* En anglais uniquement
Coming up strong behind
R. Stevie Moore as the most talented singer/songwriter to be based in the nondescript bedroom community of Montclair, NJ,
Jenny Owen Youngs fuses
Liz Phair's perceptive and brashly funny lyrics with the orchestrated folk-pop of
Regina Spektor and
Erin McKeown, adding just a hint of
Nellie McKay's jazzy cabaret leanings and
Cat Power's throaty, confessional angst. Born in New Jersey in 1981,
Youngs first picked up the guitar at the age of 14 and attended the music program at the State University of New York, having enrolled during a period in which the previously obscure art school was single-handedly populating what would become the entire New York "anti-folk" scene: besides
Youngs and
Spektor,
Jeffrey Lewis,
Langhorne Slim, and
the Moldy Peaches'
Adam Green, and
Kimya Dawson were all SUNY-Purchase graduates.
Maintaining a friendship with
Spektor, who chose
Youngs as her opening act on the tours following her breakthrough album,
Soviet Kitsch,
Youngs wrote and recorded her debut album, 2005's self-released
Batten the Hatches. Although the album garnered generally positive reviews, it attracted little notice until one of its highlights, the rueful "Fuck Was I," was used in the second-season opener of the popular cable sitcom Weeds. Signing with the Canadian indie Nettwerk Records,
Youngs released a remixed and repackaged version of
Batten the Hatches in early 2007. She returned to the road shortly thereafter, opening shows for the likes of
Vienna Teng while compiling material for a new album. Released in 2009,
Transmitter Failure marked the artist's second full-length release. ~ Stewart Mason