Missy Higgins
Gifted Australian singer-songwriter Missy Higgins, now with two albums under her belt, attributed her new-found popularity to two TV shows, "Smallville" and "Grey's Anatomy." The placement of tunes in the two skeins with an ardent 18-34 audience has meant a measurable effect for Higgins: a considerable leap in venue size, a larger band and a global push from her record company, Warner Bros., to expand her beyond an Oz phenomenon. Higgins has quickly built a body of quality songs with cultural resonance -- a true rarity in modern music.
Just 23, Higgins joins a growing group of female singers in their 20s whose tunes feature earnest lyrics, dramatic major and minor key chord changes to convey emotional disruption and offer what appears to be a highly personal exchange with the listener. Situations in her new songs are often dire: loneliness ("The Wrong Girl"); the scars of an affair ("Secret"); the overwhelming need of a lover's touch or even presence (the gorgeous "Warm Whispers," "Where I Stood").
In their construction, the majority of the tunes in her 90 minute set are filled with direction and purpose, an impressive feat considering how much more accomplished her second disc, "On a Clear Night," is than her debut.
What makes Higgins hard to peg is her ability to pivot off a very basic core of an acoustic folk-style guitar sound. Nothing feels out of reach for her and she quite wisely dispatches her band for several tunes -- Higgins then alternates between acoustic and electric guitar and electric piano -- and brings them back in a few different configurations. (Addition of trumpet for the L.A. show was an excellent touch).
She has songs that could put her in the company of likely suspects -- Sheryl Crow, Beth Orton, the Cranberries -- but those influences are generally limited to one song each. It's the surprises filtered into her sound that make her so enticing -- jazz chordings to color a tune as it trails off, a bit of Sade-ish coolness, a ska-folk twist on Lily Allen's sound. Belonging to no particular musical school, the music's kinship is her powerful and affecting voice and unlike other women of her age, she does not attempt to make her voice glow. If other voices are crimson, she's burnt umber.
"Clear Night," released Tuesday in the U.S., the same day as her L.A. performance, is far more Angeleno than Australian: Recorded in the home studio of producer Mitchell Froom, as she explained during the show, it draws on L.A. experiences as remote as imagining Vivian Leigh coming between a possible romance with Clark Gable on "Angela" and the sonic shift of recording in a different part of Froom's home to create the intimate ballad "Forgive Me." No sophomore slump here.
Higgins Gotham date, March 12 at the Bowery Ballroom, is already sold out.
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