom here. It was a sensible thing for her to do, considering how well-suited to this blog her music is. She’s an individualistic songwriter with a thing for haunting, minimalist guitar, which she multitracks with the reverb turned all the way up, building a creepy, majestic backdrop for her slowly unwinding anthems and a waltz or two. She’s also an individualistic and tremendously good singer, with just as much power at the low end of her range as at the top. The songs on the album bring to mind Shannon Wright or Randi Russo taking a stab at Americana – admittedly, that might be a stretch, considering that neither of those artists is remotely country, but just imagine if you can. Mueller made a name for herself in that style of music in the midwest fronting the Lovelies and then the Dark Horse Project, so it’s no surprise that she’s equally at home with both vintage C&W and country blues-tinged material.
So why did such an excellent album sit around for so long here, unheard and forgotten? Umm…..dumbass blog owner (guess who) mistook it for somebody else’s jazz record, so it ended up hidden away on the server until a year-end cleanup sparked a listen to the first song. And this is one of those albums where the first song makes you want to hear what’s next, and so on until about an hour later, you’ve heard the whole thing and want to hear what else she’s got out there (good news – in the time that’s passed since she sent this one in, she’s been working on a new one). The noir torch song One More Time, which opens the album, is addictive, Mueller’s ghostly, mysterious a-cappella first verse rising to grand guignol orchestral heights on the wings of the string synth. Long Gone is the first of the many dark guitar-driven numbers: it’s got to be the only song that references both Edgar Allan Poe and the O.J. Simpson trial.
Mueller sings over a hypnotic, allusive country-blues vamp on This Kind of Love, her angst-ridden vocals matching the looming intensity of the music. Father Angel moves further toward indie rock, with creepy gothic lyrics and surreal backward-masked guitar. Salvation is a broodingly elegaic waltz – Mueller might be singing to a ghost here. And on the sardonic, embittered Let It Roll, is she singing “hell, hell, hell” as a mantra as the song opens – or is that just vocalese? Either would work, especially as Mueller adds a scorching, dreampop-tinged lead guitar line as the chorus kicks in.
She reinvents the country classic Crazy Arms, the only cover here, as Nashville gothic, and follows that with Haunted Face, a regret-laden neo-Velvets tune that wouldn’t be out of place in the Vera Beren catalog. An echoey noir bongo pulse pushes the Siouxsie-esque Beneath My Wings along, Mueller belting hard over the terse orchestration. Wish You May sets judiciously ringing tremolo guitar over a burning, distorted drone and another sardonic lyric; Mueller ends the album with a grimly amusing departure into Weimar-style cabaret. What’s coolest about this album is how she pulls together elements from styles that seem completely at odds with each other and makes everything work seamlessly along with her almost-lurid, unselfconsciously magnetic vocals. - N.Y Music Daily
*see link - JS online
*see link - JS online
*see link - Milwaukee Journal
*see link - Milwaukee Journal
*see link - The Onion AV club
*see link - The Onion AV club
Last week's top 30 Alternative picks:
1., Painted Caves, Painted Caves, self-released
2., Melissa Czarnik, Non Merci, self-released
3., Trapper Schoepp and the Shades, Run Engine Run, SideOneDummy
4., Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Psychedelic Pill, Reprise
5., Divine Fits, A Thing Called Divine Fits, Merge
6., Joseph Huber, Tongues Of Fire, self-released
7., Tamaryn, Tender New Signs, Mexican Summer
8., Lupe Fiasco, Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album, Pt. 1, Atlantic
9., Field Report, Field Report, Partisan
10., Dark Dark Dark, Who Needs Who, Supply and Demand
11., Jason Lytle, Dept. Of Disappearance, Anti-
12., Ry Cooder, Election Special, Nonesuch
13., Delta Routine, Cigarette and Caffeine Nightmares, self-released
14., P.O.S., We Don't Even Live Here, Rhymesayers
15., Lord Huron, Lonesome Dreams, Iamsound
16., Mountain Goats, Transcendental Youth, Merge
17., Bat For Lashes, The Haunted Man, EMI
18., Michael Kiwanuka, Home Again, Polydor
19., Sea and Cake, Runner, Thrill Jockey
20., Brother Ali Mourning In America and Dreaming In Color, Rhymesayers
21., Liv Mueller, Liv Sings: Love Songs For the Forlorn and Misguided, self-released
22., Vaccines, Come Of Age, Columbia
23., John Cale, Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood, Domino - WMSE
The assured sound of The Dark Horse Project is one not easily forgotten. Ex-Lovelies singer, Liv Mueller - whose vocals are at times reminiscent of Kim Gordon's - appropriately surveys the sonic landscape whether it be in the form of alt-country ballads, Serenade and Haunted Face or riding waves of heavy rolling guitars as in Danger. The self-released, self-titled full-length album is out now.
- NYC.COM
The assured sound of The Dark Horse Project is one not easily forgotten. Ex-Lovelies singer, Liv Mueller - whose vocals are at times reminiscent of Kim Gordon's - appropriately surveys the sonic landscape whether it be in the form of alt-country ballads, Serenade and Haunted Face or riding waves of heavy rolling guitars as in Danger. The self-released, self-titled full-length album is out now.
- NYC.COM
see link - cd universe
see link - Shepard Express
see link - Shepard Express
Discography
The Lovelies: Baby Justice
The Lovelies: Hot One
The Lovelies: Bomvasso
The Lovelies: White Leather
The Dark Horse Project: The Dark Horse Project
The Dark Horse Project: Album 2
Liv Mueller : LIV SINGS Love Songs For The Forlorn and Misguided
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Bio
Liv started singing and writing years ago, in a Rockabilly band called 'The Screaming Lillies"..barely 19, she packed up and re-located to herself to Nashville from the Midwest where she performed at places like 'Tootsies' and 'The Rose Room' while supplementing her income occasionally by playing for money on the streets with an open guitar case.
Not long after Nashville, Austin became her next home wherein she formed the first incarnation of 'The Lovelies'...re-forming the band after returning to the Midwest is where The Lovelies had the most success, recording four records,and playing relentlessly over an eight year span. After much success,charting nationally twice, as well as having several songs used in film/T.V, the band ended in 2005.
Two albums were released under her next endeavor, 'The Dark Horse Project'. Production team Marc Hutner & Grant Curry (Pleasure Club) helped her to refine a new sound she had envisioned for herself, capturing a beautiful , haunted landscape of listening. Recording deep in the south of Louisiana bayou , proved to be just what she needed to redefine her next phase of writing and performing.
... Liv has just released a solo disc entitled LIV SINGS Love Songs For The Forlorn And Misguided...The disc was recorded in her home studio in which she performed and mixed nearly the entire album alone..Released 11/1/12, available on I-tunes and cb baby.
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