Evoking the spirit of both el and Postcard records, American indie icons Franklin Bruno and Jenny Toomey return to recording with the classiest 7” you’ll hear all year.
Billed as the Human Hearts, Toomey and Bruno swing, crackle and POP through two instant classics – the reflective Loyal Opposition, and the Motown meets Orange Juice stomp Distracted.
Bruno is an American singer-songwriter, academic, writer, and blogger originally from Upland, California. He has been a member of Nothing Painted Blue since its inception in 1986, has worked on two Mountain Goats albums, written a book on Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces and is a professor of philosophy.
Alongside Kristin Thomson, Toomey booked the first Riot Grrrl shows in DC and co-founded the prolific indie label Simple Machines in 1990. She played and sang in Tsunami, Liquorice, Geek, So Low, Choke, Grenadine, My New Boyfriend, Slack and her own Jenny Toomey band (with members of Calexico). After Simple Machines shut down, Toomey co-founded the Future of Music Coalition while on sabbatical from a copywriting job at the Washington Post. Now she splits her time between New York and D.C., doing important-sounding work at the Ford Foundation—and for the last decade or more, it seemed like she had put music on the far-back burner. But now, Toomey is back at it again.
For the first time since 2002’s Tempting, Jenny Toomey’s voice appears on a new record via English label Where It’s At Is Where You Are. Not only is it a collaboration with songwriter Franklin Bruno (her long-time pal and off/on creative partner), but violinist and vocalist Jean Cook, who has played with Pulp, The Mekons’ Jon Langford and D.C.’s Beauty Pill, among others also adds strings and ahhhs.
The picture disc is illustrated by Sarah Lippett
No comments:
Post a Comment