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Good Luck Investigationship (Bombsniffingdog) "Terese Taylor can veer from lonely backwoods laments to precise, grinding Mission Of Burma-like instrumentals and back. Her music is intuitive and mysterious, filled with personal in-jokes and painful memories, a puzzle that is meant to be felt and experienced, not solved. At times, her songs remind me of Neil Young in his youth, writing lyrics in his sick bed while suffering from a high fever and coming up with stuff that was troubling and moving, but impossible to understand on a literal level, even by himself. The details in her songs tend to be small, but you can feel powerful, unspoken undercurrents beneath the prosaic details of songs that are ostensibly about such things as watching refrigerator defrost or washing a puppy's feet. You get a clear picture of her personality from her music: a strong yet hyper-sensitive character who's been through some serious struggle and come out of it looking at the world with wry humor and amazement. Her voice is an expressive moan, her guitar playing is slashing, gut-level stuff on the rockier tracks and woozy, cracked shards of country-western on the slower ones. (Once again, the Neil Young parallels apply.) She deserves to be huge." -Village Voice Pazz & Jop Ballot 2006, JNeo Marvin |
| "She categorizes her music as "Folk", but donīt expect to hear
strumming on an acoustic guitar and mandolins and violins all
day long. This body of work is a fuzzed out rocking jaunt into
the backyards and back woods that is at times dark and
beautiful. Tereseīs voice can be delicate enought to convey
loss, longing and hurt, but never do you get the sense that it
overwhelms. In fact these songs are a testiment to someone who
survived."
-J. Neo Marvin, Ear Candle Productions |
| Waify
and one of the most charmingly self-deprecating alternative rockers, San
Francisco-based Terese Taylor defines herself and her music best (of course):
"I'm an outskirts, pavement-to-dirt road kind of un(musak) industry
gal." Her second record, The Cryingness of Your Crying When You Cry
is through and through one of the most superlative releases of the year.
Quirky guitar riffs (sometimes crisp , sometimes flawlessly distorted) and
stripped down vocals give the seven songs on this record that almost indefinable
oddball spark that sets some musicians apart from the norm. Lyrically, it's
as if Taylor is telling a story on a dusty back porch, and her songs have
the feel of a hazy, grainy black and white photograph. Reluctantly open
and simultaneously private, she almost danceably kicks open the door to
darkly-lacquered emotions in songs like "Goats For Daddy" and
"Your Hand", while others such as "Cottonfield" and
"Sweet" exude a feeling comparable to the warm hum of a dryer
in the middle of the night. Although she gets plenty of them, Taylor defies
any accurate comparisons to other musicians. Her signature blend of folk-funk,
rock and hopeful doom places her in a well-deserved category of her own.
She's a weirdo who makes music that feels like a long drive on a barren
road as sunlight flashes through tired, old tree branches. And it's only
off this beaten path that you'll find your way into her beautifully sad
and addictive sound. -venuszine, feb 2004 |
| "The
raw power and emotion of these songs is carried by her vocals. She's got
a Cat Power, Sleater Kinney, Liz Phair recklessness and emotional roller
coaster wrapped up in her vocals. And I was ecstatic to be along for the
ride.Musically, it's just as enticing. Great jangly guitar, just the right
amount of fuzzy atmosphere. It's indie rock in the vein of some other great
discs we've received, like Bronwyn's Through The Fog, Through The Pines,
or Black Kites' Loki. At times Terese also sounds a bit like Sinead O'Connor...a
lot of power and grit in a sweet package.The middle of the seven song record
is what really grabbed me. "Sweet" drew me in with it's awesome
sound and atmosphere. "Reluctantly" kept me on the same high with
it's heavy jangle sound mixed with some of the sweetest, floating, but powerfully
emotional vocals on the disc. Slightly dissonant and off key, this was my
favorite track on the album."Candy" sends you on your way with
some rough and ready vocals and a great indie rock, pulsating sound. Terese...please
add me to your mailing list for future releases! " -SouthofMainstream.com |
| "A
nod to Taylor's ability to sink her teeth in and grip until she draws blood,
something she does on "Ghost" (which imagines Joni Mitchell's
Ladies of the Canyon gone lo-fi) and "Cottonfield" (which asks
us to imagine what might have happened had Neil Young made an album for
the Matador label) and even on "Candy," the fun, almost throwaway
cut that closes the disc out. "I really want some candy/Some yummy,
yummy candy," Taylor tells us and by that point, after having traveled
to some dark places beside her, so do we. But, as we reach for that treat,
for the sweet soothing taste, we find that all of it, every last piece of
licorice, every last bit of chocolate, has been poisoned or stuffed with
razor blades. We dig in anyway..." -Jedd Beaudoin, F5, Wichita Weekly, 12/18/2003 |
| "I listened to your CD as soon as I had a 1 AM opportunity -- when it's quiet and there are nointerruptions -- and was totally captivated by your songwriting. There are some particularly beautiful simple melodies which are completely unpredictable, kind of breathtaking actually and surprising--definitely **inspired**! Some moments are positively just beautiful! Beauty is its own justification for being, right?! I really like the spare, minimalist lyrics -- as well as the high lonesome sound modern folk music 'arrangements' (very good arrangements, i might add) -- which can evoke vast vistas of alienated American landscape, as though written by a weary, much-too-long-on-the-road hitchhiker. Those first 4 songs evoke a David Lynch movie emotionality, "Goats for Daddy," "Sweet," "Reluctantly." "Ghost" is possibly the most haunting; whenever I hear something I couldn't possibly have dreamed up in a thousand years of trying, I think, "Wow, this person must be a genius! **HOW** could they have ever come up with that?" The songs on your CD sound "authentic"--that is, to my ear very original and more importantly, tapping down into a deep reservoir of pain and uncertainty and fractured memories. The songs are beautiful (there's that word again) **transfigurations**-- they take a lifetime of contradictory experience and what remains are crystal-pure distillations...poetry, in which a few words evoke so much feeling. Great music! Really, it can't get much better than that! ...the title of your CD is very funny, in a very dark way -- it made me laugh out loud, with its hyperbolic absurdity, in the same way that death itself is hyperbolically absurd --" -V.Vale, June, 2003, RE/Search magazine |
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I could only wish that "Your Hand" was about a man masturbating a woman. I'm not really sure what it's about, actually, but it's a good song nonetheless. "Candy" is not about the drummer for The Jolenes, or is it? "Candy, I really want some candy, some yummy, yummy candy" could mean a lot of things. It's a fun little 109-second piece of work. But the first track is the best. "Goats for Daddy" doesn't blow at all, goats or otherwise, and it gets the album off on the right foot. Well, it has seven tracks, which is right on the border of full-length and EP-dom. If I ruled the world, no album would have seven tracks. It serves solely to confuse me! |
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http://www.citizenrobot.com/musiccentral/#cryingness |
| byline
on Shut Eye comp:"THE ASCERBIC MUSIC OF THIS ECCENTRIC ARTIST IS LIKE
THE SPLATTER FROM A BLENDER MIXING SONIC YOUTH, PJ HARVEY, AND MAGNAPOP."
-Blake Rainey, Shut Eye Records, July 2003 |
| Sometimes
it's cathartic to listen to depressing music--Velvet Underground, Algebra
Suicide, "endless sleep," Nick Drake...and the latest in this
"genre" to come our way: Terese Taylor's "the clothes we
wore before we were married," debut CD. If "Drug Problem"
didn't get you, then "Grandma's Chocolate Bread" should...and
if not that, then "Everything I Touch." In today's permissive climate where professionalism no longer matters--indeed, it's downright suspect--the less-than-perfect vocals imbue this CD with authenticity--as though the singer were a personal friend who gave you her demo tape as an act involving layers of trust. Reall! This is bound to be a rare collector's item, from a songwriter who has known pain. -V. Vale, RE/Search Newsletter April 2001 |
| "Terese
is a glorious soul who has managed to invent a new alternative folk-soul sound that captures countless nontraditional elements of magic and honesty. Not only is her voice rich and hypnotizing, her tunes each exhibit a moment of expression from a truly wonderful mind." -Riffage.com April 2000 |
| "Terese
Taylor has a very unique sound. You will be able to tell her songs apart
from any other band around! She is an amazing songwriter. The whole album
rocks!" -Featured alternative/new artist on Liquid Audio 2000 |
| "Terese
Taylor, she's got balls the size of grapefruits." -Cookie Marenco, 7x grammy nominated engineer/producer, currently OTRstudios |
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