Audrey Ryan is a multi-instrumentalist, one-man-band act on most occasions, best known for her ability to play drums to her live guitar loops and accordion creating a full band sound from just one person onstage. However, her new record “Thick Skin” is a departure from that one-person sound to the polar opposite of multi-track recording with as many as 20 instruments on some songs. The result is an orchestral sound that harkens Sufjan Stevens in its ambience and instrumentation. “Thick Skin” features 10 original songs by Audrey. On them she plays guitar, accordion, piano, violin, and vibraphone, while recruiting talented friends on clarinet, trumpet, and pedal steel to round out the sound. Each song is a captured moment, of feelings like loneliness, of memory and nostalgia. Audrey’s songwriting has been praised with her international releases “Dishes & Pills” (2007) and “I Know, I Know” (2009), yet “Thick Skin” (2011) raising the bar with fresh, refined and complex songs and arrangements. Hailing from Mount Desert Island on the coast of Maine, Audrey now lives in the Boston area and tours nationally and internationally (Folkwit Records, UK). She has opened for They Might be Giants, Suzanne Vega, Josh Ritter, Grace Potter, Ra Ra Riot, among others. She was nominated "Outstanding Singer-songwriter of the Year" in 2008 and "Best Folk Act" in 2009 at the Boston Music Awards and "Best Folk" in 2009 and "Best Female Vocalist" in 2010 at the Boston Phoenix Music Poll. She was also the winner of “the River 92.5 RiverRising Star” contest in 2009.