Palehound
Ellen Kempner, la guitariste et lyriciste de 21 ans derrière le projet américain PALEHOUND est, encore plus prodigieuse que ne le suggère son jeune âge. A la suite d’un premier EP remarqué (Bent Nail) et d’une tournée avec Speedy Ortiz, PALEHOUND sortira Dry Food, son premier album, le 4 mars 2016.
Enregistré avec Gabe Wax (Wye Oak, Speedy Ortiz), cet album est rempli de rebondissements émotionnels et sonores. L’album est également porté par la voix d’alto susurrée de Kempner et la sophistication des arrangements musicaux, qui font de Dry Food un album brut, intime, même sur les titres les plus tapageurs. Si Ellen Kempner s’est attelé à tous les instruments , à l’exception de la batterie, sur Dry Food elle est entourée en live de Jesse Weiss à la batterie et de Nick Koechel à la basse.
English
Ellen Kempner, the 21-year-old guitarist and songwriter behind Boston based project, Palehound, is even more prodigious than her age suggests; influenced by her musician father, she struck out on the songwriting path while she was still in elementary school. « I was kind of a shy kid, » says Kempner. « Music was a good way for me to express myself — I had a hard time socially, and it was a way for me to feel like I could contribute something and impress people in some way. »
The eight songs that make up Dry Food, which Kempner wrote from 2013 to 2014 and recorded with Gabe Wax (Wye Oak, Speedy Ortiz) in summer 2015, are wry and confessional, full of unexpected twists and turns. Kempner’s whispery alto gives the album a raw, confessional feel, even on louder tracks like the crashing, reverb-augmented « Cushioned Caging. » That’s partially because Dry Food is a snapshot of a time in Kempner’s life defined by instability and shifting, leaving Sarah Lawrence before her eventual move to Boston.