Music
Press
'Jubilant, simple and lovely music, achieved without ever overdoing the saccharine levels'
Q
'Fans of Bjork, Joanna Newsom and Jolie Holland will love without reservation…an album full of standouts'
Sunday Times
'A delicious concoction taking in Weimar Republic cabaret, Parisian café music, Mittel-European classical traditions, rustic Italian ballads, gipsy folk and more…'Grass Is Singing' doesn't have a duff track on it'
The Daily Telegraph
‘An entirely unexpected example of a supposedly outdated format drawing its divergent sources into a creative plan of no little grandness…sublime’
PopMatters
'The arrangement swing elegantly between lush waltzes, stately woodwind, Weimar mischief and Hawaian ukelele…captivating'
The Observer
'A sound-world that's both antique and modern… glued together with Frinta's 1920s jazz-club rasp… plenty of fun to be had at this circus'
Word
'A tasty aural confection that's as light as the Alpine air and as deliciously rich as a Viennese Sachertorte'
Nude
'A bewitching voice'
Uncut
‘Imagine a modern day Mary Poppins crossed with the freak-folk delights of Devendra Banhart…black magic circus escapism for grown ups to revel in’
Kruger
'Like Amelie in musical form… Tanja Frintas' voice gets to the heart, warming it like an evening ride on the big wheel with your one true love'
Buzz
‘There are times when the ebb and flow of the music sounds like Beirut or Norwegian singer Hanne Hukkelberg - Lonely Drifter Karen capture the same sense of space, eccentricity and artistic freedom’
New Noise
'A marvelously arranged record, an instrumental fantasia watched through a keyhole…With her sweet and clear voice, Tanja Frinta could be Tom Waits' imaginary daughter'
Les Inrockuptibles
'An enchanted carousel. Between threepenny opera and jazzy folk, Lonely Drifter Karen is the current big attraction'
Vibrations
'A pleasantly baroque and wild world, which can at times become elegantly intimate'
Libération
'Heady carefree tunes evoking the pastoral charm of The Sound Of Music. T. Frinta's mischievous voice and delicate guitar…may well get us all to fall hopelessly in love'
Magic
- Various publications
Discography
LP - "Grass Is Singing" (CRAM132), released on Crammed Discs in May 2008
EP -"Sinsweetime", released on Fettkakao 2005
Radio airplay: "This World Is Crazy", played on BBC Radio 1, UK (Rob Da Bank), BBC Radio 3, UK, (Late Junction)
Tracks streamable from www.myspace.com/lonelydrifterkaren
Photos
Bio
Lonely Drifter Karen is a musical project founded by the Austrian singer Tanja Frinta in 2003. The music combines folk, Dark Cabaret and pop rooted in a European context. Her co-musicians are pianist and producer Marc Melià Sobrevias from Spain and Italian Giorgio Fausto Menossi on drums and percussions.
Tanja Frinta started writing her own songs in her early childhood and played in various bands from the age of 15, including the genres hardcore, punk and indie pop. She founded Lonely Drifter Karen in 2003 when she left her native Austria to move to Gothenburg, Sweden where she stayed for three years. Her first EP Sinsweetime was released on the Viennese recordlabel Fettkakao, consisting of four songs. She played small venue concerts all over Europe before she met her current band members. In 2006 Frinta moved from Sweden to Spain. The initial experiment of recording a few songs with Marc Melià and Giorgio Menossi in Barcelona led to their first stage performances as a trio and the following of a small tour in Italy, Austria and Poland. From December 2006 until January 2008 Frinta and Melià had been recording the debut album Grass is Singing, which was released by Crammed Discs in May 2008 in Europe, June 2008 in the US and September 2008 in Cananda. The Canadian release of the album is in collaboration with Montreal based Semprini Records who has also released Lonely Drifter Karen´s 7" The Owl Moans Low in July 2008.
Watch Lonely Drifter Karen´s concert live in Paris here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy23oacTVDQ
Links
