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Haley Heynderickx — Seed of a Seed (Mama Bird)

Haley Heynderickx makes an urgent kind of folk, one propelled by angst and intelligence and sharp pulsing guitar lines. There is nothing hearts-and-flowers, for instance, about the opening cut “Gemini,” from the artist’s second full-length, Seed of a Seed. It simmers and rails, even in its quietest parts, an acoustic guitar ramping up aggressively under Heynderickx’s vibrato-trembling soprano. “There’s a woman in the corner claiming she is just a former one of me and I am her just out of context,” she intimates right off the bat. The song bubbles over with nervous energy and existential angst, not gentle, not especially pretty, but stirring and memorable. You can’t get it out of your head.

We last heard from Heynderickx in her 2018 debut, I Need to Start a Garden, a more conventionally strummy, floaty, female-dominated brand of folk. There were sharp edges from the beginning. Heynderickx’ tremulous, blues-inflected voice, recalling Karen Dalton in some spots and Josephine Foster in others, carries a great deal of emotion as it carves sharp turns and bends through the picking. Yet, it’s fair to say that cuts like “The Bug Collector” ran more placidly through their bucolic landscapes than Seed of a Seed’s tracks do. I like the edge to this one. It jolts you awake. It keeps you on your guard.

Consider, for instance, the title track, an easy-going ramble at its onset, tamping down the chords for a scratchy cadence. Heynderickx sings with a piercing clarity on this one, gliding through the high notes without a hitch or strain, her melody cushioned by swathes of bowed strings. And yet the song always seems ready to rear up and kick its hind legs at the break between verses. There’s a punk intensity to the way that even acoustic strumming punches through, a chaotic, overflowing well of feeling in the warmth of strings.

Heynderickx is quite a good guitar player, executing agile flourishes atop the steady rain of strumming. For “Sorry Fahey,” she brings the picking up front, at first just humming a hiccupy, tipsy melody, later letting it fly over long mournful blares of trombone. The horn player is Denzel Mendoza, who along with drummer Daniel Rossi and bassist Matthew Holmes makes up Heynderickx’s able but unshow-off-y band.

Seed of a Seed is a pretty record, and you can get lost in that but not for long. Heynderickx is always pulling you up short, interposing a clever line or a surprising sonic texture that upends expectations. A lot of folky, singer-songwriter records provide a bit of respite, but Seed of a Seed is too prickly and interesting for that.

Jennifer Kelly

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my 10 year old laptop has finally shit itself. it won't boot. no it wasn't backed up recently. don't text.

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Hi. Here is every food and drink Steely Dan have ever mentioned in a song. Enjoy

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i dont know how many trolls fans like destroyer but here's dan bejar as a troll lol

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they should have put the weird al bob dylan palindrome song in a complete unknown. well, i haven't seen it so i don't know, maybe they did

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bf and i walked out of those feratu 2024 very disappointed, and it's grown on me after thinking about it but still ultimately it didn't work for me. extremely glad we didn't go on an epic journey to see it in 35mm

also

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i never could get into frankie valli and the four seasons, they just sound so aggressive. they sound like they're singing through evil grins.

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cornflake girl playing in the airport rn

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heard peg in the airport again

today's hearing steely dan in public post: peg playing in the airport

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Falkenstein, Rhineland-Palatinate.

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roel jacobs in zoom magazine american edition no. 15

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Fő utca, Pély, Heves County, Hungary.

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Examples of caddisfly larval cases made from unusual materials from Memorie della Società entomologica italiana v.12 (1933).

Full text here.

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bf said the words "the perfect rug" the other day (we were rug shopping) and im really preoccupied with the thought of a nin perfect drug parody...you are the perfect rug the perfect rug....