Rachel Eckroth

About

"With sparse, staccato bass notes and fluid string arrangements, Rachel Eckroth's music is a little outside the contemporary singer-songwriter box. Indeed, the songs contain few of the formulaic components that have made the female singer- songwriter genre like a dependable old friend. There is no weeping piano (even though Eckroth is a trained pianist) or solemn guitar, and it is absent of the hyper- personal lyrics trademarked by Alanis Morrisette and Fiona Apple. Eckroth speaks in poetry, and while not necessarily better than a hyper-personal approach, it causes the listener to sit up and pay attention. Her strengths, however, lie in fluid shifts between dissonant jazz and colorful arrangements.

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Eckroth's charm is not only in her ability to create a song characterized by such agility, but in having the pipes to match it. Her opening vocals on "Gold" are like clear, vibrating crystal, and with the upsweep of strings, she smokes up her sound to a dark, textured Nina Simone. The switch comes a bit like a sucker-punch— just as she's set up a lullaby tone, she breaks out with a sultry strength. The range and skill of the song itself are impressive; the addition of her voice is what makes her a stand-out. Rachel Eckroth is a like a breath of fresh air in the depressing era of auto-tune—different, original and hauntingly gorgeous. Indie music fans would be well-advised to pay attention to Rachel Eckroth—she has the chops and the pipes to shake things up."

--Melanie Boyer, Weekly Music Blog, D.C.

"Like any highly creative musician, jazz pianist and composer Rachel Eckroth refuses to repeat herself. "

- Larry Rodgers, Arizona Republic

"...a composer/performer obviously influenced and firmly rooted in the tradition yet makes her own statement in a uniquely elegant manner ."

-Thomas Erdmann, Jazzreview.com

"... the pianist's writing, touch, and ideas all loom large." -Jazziz Magazine

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