Tuesday, November 13, 2007
We've known Ms. Correatown for a little while now. Long enough to know that while the name "Correatown" may encompass its new band members and a new full-band sound, in truth, it's still all about Angela Correa.
We briefly met Lady Angela in passing outside of San Diego's singer-songwriter haven Lestat's when she still lived down there some five years ago. We didn't know much about her until she moved to Los Angeles and started playing shows with our mutual friend Tom Brosseau (as the folk duo Les Shelleys). Since then, she's become one of our favorites, quietly building a following of slo-folk enthusiasts, murder ballad aficionados, and people who just love a purty voice. And since we fall under all those categories, it was perhaps destiny that we would fall madly in love with Angela Correa.
Her previous releases (Red Room Songs in 2002, Murder Ballads & Other Songs in 2004, and Correatown in 2005) were mostly demo-style recordings with little instrumentation, giving way to Correa's sweetly melancholic croon and deeply felt lyrics. So when listening to "All the World (I Tell Myself)", the first track off her pre-release EP Echoes you know Correatown, the band, means business. But while adding a bit of production may have made songs less bare than they once were, nothing is lost in Correa's narrative, which is as vulnerably honest and poetic as ever.
Correatown began their November residency last week playing all new songs from the forthcoming new album. The band featured a stellar cast of musicians, Rob Poynter (The Harpeth Trace) on drums, Wendy Wang (The Sweet Hurt) on bass, Matt Eckel (The Natural Disasters) on keyboards, and Raymond Richards (The Idaho Falls) on guitar. A new album (co-produced by Richards) is expected to come in 2008 which means you'll have to wait entirely too long to get a hold of songs like "Racing Tides", "Green Cotton Dress", and "Far Far Away". To hold you over, however, listen up for Ms. Correa in the new John C. Reilly biopic parody Walk Hard, in which she sings for "Darlene", played by Jenna Fischer (The Office).
Correatown performs November 7, 14, and 21 at The Bordello. Photos from the first week are here. Advance copies of the new EP "Echoes" are available at shows. "Walk Hard" hits theaters December 21st. Check out the trailer.
Correatown - "All the World (I Tell Myself)" (MP3) from the new EP "Echoes" Limited time download
Angela Correa - "Hardship To Be" (MP3) from "Correatown" (2005)
Les Shelleys - "The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise" (MP3) from Les Shelleys Vol. 1 & 2
