Brooklyn-based songwriter Beth Wawerna seems to be spending a lot of time lately with Okkervil River front man Will Sheff. We were first tipped off to Bird Of Youth via a YouTube video of Beth offering a stripped-down rendition of “Pop Lie” for Okkervil River’s The Stand Ins covers project, which also features performances by A.C. Newman of the New Pornographers, Bon Iver, David Vandervelde, and Jack Ladder. But now it appears that Beth has a full album in the works as an “official” MySpace page has launched giving us three original tracks. Possibly more impressive is the band she’s assembled around her, considered a group of “friends and admirers” it includes Will himself and original members of The Mendoza Line, Nada Surf, The Wrens and Royal American.
As her bio (written by Timothy Bracy) suggests, “Beth possesses a rare voice whose alchemy of innocence and experience transports you on contact. While it’s fair to say that there’s some echo of the plain-spoken confessions of Joni Mitchell in Beth’s songs – there’s at least as much Mick Jagger, and on the girl-group style “Stop Staring,” she could be Dorothy Parker writing for Brenda Lee. She may have been wounded in love, capsized in passion, burnt out from exhaustion and blown out on the trail, but there lies beneath the wreckage a true rock and roll heart – a grit and gallows humor that places her a country mile from any number of wispy-voiced indie-girl confections of the present era.”
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