Jodi Shaw

When I first hit play on Jodi Shaw's bandcamp page I was expecting to love the fucking shit out of it. Everything pouring out at me from the album cover told me I was going to fucking love this. There was an eerie pastel-ish sort of denial-laced quiet that emanated from the page. Sort of how everyone knows Uncle Butchy knocked up his daughter, but he was off his meds, so we don't talk about it.

Now that you're uncomfortable, I'll continue.

Better yet, I'll give you a sentence that I think should sum up my love/lust with Jodi immediately so if you're too creeped out already, you might give this sassy lass a listen or six.

Jodi Shaw is the 2012 equivalent of a young Natalie Merchant, but without her having one of those annoying vocal twitches that all the girls think is somehow endearing, and she's fucking breathtaking in a Winnie Cooper with a libido kind of way. Jodi has fucking skills, and from what it sounds like, she's sitting relaxed behind a piano and pouring her voice out into shotglass after shotglass of delicious despair, and I can do nothing but get completely tossed off by how effortless this all sounds.

All throughout In Waterland, the album that ripped off my denim jorts (denorts?) and tossed them clear cross the frenchroom (I'm from Chicago, Fuck you), Jodi sings the songs you'd hear in your own mind as being perfect for a walk alone through a state fair where everyone is running from the fact that they're miserable by throwing softballs at milk bottles and getting excited about winning the plush toys some kid lost a finger making. It's introspective, jaded, simply fucking delicious, and I have no idea why I'm so entranced by her voice, but I am. So Fuck you again bro bro.

Jodi Shaw's voice sounds how I wished every girl I ever crushed on (but never crushed/smashed/fucked) would sound as they sang me to sleep. Matter of fact, her voice sounds creepily close to the voice of a chick that sat with me in a college dorm bathroom while I threw up from a bad mushroom trip. Said chick sang words I don't remember, in melodies I can't recall, but it made a fucking world of difference, and I ended up showing her a tyrannosaurus rex shape in my vomit just before I flushed.

Jodi Shaw is the chick who sings to you while you're sure you're dying, and as I imagine in my imaginative imagination she sounds nearly the same between her speaking voice and her singing voice, she's fucking dynamically hypnotizing.

While the song The Witch might be my favorite (because she says the word "tits" bro), her entire new album is fucking apples bro. You can just pluck the shit off the fucking tree and eat bro.

APPLE REFERENCE: THREE HIPPIE POINTS.

Regardless of how annoying I am, Jodi is a fucking beast. And while I sometimes wish she'd fucking stand up, get angry and scream sangz at me, the fact that she's collected throughout the whole fucking album is proof she's hiding it from me. Which makes her even fucking hotter than she already is.

Her voice is that restrained eroticism middle eastern men can sense when a woman walks by showing a litle ankle. Mmhmm.

Maybe one day I'll get a peek at one of her ankles. AND THEN I'LL ABUSE MYSELF GOOD AND PROPER BRO BRO. - SYFFAL (Shut Your Fucking Face And Listen)

Fans of Puscifer and Imogen Heap will Love Jodi Shaw

When I was sent the very haunting pop artist Jodi Shaw’s brand new release “In Waterland”, I initially chose the “album stream” option. 30 seconds into the album opener “Swim”, I’m partially shocked, and partially swept away into some peaceful, clear, resilient recess of my consciousness. I’m now making sure I download the release. Make no mistake; this is healing music, haunting but pure. Brilliant singer/songwriter material – hard to pin down, although I would throw the names Sarah McLachlan, Imogen Heap, Enya, Big Sir, Mazzy Star, and Tori Amos mixed with a wise folk/indie rock perspective. Actually, those comparisons don’t really come close – I’m out of reference points but enjoying the attempt.

“Swim” trudges along with the same determination of “Man Overboard” by Puscifer, guided by lush pianos and Jodi’s gorgeous vocals dancing and trading with one another. In fact, the mood and quality of this music is quite similar to the stellar, emotionally charged work found on Puscifer’s “Conditions of my Parole”, a recent masterpiece. As that release was my favourite release of 2011, that is a big compliment.

Jodi Shaw’s voice is spellbinding and attention-grabbing. I hear a lot of singers every day who know how to mimic emotion. This is a singer who directly communicates it, and it’s exactly what I needed to hear at the end of a long day. Other highlights from the album include “The Mystery of Love”, which has a subtle merry-go-round “get on board” rhythm and a great, infectious piano piece. As usual, though, it’s Jodi’s voice that shines above everything else as she sings “I’ll sail that ship to shore”. Take a listen to the very moody and absolutely sublime “To the Country (We Go)”, as the off-notes are revelled in and an angelic voice calls out. “Fortunate Prince” is menacing and unnerving – you can hear the Elliott Smith influence here. Between this and the elegant vulnerability of “Hell’s Bells”, Jodi Shaw is full of range and possibility.

This has to be one of the most impressive and moving releases I’ve heard in 2012. I’m thankful that there are artists like Jodi Shaw out there. Even if you don’t always follow her at-times cryptic poetic direction (another positive), you can certainly feel it.

By James Moore - Independent Music Promotions

Haunting Lyrical Intensity from Jodi Shaw

Songwriter Jodi Shaw’s chamber-pop song cycle, In Waterland, is being re-released mid-month. By “song cycle,” that is to say theme and variations; forty years ago, people used to call these things concept albums. The obvious comparison is Aimee Mann, both in terms of brooding, wounded persona and purist, artsy pop sensibility. Shaw plays the album release show on May 15 at 7 PM at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe: if smart, biting, literate lyrics, catchy tunes and unselfconsciously attractive vocals are your thing, you should go see her.

The arrangements manage to be stately and often majestic yet very simple, just Shaw’s piano and nuanced vocals along with terse string arrangements, shimmering guitar atmospherics and occasional low-key rhythm. Swimming is the central motif here, and it’s traumatic. It’s not known whether Shaw – pictured in a bathing cap, in water up to her neck on the album cover – is the strong but fading, emotionally depleted swimmer in the album’s harrowing title track, or whether she has other feelings for the water. That’s a major part of the album’s appeal.

The opening cut, simply titled Swim, sets the tone, the blithe bounce of the melody ultimately unable to conceal the hopelessness of the lyric, sharks circling as a “sound and steady ship” departs, promising to return someday to rescue the woman in the water. Cruelly surreal and evocative, The Witch (not the Sonics song, or the one by Donovan for that matter) pictures a former beauty all alone and facing a hostile, clueless crowd of conformists who’d gladly burn her as their forefathers would have done three hundred years ago. Jack and Jill takes a hypnotic post-Velvets melody and spices it up with piano and some watery tremolo guitar: Shaw’s perplexed narrator can’t figure out why the guy let go of the girl’s hand after the two had successfully made it down the hill.

The torchy Mystery of Love comes as a surprise, with its jaunty gypsy/cabaret vibe and a lyric that starts out seductive and turns unexpectedly menacing. The downward trajectory picks up steam with the swinging, bucolic To the Country (We Go), a late 60s-style psychedelic pop number that again shifts from blithe to bleak: “A soft rain falls on my blouse, and now there is no doubt I see Gallows Hill in that house,” Shaw announces quietly as ebow guitar oscillates hypnotically behind her. This Balloon (Ode to Zvezdochka) intermingles images of planes and trains with an exasperated anger over lush minor-key orchestration: it’s both the most classically-oriented and Aimee Mann-esque cut here. Then all the foreshadowing explodes with the kiss-off anthem Fortunate Prince, a violent tale cached in an elegant arrangement. After the bloodshed runs its course, the narrator muses on what she might say if and when she reaches the afterlife: “There was something exciting about him when he was alive.” And then despair settles in with the understated but towering intensity of the title track.

Hell’s Bells – not the song you’re thinking of – shifts from a precise tiptoeing hip-hop beat to a lush sway, a bitter chronicle of failure with neatly intricate layers of twin vocals a la David J’s Stop This City as it winds out. But as the album comes full circle, she’s ready for the breakup guy, and the deadpan sarcasm is deadly. The album’s concluding cut is a somewhat more brisk solo piano version of the title track, which is just as good as the studio take. It’s a quiet, relentlessly intense masterpiece. The audience for this is potentially vast: any morose indie film whose music director might be contemplating something by Aimee Mann, or for that matter Feist or Neko Case, also ought to have Jodi Shaw as part of the soundtrack. - The New York Music Daily

Jodi Shaw has always been a bit off the beaten path. The Canadian-born, self-taught singer songwriter transitioned to songs from poetry, finding that her aural and lexemic muse flowed freely together. In 2009, Shaw teamed up with fellow Canadian Malcolm Burn (Daniel Lanois, Emmylou Harris, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Blue Rodeo) to record her latest album, In Waterland, her most accomplished work to date. In Waterland (due May 5, 2012) took a long time to make it out into the world. Partway through the creative process, Shaw discovered she was pregnant. After the birth of twins, she took some time off from music, but returned to complete the album. Shaw’s poetry and musical sensibilities intertwine to near perfect on In Waterland, a deeply personal and moving experience that is as subtle as the current, and as deep and unbending as the tide.
Kicking things off with “Swim”, Shaw sinks into a sparse and gorgeous musical medium that flows as freely as an ocean current. Shaw’s voice is incredibly warm, falling somewhere between the edgy depths of Tori Amos and the enigma that is Leslie Feist, with a touch of Fiona Apple’s edge thrown in. Shaw goes for shock and awe in “The Witch”, assaulting listeners’ preconceptions full on with deep and esoteric musings on the mutability of beauty. This could be a message from mother to daughter, perhaps, but it explores the essence of beauty as opposed to the often bollixed perceptions of the world. This is a wow moment for Jodi Shaw, both as a writer and a performer.
Shaw doesn’t waste time offering up another wow, digging deep for Jack & Jill with ruminations on imperfection and love, and how they interrelate. Shaw builds offsets her vocal affect with a simple and sparse arrangement that draws equally on the twin beauties of the sonic and silence. Down through these currents to a more carnal side of human nature, Shaw digs in to “Mystery Of Love”, an utterly poetic yet in your face come on. There is more here than meets the eye/ear, however, as Shaw shows that even desire has many levels.
Shaw gives listeners a breather with “To The Country (We Go)”, a solid transition that sets up the fantasy/reality of “This Balloon/Ode To Zvezdochka”, a tribute to the last Russian dog cosmonaut, if you will. Think of this as art deco philosophy, driven in time and place by thought that is not trapped by time frame it captures. “Fortunate Prince” is once again solid, setting the stage for the utter beauty of the title track, “In Waterland”. Here Shaw paints with a broad brush, in poetic and graceful strokes that go much deeper than the surface. Shaw explores the connections we make, the loneliness we feel, and the occasional bits of magic we encounter along the way. You’ll find yourself playing this song again and again; plumbing its depths for deeper meaning that is always just out of reach.
In “Hell’s Bells”, Shaw explores the confusion and pain of being taken in romantically by someone whose intentions aren’t as pure or open as your own. Shaw leaves no emotional stone unturned, exploring the depths and of personal disgrace in both lyrics and music. In Waterland closes by turning the game around on those who would toy. In “Fellas”, Shaw is the huntress and the boys are expendable. You might expect a tongue in cheek nod here, but if there, it never quite becomes apparent. It’s a powerful close, one that creates its own suspense without ever answering, or even asking, a question.
It’s a cliché, perhaps, but In Waterland is a revelation. Jodi Shaw creates music like a master painter creates art, with each single stroke building to something beautiful, ear-catching and raw. The album is nothing short of sublime, leaving rote ideas and musical schemes by the wayside, in favor of raw honesty, and a musical purity not often approached in popular music. The same melodic magic that Sarah McLachlan is capable of is here, but in more subtle and vaguely darker tones. At the same time, Shaw - Wildy's World

I have to say that there aren't many -- if any --female singer/songwriters "on the scene" today whose voices I like as much as I love Jodi Shaw's voice. Shaw is a local NYC folk-pop artist who -- based on talent alone -- should be huge. Her songs are exceptional and her lyrics are tightly woven word puzzles conjuring razor sharp mental images. "The President Knows" is a story-song of cryptic political intrigue with an almost whimsical feel to it, thanks to Jodi's clever phrasing and high-spirited backing vocals. It's really a great song. While Jodi's songs often recall the quiet beauty and subtle-yet-visceral impact of Chan Marshall's Cat Power, her uncommonly pretty voice and straightforward delivery is comparable to vocalists like Edie Brickel, Suzanne Vega, Natalie Merchant and Heather Nova. Her music is a strong acoustic blend of indie and folk with Jodi's melodically intuitive style of guitar playing recalling that of Joni Mitchell. Absolutely amazing. - StarPolish

Shaw, a New Yorker with a beautiful voice and some wonderful songs to go along with it, has been making the rounds for a decent amount of time now. This is her second release, and it caught my attention immediately. For what it's worth, Jodi plays a brand of intelligent and thought-provoking folk-pop that should silence all those who shudder at the mere f-word. Even Shaw admits there is a stigma to the genre, but one listen to this album and any listener should be able to bury any preconceived notions of what they had burned in their minds.

Teaming up with producer Steve Addabbo (who's worked with ultimate folk-pop icon Suzanne Vega), Shaw delivers a set of eleven indelible tunes that never pander to the stereotypical coffeehouse delights.

The fact is that Jodi stretches well beyond the fences of the folk-pop phrase while perfectly straddling the same fence beautifully. With the opening "The President Knows", The Pie-Love Sky kicks in with a flourish. A beautiful melody, crisp production, and a set of lyrics that should make any of those burying their noses in some pseudo-groovy book down at Border's while sipping their Starbucks envious, the tune is just one of many jewels to be found on the album. And if you aren't caught off guard by the song the first time you hear it as well, then perhaps you should stick to the obvious lard that MTV feeds you.
Shaw lists Lisa Germano and Juliana Hatfield among other artists she loves, and those influences can be heard hovering over the proceedings here from time to time. But unlike them, Jodi brings a full-tilt warmth to her songs that are sometimes missing from Germano's and Hatfield's. She certainly delivers consistently throughout here, which is something Juliana Hatfield has yet to do through an entire album. From the more traditional involvements found in "The Forger" to the sublime "Dumbo's Feather" and wonderful "White as the Stars", Shaw has an impeccable sense of herself and the words she's singing.
"In Cabrini-Green" and "Is" are so excellent in fact, that it makes one wonder why Jodi hasn't been elevated to some near mythic status. Perhaps it's just me, but dammit, I like this work very much.

Shaw should certainly be right up there with Suzanne Vega in terms of visibility. She's already got the talent, proven time and again with each song that plays here. Even the closing cover of "Only You" stands as testament to the great things Shaw can achieve with her perfect phrasing and wonderful voice.
This is one of those works in which I don't want to give the whole tale away. You need to go pick yourself up a copy of The Pie-Love Sky and experience it for yourself. Rediscover (or discover for the first time) what excellent folk-pop is all about. This is a beautiful album through and through and Jodi Shaw should indeed be a force to be reckoned with. If the world is right for once in its history, she shall be. - Echo from Esoterica

There are lots of people who believe that all modern folk singers sound alike. Jodi Shaw is the sort of singer who can prove that notion wrong the moment she opens her mouth.

Her lyrics are tightly-wound, thoughtfully-considered and astonishingly easy to comprehend. She sings with a melodic style that manages to drop in a wide range of notes without sounding forced or mannered. Her voice is lithe and supple enough to wander all over the map and still sound off-the-cuff.
The production here allows her voice and guitar to do most of the work. There are the usual latter-day folkie accouterments (scratchy percussion, loops, etc.), but Shaw's voice and guitar accompaniment reign supreme. As they should.

Shaw has the assured presence of a 20-year veteran of the club wars, but she's just starting out (this is her second album). With stuff like this, I can't imagine what will stop her. - A&A

With an intricate phrasing and a rhythmic style reminiscent of an early Suzanne Vega with whom she shares a producer (Steve Addabo), Shaw seems to have a knack for penning dreamy lullabies that effortlessly succor and calm. On The Pie-Love Sky, such beautiful elegies are in abundance, particular with the aptly titled "Kristine's Lullaby". It's nearly impossible to remain wired and tense listening to Shaw's airy and innocent vocals whisper about sinking off to sleep as Christopher Robin and Pooh Bear come to play. It just might be her breathy poetic childhood yearnings or the soft piano or even the tender voice warning of the expectations to come with adulthood, but whatever the case, this track offers a luminous safety, as do the rest of these lulling tales. - Venus Magazine

Steve Addabbo (Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Dar Williams) produces this sophomore release from the cogently lyrical neo-folk artist Jodi Shaw. The talented lyricist's words in sophisticated arrangements recall witty lyrics and developed songs of The Beautiful South. Jodi herself has a basic, direct delivery that recalls Edie Brickel or Natalie Merchant. The songs tend to have a narrative quality exemplified by the captivatingly complicated spy story "The President Knows". "But while you were dreaming/ The lilies were screaming" is a cunning couplet from "Dumbo's Feather" and is the class of vivid metaphor that calls out from this excellent album of songs delivered in a charming and sweet voice.

(4.5 out of 5) - Ink 19

Brooklyn singer-songwriter Jodi Shaw has a very busy schedule. She plays out in the local and regional club scene almost all week long and in the subway during her free daytime hours. Shaw moved to The Big Apple after starting a songwriting career in her New Hampshire seacoast hometown only three years ago. Shaw is promoting her sophomore album The Pie-Love Sky on her tours of the East Coast. Her writing, playing, and singing have become more sophisticated, reflecting tremendous growth since the release of her debut album, The Myth of Patience, just over two years ago.

Every song on The Pie-Love Sky has its own distinct content, musically and lyrically, yet the whole album remains consistently Jodi Shaw.

"The President Knows", inspired by the elliptical remarks of a schizophrenic woman, is perhaps the most intriguing song on the CD.

Seeing the soul of a person in a certain situation is Shaw's stock in trade. Her song "In Cabrini Green" was inspired by a brief news article about an old woman who chooses to live in a run down Chicago neighborhood because she has fond memories of the way it used to be.

Shaw worked with producer Steve Addabbo (Suzanne Vega, Eric Andersen) to turn the knobs for The Pie-Love Sky. Originally, she started working on the album with a producer who was using Addabbo's studio in Manhattan. Shaw met Addabbo when he came in one day and helped set up equipment. After her first producer left the project, she approached Addabbo.

The music press has compared Shaw to Suzanne Vega, Natalie Merchant, Shawn Colvin, Dar Williams, and even Joni Mitchell. Shaw, however, is not quite sure she can agree with those comparisons. "I think Shawn Colvin is definitely an influence lyrically. Suzanne Vega - especially after this record - I hear it constantly after every single show I play. I started listening to Suzanne a lot more. I went out and bought all the rest of her records that I didn't have, and I started really listening to her. Now I can really see the similarities. But I'm not sure that I'm actually influenced by her. And Dar Williams - I'm not really influenced by her at all. Her voice has the same quality, the same timbre. But Joni Mitchell, yes. I've always listened to Joni Mitchell. I love Joni Mitchell. I'd like to think I'm influenced by her."
- Womanrock Magazine

Jodi Shaw has a way with words. She also has a way with the acoustic guitar. And she is wise in her ways. On "Snow On Saturn," her third CD in four years, Shaw has reached a higher level of projecting her emotions and ideas. Shaw has always been a promising talent on the singer-songwriter circuit. Now she has reached that all important status of displaying huge talent.
On each tune Shaw’s voice just rolls out mellifluously, rising to new heights of majesty.
Shaw’s major achievement has to be turning a William Butler Yeats poem into a folk song. Singing "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" as lyrics and supplying her own melody and bass lines makes the early 20th century poem sound like a dye in the wool folk song. Other songwriters may have tried to render verse = from classic literature to contemporary music. Shaw pulls it off here without pretentiousness and without too many of the loose ends that usually emerge when pop composers try to wrap modern music around complex iambic pentameters from an earlier time.
Her ballad "Savannah Smiles" gets a muscular and almost classic rock touch on the acoustic guitar from producer Steve Addabbo who shows up now and then with his own instrumentation. And that’s pretty good for a producer who has already made sparse backing music sound large and full as well as capturing all the pretty nuances of Shaw’s unfailing and delightful singing voice.
I do know that Shaw’s talent is like an untamed animal working its way out of a net. This singer-songwriter will eventually bust out of her regional status and become something special. - Skope Magazine

With all the techno-temptations and polyglot rhythms available to musicians and producers, it is a true credit to Jodi Shaw and Grammy nominated producer Steve Addabbo, that they have created an honest-to-God, good old fashioned singer/songwriter disc: Melodic, imaginative, poetic and -- here's one you don't see often nowadays - enduring. Jodi Shaw: just a girl with her guitar, her piano, her voice and her sense of space in the world.

An original hybrid of Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and to these ears Natalie Merchant (though far superior in range and emotion than Merchant ever has or will render) "Snow on Saturn's" translucent lullabies sound like they are being performed right beside you, wherever you are. Play any song and be enchanted: "Starling"; the playful "I Want To"; the lyrical and melodic tenacity of "The Singer." "Savannah Smiles" is an exquisite creation, full of color and life.

Shaw's unique ability to draw you into her quiet, lyrical space (where wisps of early Simon and Garfunkel play unfettered) even holds true when singing W.B. Yeats' An Irish Airman Foresees His Death and Stephin Merritt's inescapable pop gem The Book of Love ('The book of love / Is long and boring / No one can lift the damn thing. . . but I love it when you read to me.') All this results in Snow on Saturn being a must hear on Earth. Based in New York City, Shaw is a talent to watch for and hopefully, in the long run, return to.
- FAME