2008 Woodie Awards
The Hipster Factor: The Christina Finelli Recovery Project
Amanda Udoff
Issue date: 12/9/05 Section: Arts and Entertainment
I admit defeat: There are too many interesting bands out there for one person to ever have any hope of listening to them all.. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I can tell you about my latest discovery, The Christina Finelli Recovery Project, whom I discovered only due to the disorganization of Record and Tape Traders.
The solo project of one Minneapolis-based Jonny Dirge, The Christina Finelli Recovery Project is instinctively thrown into the pseudo-folk singer-songwriter category. With his yelping vocals and dynamic guitar, the comparisons to early Bright Eyes or an angrier Iron and Wine come to mind.
Recorded by himself to an Otari 8-track in a Vermont mental hospital over a period of two days, the debut album Solitary tells the true story of a pair of lovers in the nineteen seventies who were forbidden to contact each other. Let's just call them R & J, shall we? Well, in an effort to be together for eternity, they made a suicide pact that involved jumping off the bridge spanning the Queechee Gorge. At the last moment, R decides not to jump and watches as J plummets to her death. R is now in a Vermont psychiatric hospital, unable to deal with the loss of his love.
The record is currently only available in the Baltimore area at Record and Tape Traders, but I recommend picking up a copy and keeping an eye out for The Christina Finelli Recovery Project to roll through town. This is one artist that I look forward to seeing more from.
Now onto the part of the column that I know everyone is expecting/dreading: My Buy or Die list of 2005. With everything from Sri Lankan influenced hip-hop to folk songs about Illinois, there is something for everyone. My top ten, in no order:
M.I.A - Arular
Personally, I like the 2004 released Diplo remix disc better, but I didn't want to leave the Sri Lankan- by-way -of-London fireball off this list. If you haven't seen her live, I can't recommend it enough. Her energy is contagious.
Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise
The solo project of one Minneapolis-based Jonny Dirge, The Christina Finelli Recovery Project is instinctively thrown into the pseudo-folk singer-songwriter category. With his yelping vocals and dynamic guitar, the comparisons to early Bright Eyes or an angrier Iron and Wine come to mind.
Recorded by himself to an Otari 8-track in a Vermont mental hospital over a period of two days, the debut album Solitary tells the true story of a pair of lovers in the nineteen seventies who were forbidden to contact each other. Let's just call them R & J, shall we? Well, in an effort to be together for eternity, they made a suicide pact that involved jumping off the bridge spanning the Queechee Gorge. At the last moment, R decides not to jump and watches as J plummets to her death. R is now in a Vermont psychiatric hospital, unable to deal with the loss of his love.
The record is currently only available in the Baltimore area at Record and Tape Traders, but I recommend picking up a copy and keeping an eye out for The Christina Finelli Recovery Project to roll through town. This is one artist that I look forward to seeing more from.
Now onto the part of the column that I know everyone is expecting/dreading: My Buy or Die list of 2005. With everything from Sri Lankan influenced hip-hop to folk songs about Illinois, there is something for everyone. My top ten, in no order:
M.I.A - Arular
Personally, I like the 2004 released Diplo remix disc better, but I didn't want to leave the Sri Lankan- by-way -of-London fireball off this list. If you haven't seen her live, I can't recommend it enough. Her energy is contagious.
Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise