Album artwork for Over and Even by Joan Shelley

Joan Shelly's new album, 'Over And Even', was written in the back of an abandoned beauty parlor on the island of Thessaloniki. The whole thing had something to do with Vashti Bunyan. That's what Joan told me, but Joan Shelley is a poet, so she makes things up. Joan Shelley's voice flows out like a river. It never travels in a straight line. It follows bends and curves carved by history. We are all lucky just to be swept away, and go with her wherever she's going. All the people who played on Joan's new record - and Daniel Martin Moore who recorded and engineered it - are friends. That comes through somehow in the sound of the album. Will Oldham and Glen Dentinger are genius harmony singers. They leave the perfect amount of space for microscopic shifts in Joan's voice, without sacrificing their own awesome idiosyncrasies. Nathan Salsburg's guitar follows every twist of the melody. When the song breaks your heart in two, Nathan is there with a high E-string to sew it back together.

Joan Shelley

Over and Even

No Quarter
Album artwork for Over and Even by Joan Shelley
CD

£12.99

Released 04/09/2015Catalogue Number

noq047cd

Learn more
Joan Shelley

Over and Even

No Quarter
Album artwork for Over and Even by Joan Shelley
CD

£12.99

Released 04/09/2015Catalogue Number

noq047cd

Learn more

Joan Shelly's new album, 'Over And Even', was written in the back of an abandoned beauty parlor on the island of Thessaloniki. The whole thing had something to do with Vashti Bunyan. That's what Joan told me, but Joan Shelley is a poet, so she makes things up. Joan Shelley's voice flows out like a river. It never travels in a straight line. It follows bends and curves carved by history. We are all lucky just to be swept away, and go with her wherever she's going. All the people who played on Joan's new record - and Daniel Martin Moore who recorded and engineered it - are friends. That comes through somehow in the sound of the album. Will Oldham and Glen Dentinger are genius harmony singers. They leave the perfect amount of space for microscopic shifts in Joan's voice, without sacrificing their own awesome idiosyncrasies. Nathan Salsburg's guitar follows every twist of the melody. When the song breaks your heart in two, Nathan is there with a high E-string to sew it back together.