Austin Sound

Dana Falconberry’s new album, Hallets, is a case in point of sometimes taking a step backwards to find the best route forwards. Though Hallets officially serves as the local songwriter’s sophomore full length, it is essentially a revision and reworking of material from her 2008 debut LP, Oh Skies of Grey. That album attempted to bolster Falconberry’s delicate folks sound with strong backing percussion and moments of fuzzed electric guitar, a reach from her familiar acoustic and harmony-based style that has made her one of Austin’s most promising young voices. While Skies’ more aggressively produced style worked well at times, it was also a somewhat misdirected introduction of a debut in that it diverged greatly from the very essence of Falconberry’s songs as they had become popular locally. Hallets is an attempt to reset that starting point, an LP much more in line with the songstress’ stunning 2006 debut EP, Paper Sailboat.

Why so blue Dana Falconberry? Yesterday was your birthday! You have a new album coming out next year! Your clothes inexplicably never go out of style! Yet still you sing sad, oh so sad. “Nobody loves me?”; “Nobody cares?”; “Nobody wants me?” Dana, get off livejournal and take stock of your blessings. It’s Christmastime! Hopefully the other songs on the upcoming Halletts won’t be so devastating, because there is only so much we can take with our Seasonal Depression Disorder. We’ll find out come January 14 when Falconberry releases her sophomore full-length at the Mohawk. In the meantime, we’ll make due with the beautifully dire little ditty “Nightingale” which you can download below. Falconberry has also added a new harmony into her mix alongside Gina Dvorak in the form of Lauren McMurray. Also, if anyone has a clue what the hell a Hallett is, please let us know.

Set as a local cd release for Tom Schraeder, a Chicago songwriter who spent a spell down here in Austin last spring to record his new EP, Lying Through Dinner, the show managed to bring out a solid crowd for a Wednesday night at the Mohawk. While Schraeder’s headlining return was the primary draw, he was supported by two of Austin’s best up-and-coming artists whose praises we have been singing for while now: Leatherbag and Dana Falconberry. Falconberry was celebrating her own new release, Oh Skies of Grey, and Leatherbag had several new songs to deliver for the evening as well.

We can’t wait for Dana Falconberry’s new album, Oh, Skies of Grey, to drop at the end of next month. It’s the long awaited follow-up to her stellar debut EP, Paper Sailboat, and since then she has filled out her sound with help from the perfect harmonies of Gina Dvorak and Erika Maassen, and Andrew Bergmann’s upright bass.

The video is beautifully shot in black and white at a house here in Austin, and we dig the lazing dog in the side of the frame, which seems, along with Falconberry’s scuffed black boots, to just encompass everything we love about her music. Falconberry is currently up in New York for a month, but will be back mid-September to prep the album’s official release on the 30th.

Dana Falconberry

with: Leatherbag and Jude Ross
at: Stubb’s
Date: Thursday, June 12, 2008
Doors: 9pm
Tickets: $6-$8 (via FrontGate)

A good rule of thumb: anytime Leatherbag plays a show, you generally want to be there. That being said, when Leatherbag plays a show with Golden Bear as his backing band, well, you damn well better drop whatever it is you might otherwise have planned and make arrangements to head down to the show, which just so happens to be Thursday night at Stubb’s.

We can’t wait for Dana Falconberry to release her follow up to 2006’s stunning Paper Sailboat EP. With that short album, Falconberry, also known for lending her dulcet tones to Peter and the Wolf’s Lightness, proved herself one of the most promising singer-songwriters in town. Her songs are rife with poetic emotion without being melodramatic, instead relying on the flexible power of her voice and beautifully poignant narratives as the backbone of her mesmerizing songs.

Having gained a fair amount of attention for her ethereal contributions to the Lightness of Peter and the Wolf’s songs, Dana Falconberry’s debut EP Paper Sailboat gives full exposure her talent, both vocally and in her remarkably versatile and poignant songwriting. Falconberry’s voice is an explosion of paradoxes: simultaneously passionate and reserved, seductive and defiant, light and heavy. These forces combine within the songs for a distinctively Southern flair, like a score to a Tennessee Williams play where desperation and pride intermingle into a haunted and yearning heritage.