A heartfelt appreciation to Sam Pfeifle at Portland Phoenix, for this incredible article, “Authentically Manufactured: New Maine releases by Uno Lady & Waxfed are artfully constructed” Thanks for taking the time to get to know my music and share. Here are some clips from the article.
… “Take Uno Lady, for example, and her newly released “Alaska,” the result of a residency at the off-the-grid solar-powered Chulitna Lodge, a wilderness retreat in Lake Clark National Park & Preserve. Here, Cleveland transplant Christa Ebert has captured field recordings of herself doing things like banging on a log out in the forest, or birds swooping past her tent at night, and remixed them digitally into background atmospheres, over which she layers what sometimes sounds like dozens of her own vocal tracks. Maybe there’s a bit of keyboard once in a while.
The results are warm and organic, sometimes even catchy, as on “Today’s the Day,” which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Magnetic Fields album. Ebert’s lead vocal is lower register and resonant — “I’ll conjure up some urgency and mend all of the emergencies” — while a chorus of angelic vocals shimmer in the background, accompanied by bugs and birdsong, like Snow White wending her way slowly through the forest. Her vocal range is sorta bonkers.
Her “Venn Diagram,” too, from the “Osmosis” album three years ago, is a delicious bit of indie pop, and she even covered Tom Petty in her early releases. But there’s always something subversive, something new and interesting in the way she constructs her recordings and releases. Her previous release, “Le Flux,” recorded largely in Switzerland and then edited here in Maine, features vocals that are lyricless, and more found sounds turned into beats. Only possible, really, with today’s digital recording techniques, it still manages to transmit an intimacy that should tickle that desire for authenticity….
Maybe you can’t picture them in the room, but you can understand what they’re feeling, and that’s something no machine will ever authentically do.”
Thanks again, Sam. I appreciate your kind words.
