"a marriage of punk's irreverence with the refinement and emotion of the jazz torch singers of old...an exhilarating musical ride." -new orleans times-picayunne "4 & 1/2 stars - magnificent: amazing lyrics, a one in a thousand voice...from now on she can be considered a musical monster." -rootstown music magazine, belgium "One of the best songwriters around...oh, and she sings like a dream too!" -folk roots magazine, uk myshkin: rooted in the netherlands, conceived in paris, raised in indiana, running wild in what woods are left. joined the circus. panhandled in laramie, drove a taxi in santa fe, died in new york, painted houses in knoxville. worked on boats and parade floats. lived in tents, trucks and busses. stole a name from dostoevsky, died her hair in the bathroom of a texaco. sings like a bird, plays like an inmate, writes like she's lived every story. myshkin: settled in new orleans, 1993. got to work playing dusky bars, making small dark jewels for records, touring the u.s., canada, europe, australia, relentlessly. soaking up the sound of her city, spitting it out twisted, political, burning, spooky, storied, subtle. chasing truth. "fiercely talented, elegantly skewed" -time out magazine, london uk "a wholly original voice...distinctive, arresting and affecting" -new times, san luis obispo ca "album of the year! myshkin is a giant among songwriters. well observed, unflinching, tender, bitterly funny songs." -city life magazine, manchester uk "myshkin continues drawing from a wide range of styles to establish her musical identity...edgy, interesting, great songs." -dirty linen usa "dexterous picking, loose jazzy swing and poetry...myshkin gives singer songwriters a good name." -philadelphia city paper "relevant, humorous dark and tearless...she is a great unsentimental storyteller whose songwriting far surpasses today's standards" -creative loafing, atlanta HERE ARE SOME WHOLE REVIEWS FOR WHY DO ALL THE COUNTRY GIRLS LEAVE?: Ian Kearey Folk Roots Magazine (UK) aug/sept 2000 pg. 83 Myshkin Why Do All The Country Girls Leave? Binky 1024 Myshkin's excellent last album, Blue Gold, concentrated on her songwriting abilities and the songs were set against understated backings. This time, however, she's kicked out the jams (as we oldsters like to say) and given each set of lyrics a very different kind of backing, to the point of naming each style with the title. So you have Country Girls (Rock), The Last Year (Ska-billy), Sugar Man (Polka), and so on, through to Yvonne's Bar (Yorkshire Brass) and even Market Town (Folk). Commercial suicide, lady! But the hell with that - this album is a brilliantly cohesive work that confirms Myshkin as one of the best songwriters around. All the tracks feature Myshkin on mandolin and guitar plus husband Mike West on guitar and banjo, Matt Perrine on bass and Scott Magee on drums; and the variety of songs perfectly fits the subject matter of each song, without being too obvious or laboured. The hard blues of Headstrong - "you wanna slip through the cracks, but your eighteen and pregnant honey, there's nothing subtle about that", the libidinous polka of Sugar Man, and the menacing swing of Apricot Tree - "you and your new junky boyfriend and me, falling apart under the apricot tree" - all frame the songs exactly. If anything, this album's nearest neighbor is David Ackles' American Gothic, with which it shares it's sweep of Americana: the little boy's painful realization of slavery, loss and cruelty in Market Town, low life and revenge in Ruby Ann, the passing of time in Yvonne's Bar (not so much Yorkshire Brass as the soul horns on James Carr's records) and the history of the Conquistadores in Bojador - each song encapsulates a period or emotion, without sentimentality but with empathy and compassion, not to mention tenderness and pure craziness at times. Oh yes, and she sings like a dream, too, projecting herself into each character just enough to make the point - no more. The moment a reviewer starts talking about an album being An Achievement it's usually time to turn to ...And The Rest or the Biff cartoon, but this really does represent something special. ------------------