Ms.45 (Karen Nielsen)

Karen Nielsen returns with her third album titled House of the Sacred. Nielsen is self-taught and you hear her musical evolution and growth in this album. The music has a Dark Ambient/Gothic Ambient vibe with Classical elements and has more electronic aspects than her previous work. The tracks, though, still retain that powerful and dark beauty that Nielsen is known for and her talent is really starting to shine through.

ROYD: Kate Bush, Kristen Hersh

Tracks: All Good - WRUV Reviews

(Translation) Doctor and musician , the New Yorker Karen Nielsen combines post punk and vocals which seem to come from the bottom of her soul.

It is in daily contact with her patients that the New York doctor Karen Nielsen is inspired to compose. The result is dense, with a hint of post- punk and vocals that seem to come from the heart . "We learned to fear our emotions, especially sadness. With music , I want to expose what we hide." she says . Karen releases her second album , WOMAN.

Médica e música, a novaiorquina Karen Nielsen une pós punk e vocais do fundo da alma

É no contato diário com seus pacientes que a médica nova-iorquina Karen Nielsen se inspira para compor. O resultado é denso, com um quê de pós-punk e vocais que parecem vir do fundo da alma. “Aprendemos a temer nossas emoções, especialmente a tristeza. Com a música, quero atingir o que escondemos”, diz. Karen lança seu segundo álbum, Woman. - Revista TPM

The “Rock Doc” is back with her second album, Woman. Karen Nielsen is a doctor who moonlights as a working musician, or possibly vice versa if her music career takes off. Her lyrics explore the dark side of life from a woman’s perspective. Each of the 11 titles is only one word. “Sin,” “Gun,” “Crime,” “Truth,” “Winter,” and others are the titles of her stark and raw stories. She is a rocker and her music channels such artists as Kate Bush and Patti Smith. It all adds up to an interesting, if at times painful, mix. - Blog Critics

New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Filmed in a New York City loft, featuring actor Ara Woland, is independent recording artist Karen Nielsen's video, 'ODE'. A visual manifestation of the drum-infused, haunting and memorable single, the ODE video is artistic commentary on femininity, masculinity and vanity. The track, written by Karen, reflects on gender specific behaviors people are compelled to express through our commodity and image driven society.

The visual and narrative concept for the video was a collaborative evolution between Karen and Brazilian director, Vitor Freire. Their mission: to show how the traditional roles of men and women are often juxtaposed against internal desires leading to conflict, confusion and pain.

'ODE', the song, was written and performed by Karen Nielsen and mixed and mastered by Darren Morze. Their longstanding musical relationship has resulted in both of Karen's albums charting on the CMJ (RPM) charts top 30.

Fearlessly diving beneath the surface for all her works, Karen expresses those things we are afraid to confront. 'ODE' is no exception. - Top 40 Charts

Some physicians have unusual hobbies. Karen Nielsen, DO, a Manhattan-based osteopathic manipulative medicine specialist, has a side gig singing in her own alternative music band.

By day, Dr. Nielsen has a full practice, treating patients with musculoskeletal pain and other health problems and providing nutritional counseling and lifestyle modification management.

One of her patients, Linda DeCarlo, a holistic life and business coach in New York City, calls Dr. Nielsen “a wonderful doctor who knows where my pain is just by looking at me.”

Some of Dr. Nielsen’s patients call her “rock doc.” That is because, in her spare time, she works on her music, which she describes as alternative electric pop.

The music, she says, “is taking off” with only Internet marketing and word of mouth. A singer and songwriter, she self-produced her first CD last year and just released a music video for her new song, “Ice.” Her CD, Animals in the Street, for which she wrote all the songs, went on sale last spring and is available on iTunes.

“All of a sudden,” she says, “people I didn’t know were buying it in places all over, like Italy, Brazil and Missouri.”

Fans of her Facebook page now number above 500, and a concert she performed last spring at a New York City nightclub drew a substantial crowd, according to Dr. Nielsen. The singing physician, who has had vocal training since the sixth grade, says, “It’s been a little surreal. I didn’t expect that my music would go as far as it has.”

Fans have called her “an innovator … in a class all of her own” and have praised her lyrics as beautiful. Dara Blaker of the online radio show “Dara on Radio” describes Dr. Nielsen’s music as “dark and intense … haunting and hypnotic.”

Dr. Nielsen says she wrote many of the lyrics while attending the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine in East Lansing.
Medical school as inspiration

Medical school was an unusual place for her to end up, Dr. Nielsen writes in her press kit. “With high school dropout and B-movie actress on my résumé, I didn’t quite fit the mold of medical school applicant,” she writes.

After taking a high school completion course, she had earned an undergraduate degree in fine arts and acted in a few cable TV movies. Then her father became seriously ill, and she wanted to go to medical school, partly to make him proud, she explains in her press biography. Unfortunately, her father died before she was accepted into med school.

Dr. Nielsen says she chose osteopathic medicine because she believes in a bio-psycho-social model of medicine and she appreciated the holistic approach of osteopathic medicine. At Michigan State, a supportive administration allowed her as a second-year osteopathic medical student in 2001 to teach a course on empathy in medicine to other students and faculty. Yet, Dr. Nielsen, who was also singing in a rock band at the time, says she often felt “like a fish swimming upstream.”

“I come from New York City, and I’m a very creative person,” she says. “Medical school tended to attract more conservative academic types, and in general people in Michigan were more conservative than I was. Initially, I felt out of place.”

The stress of medical school affected her deeply. In her press kit, she writes about how difficult her third-year clinical rotations were: “All the loneliness, death, sadness … shocked me and crushed me.” Hospital work during that time, she writes, reminded her of her father’s death.

To sort through her feelings, she wrote songs. The words to her song “Beautiful Insanity” came to her after rotation on a psychiatric unit.

When asked if writing music is a healthy outlet, Dr. Nielsen replies, “Absolutely. People often … don’t express feelings of stress, sadness and anxiety. I get to speak about it and get it out of my system. Music is safe—where I can say whatever I want.”

The songwriter hopes her music can be healing to others as well. In her song “Pink Elep - The DO

"If you look up the word contrast in the dictionary, you will find a picture of Karen Nielsen. She is a doctor of Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine and a musician who creates music that is dark and intense. Her patients even call her Doc Rock. Karen is from NYC and is definitely a city girl. It was so interesting chatting with Karen. Her personality is light and bubbly, yet her music is haunting and hypnotic. She loves to write about the different layers that make up life, and sings about many of the darker sides." - Dara on Radio

7/20/2011
"We have a doctor in the house! That's right. Dr. Karen Nielsen stops by the "Ese Rules!" studio to discuss her unique journey. Not only is she a doctor but she is talented singer/songwriter who just released a debut album "Animals in the Street." She gives us the scoop on where her creative journey began and what inspires her music. And we also learn a little about what it's like to not only hear music but also see it." - WTNR Radio