Noe Venable
The World is Bound by Secret Knots
Petridish
Noe Venable’s third self-released album is another convincing display of this young woman’s impressive talent, both as a songwriter and a singer. The fact that she’s been on the road with Ani DiFranco, They Might Be Giants and Boz Scaggs might give a clue about her scope and ability, and she’s brought some great people along for the ride, including producer Todd Sickafoose and musicians whose resumes include gigs with everyone from Norah Jones to Rufus Wainwright and Smashing Pumpkins. But it’s Venable herself who occupies center stage throughout, her amazing soprano voice quivering with anguish, screaming with fervor and soothing with compassion. Her songs are insistently personal yet open and outstretched; they are eccentric yet accessible. It’s pastoral pop with a heart and an attitude, at various points conjuring up images of Tori Amos’s slight angularities, Björk’s playfulness and Kirstin Hersh’s subdued complexity. Although, it’s unfair to reduce Venable to an imitation of those artists. Waiflike at times, confrontational at others, The World is Bound by Secret Knots is full of paradoxes, yet it hangs nicely together as a whole. Noe Venable is a beautiful and eccentric singer-songwriter with a great future ahead of her.
Noe Venable: http://www.noevenable.com/
