Charlotte Martin, my favorite opera-trained, piano-playing banshee, is hitting the road for a mini-tour this fall, officially her first (she played a few dates when her excellent EP Orphans came out earlier this year) since giving birth to her first child, Ronen.
As sweet and innocent as babies seem, they've been known to cause a rock star to lose her mojo and spin off into composing treacly, torturous songs about their child re-imagined as a galloping my little pony. For that reason alone, even though I was genuinely happy when I heard that Charlotte was pregnant, selfishly I worried that we were in store for an album full of syrupy, toxic lullabies or a record of children's standards remixed into dance tracks (think Raffi meets David Guetta).
Luckily, Charlotte Martin doesn't know how to do crappy. She's hard at work on a follow up to her last full-length original album, Stromata, due out sometime next year, and from what I've heard, it's going to do to our minds what microwaves do to cantaloupes. In the meantime, Charlotte is releasing a disc of piano-only songs, Piano Trees, and mounting a tour of the East Coast, the Mad Fast Acoustic Tour.
In order to really appreciate Charlotte Martin you need to see the woman live and in action, so if you're anywhere near any of the upcoming shows -- GO. I promise you won't regret it. Full details are below, and to celebrate the tour, we're giving away two pairs of tickets to the New York show at the Highline Ballroom on October 3. Simply list a song that you love that makes you think of autumn (mine would be Fiona Apple's devastating "Pale September") in the comments section and we'll pick two winners at random. You must provide your own travel and lodging for the event. Entries for the contest must be in by 11:59 pm EST on September 25.
Charlotte Martin's Mad Fast Acoustic Tour:
September 30, 2009
Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live
October 1, 2009
Vienna, VA - Jammin Java
October 2, 2009
Easton, MD - Nightcat
October 3, 2009
New York City, NY - Highline Ballroom
For more on Charlotte, head to her website.
-- NOAH MICHELSON
Previously > Charlotte Martin Gives A Few Wayward Songs A Home
