Cottonhead Happy Tree
Released: November 11, 2002 Origination Year: 2002 Time: 48:58 Tracks: 12 Produced by: Greg Talenfeld Style: Studio Format: CD Enhancement: None Label: OK Records Website: N/A

Coming out of New York, the band hardly sounds like the product of the surroundings. Instead, the overall vibe is that indefinable point between Louisville post-punk and a whiskey bar at the farthest point south in the contiguous U.S. It might not seem possible, but songs like “This Is What I Want” and “Dark”, while arranged with the usual instrumentation, hardly sound like products of their genre. The band has the benefit of being better informed than their peers, even if they choose not to let on just how much so.

Primary songwriters Greg Talenfeld and Mary Birdsong have found a way to combine the elegant, stark quality of Richard Buckner, the wide-eyed sweetness of Shawn Colvin and the jaded edge of Sam Phillips without seeping into cliché or, worse, becoming morbid. There’s plenty of light heartedness to be found, specifically on “At Least We Got Into The Game”, as potent an ode to probable lost causes as I’ve ever heard. It is when things get hard that the band really shines. The aforementioned “Dark” is beautiful and spooky all at once, replaying itself in the mind of the listener long after the cd has stopped spinning. It’s the blood on the sleeve where the heart used to be.

The overall design, including the title, is a nod to the late Shel Silverstein, and when I was informed of this I couldn’t help but laugh, as one of the little children characters on the cover has chopped down his “Giving Tree”. A cover version of Silverstein’s “Sylvia’s Mother” is found in fine shape here as is a nod to my all-time favorite Simon and Garfunkel song “The Only Living Boy In New York”, incorporated into their original “Drunk and Lonely”. Again, Cottonhead has not arrived without having done the work.

Although Talenfeld and Birdsong are the core of the group, they’ve surrounded themselves with great musicians; Kirsten Jansen (on the drums), Jeremey Chatzky (bass), Joe Mendelson (piano) and Will Holshouser (accordion) play in service to the songs and not the other way around. But in the end, what you’ll remember is Birdsong’s voice, somewhere in that absolute gray where laughter turns to tears. She could be the next Roseanne Cash or the next Edith Frost… But the best compliment to offer is that she could very well be the most arresting vocalist currently working in the indie music field.

This disc is recommended to anyone who has asked the questions: why are all the new country groups like 70s pop radio, or why are all the underground bands so full of anger and angst? It’s also recommended to anyone looking for something really “new” and mature. And finally, it’s recommended for anyone who has stayed awake too long, filled with that unnamed feeling, staring at the absolute gray where nothing really begins, or ends, but simply is.

You know who you are.