The song "Where Do We Go?" is placed in a new Nissan Altima commercial, so keep your eyes and ears open!
Tracks played on world-renown radio station KCRW: "Where Do We Go?," "Sunflower," "Hummingbird" and "631"
The album "six three one" char [+]The song "Where Do We Go?" is placed in a new Nissan Altima commercial, so keep your eyes and ears open!
Tracks played on world-renown radio station KCRW: "Where Do We Go?," "Sunflower," "Hummingbird" and "631"
The album "six three one" charted in the top 50 at KCRW and made the CMJ top 200! ALBUM REVIEW in LA's New Times, by Michael Berick
Flowing through singer-songwriter Tracy Spuehler's impressive debut disc are elements of Juliana Hatfield's little-girl lilt, Aimee Mann's confessional pop and Liz Phair's indie-rock feistiness. But this native Angeleno puts so much of herself into her songs that her music winds up charmingly fresh and all her own.
Kicking off Six Three One, the irresistibly catchy "Where Do We Go?" is all bouncy beat and boppy "ba ba ba's," but underneath is a sense of questioning that foreshadows the life examinations present throughout this disc. Spuehler demonstrates a real ability for turning personal events into engaging tunes -- in "Little Red Car," for example, she offers a loving tribute to her stolen Toyota. And the title track stands as probably the best rock ode to a house since Grant Hart's "2541." But where that tune honored a punk rock bunkhouse, "631" mixes childhood nostalgia with an air of joyous celebration ("That's where we made lemonade/Back when I was in first grade") to chronicle the packing up of her family home.
The album's centerpiece song, "Hummingbird," similarly employs down-to-earth imagery but for a more serious topic, with Spuehler poignantly using the incident of a hummingbird distracting a mourner during a funeral service to express the love and loss that the song's narrator feels for the deceased person.
Producer Liam Davis, from Chicago's Frisbie, adds thoughtful touches of horns, strings and other studio texturing that well suit Spuehler's seemingly simple yet quite substantive songs. A delightfully endearing album, Six Three One proves that Spuehler is more than just another "girl with a guitar."
MORE REVIEWS The Village Voice sweet, sensitive songs...replete with references to lemonade, sunflowers, and a little red car that takes us so very far
St. Paul Pioneer Press Tracy Spuehler had an epiphany. Over the course of three years in the late '90s, her band broke up
|
 |