*BIO* Tara Angell: She’s been giving, she’s been tapping in… “Sometimes, we like to mess with your heads,” announced the promoter, the chatter fading as the audience focused on the stage. Their eyes rest on the girl with penetrant eyes of arctic blue. Standing beside him with an electric guitar, she’s beautiful, a little scary looking and all but aglow with a rare charisma. Encouraging welcoming applause, he concludes her introduction: “This is one of those times.” It sure was. I will vouch for the crackling uncertainty of those first few moments, when this startling creature in bondage pants and a tartan kilt stepped forward to perform for a crowd slavering for the rather less edgy, demure form of headliner Laura Cantrell. Before a chord was formed or a note was sung, I could feel a powerful experience ahead. It hung thick in the air like the smell of cold metal seconds before a storm. And as she started to play, the skies cracked open and drenched us all… During New Yorker Tara Angell’s cogent set of rock ‘n’ soul-baring that evening in Brighton, England, back in 2003, a couple of things became very clear. Firstly, here was a woman unafraid of standing emotionally naked and vulnerable before all onlookers. Her brutally honest lyrics weigh heavy with anger, defiance, regret and longing, beckoning the listener into a dark, confessional world of shattered dreams and melancholic reminiscence. Each song is a compelling gothic vignette with an overarching mood of dysfunction, mirroring the harrowing themes and explorations of mental anguish present in the works of writers William Styron and Flannery O’Connor, both major influences on Angell‘s life and work. Secondly, she positively drips rock ’n’ roll. You know she just breathes it, drinks it all in, lives it every day and that in her world there could be no sense in not hearing The Saints or John Lee Hooker at breakfast. And in her own interpretation, a raw sexiness collides with alluring mystique for an intense delivery, echoes of those informing her gorgeous, heavy music filtering through with devastating effect. As NYC as Downtown 81 and the Gaslight Cafe, locked into the cadence of the city’s pulsating streets, Tara Angell represents a natural marker in the lineage of Big Apple rock music. The spirits of Lou Reed, Suicide, Ramones and Television all inhabit the Angell musical persona. Even so, the New York factor is merely the beginning. As is so with most good troubadours, Dylan looks on and she’s a Neil Young devotee, but rocks equally to Hendrix, Sarah Vaughan, Bowie or Radio Birdman, while taking further inspiration from arguably lesser- known artists like leftfield blues maestro Chris Whitley or Memphis-rockers Reigning Sound. It’s a potent brew. The Tara Angell appearance staged by the promoter that sometimes likes to mess with our heads was booked on the strength of a clutch of songs on a sampler presented in unique, handmade packaging. This now precious artifact alone serves as ample illustration of the fierce commitment to her art that has seen Angell since shove her way into a crowded female singer-songwriter marketplace, release Come Down - her astounding, Joseph Arthur-produced debut album (Rykodisc: 2005) - and receive championing praise from giants including Ron Sexsmith, Daniel Lanois and Lucinda Williams. Not only have they been stunned by her songwriting prowess, but by her unique, spine-tingling voice. Williams, in fact, Patti Smith (with whom, in Tony Shanahan, she shares a bassist), Marianne Faithfull and Thalia Zedek are vocal touchstones, her cracked voice oozing as much soul as Mary Margaret O'Hara. Surrounded by the swirling narcotic haze of her acid-country-tinged epics, it's a seriously muscular entity. Maverick visionaries such as David Lynch and, as touched upon, the literary world also play their part in shaping Tara Angell’s music and thinking, with author James Purdy particularly significant. A man driven to convey his personal despair concerning the abuse and exploitation of the weak, defenseless and innocent, his obsession with such injustices is reflected in Angell’s exhaustive work for animal welfare in New York City. As for Angell’s long-awaited, hotly anticipated sophomore album, it is coming. I guarantee you this: it will be dark and beautiful… and it will mess with your head. – DAVID MORRISON Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada (June 2007) PRAISE FOR COME DOWN: "Come Down" gets 4 Stars**** in Uncut March 2005 ---------- THE TIMES, LONDON, SUNDAY 2/20 4 stars **** "... Lucinda Williams must enjoy her world-weary vocals and obvious love of late-1960s Stones (from the pop-shuffle of Hollow Hope to the slow, country twang of Untrue); the uber-producer Lanois, meanwhile, must rate the beautifully flawed production -by singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur -that (almost incredibly) was the result of only five days in the studio. That working week created one of the most fully realised debuts you'll hear for a long time." The Buffalo News, 1/05 "Predictions are dangerous business, particularly when it comes to the rather protean world of popular music, where the sands can shift without warning. Consider this list of artists to watch at least part wishful thinking. These artists deserve to be heard far and wide, and perhaps a few of them will be. Some, in fact, are already doing quite nicely, thank you. Others will likely continue releasing albums whether they're playing to 50 or 50,000 people. Whatever happens, based on the work of artists like these, it seems 2005 is shaping up to be a pretty healthy year. 1. Tara Angell ...she's landed a deal with Ryko, after an apparently stunning set at the 2002 South by Southwest festival, and is poised to drop her debut, "Come Down," Feb. 22. The record was produced by another artist to watch, Joseph Arthur, and it's full of dark, literate, eminently crafted songs with deep roots. .. 2. And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead ... 3. Cafe Tacuba ... 4. The Dears ... 5. Joseph Arthur ... 6. The Futureheads ... 7. Broken Social Scene ... 8. The Soundtrack of Our Lives ... 9. John Legend ... 10. Ed Harcourt ..." ------------ From the Harvard Independent CD Review: Tara Angell, Come Down "It's as if an Angel, well, came down." The Harvard Independant By Kelly Faircloth Thursday, February 17, 2005 It would be difficult for me to classify Tara Angell's debut album into a precise genre. Sometimes indie, sometimes almost alt-country (see the Lucinda Williams recommendation on the cover), Angell stands out as the rare artist who says exactly what she wants to say in the best way of saying it, without regard for labels and formulas. Citing James Purdy and the stark, uncompromising prose of Flannery O'Conner as influences in her own writing style, Angell is at turns reminiscent of Lucinda Williams, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and others. She doesn't come across as merely replicating the styles of these greats, either - the echoes of these artists are fleeting as she defines her own style, with a gritty roughness to her voice, calmly even in tone but undeniably firm. Angell doesn't scream, doesn't rage. She recognizes and accepts, presenting us with serious, solemn music in such a way that she helps us to see and deal with shadows and darkness. The CD opens with "Untrue," which baldly declares in the chorus, "I am untrue." The song seems confessional and soul-bearing, a head-hanging song. Angell pulls no punches in opening with this number, setting a tone of straight truthfulness. The next song, "Hollow Hope," stands out for me as bearing the most striking similarity to Lucinda Williams's work on Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. This song picks up the pace of the album, in an almost defiant way, acknowledging the emptiness of her hope in a way that isn't self-pitying or pathetic. One of the strangest and most interesting songs on the CD, an example of Angell's variability and depth of emotion, is the oddly light-hearted, rather sly "Bitch Please." Smack in the middle of the tracks, the song features a chatty interchange, punctuated with giggles, between a man and a woman in the recording studio, with Angell's vocals overlaid on top. Angell takes an amused look at relations, treating the listener to another side of her personality, different from the seriousness shown on most of the album. Another highlight is "Uneven," taking a hard look at love, the need involved and the highs and lows of being with or without someone you love. Perhaps not the thing to listen to with your significant other on your Valentine's Day outing, the song is steadily thoughtful and thought-provoking, with great music supporting and fleshing out the lyrics. Perhaps my favorite track on the album is the uncompromising "When You Find Me." The opening to the song vaguely resembles Dylan's "If You See Her, Say Hello," as Angell's vocal styling combines with an effect that makes her sound like she is in an empty room, lending the song an especially solemn sound. The track has an honest, laid-bare quality to it, without any dissembling or "let's just be friends." Angell straight-up declares "I am never gonna love you" in a way that isn't cruel, just truthful. This theme of revelation of painful but necessarily recognized truths runs throughout the album. -------------- From the Guardian UK, 18 Feb.2005 Tara Angell, Come Down by Betty Clarke Friday February 18, 2005 The Guardian "...Angell's voice has shades of Patti Smith, Marianne Faithfull and Juliana Hatfield, but her attitude is one of a teenager who delights in death stares, drunken melancholia verging on pained hysteria. Words are uncomfortably drawn out, phrases repeated, and the ooh-ooh backing vocals are chilling. This is an evocative debut." IN MUSIC WE TRUST Tara Angell Come Down (Ryko Disc) By: Alex Steininger "...acclaimed singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur, who helps Angell create the type of record you can fixate on for long period of times - road trip, lonely nights, etc... Angell's voice turns the fragile, sweet songs into dark, empowered moments of confidence, assurance, and self-exploration. Coupled with her ability to write strong melodies and dissipating hooks...I'll give it an A-" Village Voice, 6/04. "Her music sounds like Lucinda Williams, Neil Young and Liz Phair...her record, Come Down - produced by Joseph Arthur- has lots of tasty haunting ambience brushed through out." The Wichitan/Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls Texas 1/05 Angell from the Dark Side "...The end for bands happens when they lose the capacity to be honest with themselves, their music and their listeners. And timeless music depends on this. A first album by a woman with a sense of the past, language, emotions, harmony and musical phrasing may be the first must-have album of the year. Recorded nearly three years ago on her own dime, Tara Angell's first record, "Come Down" shows an artist who's musically sound, literature savvy...She has the honesty of Cat Power, with the musical sense of a diverse and tastefully developed record collection. What's in this record collection is up to the listener to decide. But a lot of people have been singing this woman's praises already, and the comparisons range from the words of early Bob Dylan and the down of early Black Sabbath. Absurd maybe, but her finely arranged songs grow on you, while the melodies infectiously eat their way into your heart. It might remind listeners a little of the new folk that's sweeping the better underground New York clubs....If contemporary music too often wants to live off past glories, Angell instead takes fragments of her life and mature musical vocabularies to say some something meaningful to more people than a few hip crowds with too much time on their hands. I like this album an awful lot." AMERICANA-UK.COM 8 out of 10 TARA ANGEL "COME DOWN" "Subtle textures and expertly balanced vocals coalesce with stolid ease to produce an album as passionate as Lucinda Williams, as spooky as Jesse Sykes and as croaky as Kristin Hersh. Good Call". From 'Comes With A Smile' Magazine UK Edition #16 ...You can see her, nonchalantly leaning against a wall, cigarette dangling from her fingers and with a sneer that would scare Lucinda Williams away. There's more Lucinda styling on When You Find Me, a couldn't-give-a-damn drawl for a lazy afternoon alone. Tales of lost love are dealt with in a mix of sadness and defiance, not so much Liz Phair angry brigade, more Tanya Donelly's 'your loss' sentiment. In Untrue Angell starts so relaxed you fear she's just sleeptalking. And you just know that a song called The World Will Match Your Pain isn't going to be easy and the funereal opening sets the tone as the track walks woundend through dark streets. Amazingly, she makes the song sound more bleak than the title.The jaunty Bitch Please skips along, snatches of conversation litter the background before You Can't Say No To Hell sounds exactly as you'd expect it to. Just when you think you've got the hang of the record, Silver Lining makes you realize otherwise. It's no happy song, it could even be darker on here, although the competition is fierce...." Pulse Weekly FOUR Stars Tara Angell's music is an interesting beast: it's protective of its hidden contents, because those are the most precious, the most heartfelt and the most interesting elements of sonic exploration. Her voice is sad and lonely, but at the same time (somehow) hopeful. Angell's music is hauntingly beautiful, dark and mysterious, and it drips with a back-country/barroom vibe that would put any typical bar band to shame. Her voice is reminiscent of Neil Young's, and her lyrics are honest. (Her inflection is Young to the max.) Her songs are simply executed but crafted in a careful way, and that's exactly where the bite is - it's kind of like a sucker punch. Sometimes witty, sometimes sarcastic, and always lamenting, Tara Angell has found a way to forever be good. NO DEPRESSION MAGAZINE May 2005 Imagine a rough-voiced woman singing Mazzy Star covers in the apartment upstairs while a garage band practices in the place next door. The disparate sounds spilling into your living room are complementary in a strange way, though they weren't meant to fit together. That's Tara Angell. Come Down, the New York singer-songwriter's debut, is packed with harrowing songs of dysfunction and vulnerability that exert a dark pull. Many of the tunes sound as if Angell and producer Joseph Arthur recorded onto someone else's discarded tape and some of the abandoned songs bled through into Angell's. When it works, it's bewitching, especially on tracks such as "The World Will Match Your Pain" and the opening cut"Untrue". It's more distracting on "Bitch Please", which may have been recorded during a dinner party; there's the sound of people chattering and laughing and, about three-quarters of the way through, an abrupt explosion. Really. It's a bit ironic, actually, because Come Down is anything but explosive. The album is a slow build, emotions piling up one after the other until they teeter precariously and collapse under their own weight. And Angell keeps singing, flinging accusations and offering quiet regrets in a voice coarsened by late nights and endless disappointment. -Eric R. Danton ALLMUSIC.COM: Review by Thom Jurek Tara Angell's debut Come Down is one of those records: one that once heard is instantly memorable. Produced by songwriter Joseph Arthur and recorded in only five days, it is a dark, harrowing, and vulnerable gem by a songwriter who understands the strengths of her many influences well, and filters them all through her own story. Traces of everyone from the Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams, Marianne Faithfull, Neil Young, Daniel Lanois, PJ Harvey, and indie rock heroes Low slide in and out of the mix, all harnessed by Angell's particular poetic lyrical gift and her ability to write a skeletal melody that grips instantly. "Hollow Hope," pops like an outtake from Exile on Main St.; "Untrue" offers the confessional side of darkness unapologetically yet utterly devoid of venom or pose; "The World Will Match Your Pain," with its ghostly organ and flawed guitar sound, caresses her words from the corner of the heart's own faltering stillness. The ramshackle mix on "Bitch Please," is held taut in the grip of Angell's words. The poignant, narcotic lilt of "You Can't Say No to Hell," is as world-weary as anything Williams has ever put on tape, and the sheer narcotic drone and distortion in "Uneven," offers a taste of darkness so alluring and sweet you don't even want to try it once. This is a recording so naked emotionally and so unapologetic musically it demands attention. Repeated listenings bring out the considerable songcraft gently in the lo-fi aesthetic and raw emotion. A winner.