Tag Archives: Australia

Bachelorette playing an intimate show in Brooklyn before hitting the road with The Magnetic Fields

Annabel Alpers of Bachelorette

One-woman act makes dreamy, psychedelia-tinged pop

There’s something about Bachelorette, the nom de rock of New Zealander Annabel Alpers, that’s immediately appealing. Our very first impression of her is that she’s a self-directed Beth Orton who charts her own course without being at the mercy of producers and DJs.

If your first exposure to this Drag City recording artist’s dreamy, pyschedelic girl-group sound is via her most recent recordings, you might not agree. But check out this video, recording in someone’s living room, on the Australian music blog Polaroids of Androids, and you’re more likely to understand.

She’s not as folkie as Beth Orton, but she has a dreamy, somewhat fragile voice and a knack for lovely melody that evokes an Orton for a new generation, one who knows how to loop and manipulate sound live.

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Scenes from Solid Sound: Wilco and friends

Wilco (Nels Cline, Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, from left) on the first night of Solid Sound 2011. (Photos © 2011, Steven P. Marsh)

Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? got off to a late start for the 2011 Solid Sound festival in North Adams, Mass. So we missed Purling Hiss, the first band of the weekend, on Friday afternoon, June 24.

Sharon and Neil Finn's Pajama Club.

But we made it to MASS MoCA in the Berkshires in plenty of time to catch the two big shows of the day, Neil and Sharon Finn‘s Pajama Club and the headlining set by Wilco, the band that made the festival happen.

The Pajama Club plays fun, no-worries pop. We didn’t know much about the band before arriving in North Adams, but discovered to our joy that the New Zealand band’s drummer is Alana Skyring, who until the beginning of this year was a member of one of our fave bands The Grates from Australia.

Click through to the jump for more photos and words about Night 1 of Solid Sound. And check back soon for photo and words about the rest of the music festival.

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