Sharon van Etten Meets Damon & Naomi

Blurt fave van Etten will open shows for two of her biggest fan. Read exclusive interview excerpts, below.

By Jennifer Kelly

Ed. note: we're sending longtime contributor Jennifer Kelly to see the Sharon van Etten-Damon & Naomi show in Cambridge this weekend. As a lead-in, she interviewed van Etten by phone, and we'll be publishing the full interview along with a firsthand report from the concert in the very near future. - FM

Match.com look out. It was only a couple of weeks ago that Galaxie 500 founders Damon & Naomi were lauding newcomer Sharon van Etten right here on this site.  Now the two artists have hooked up for a two-show, two-city stand, at NYC's 92Y Tribeca on January 30 and Cambridge's Brattle Theater  on January 31^th.

Van Etten's Because I Was In Love, released late last spring on Greg Weeks' Language of Stone imprint, was one of last year's surprise favorites at Blurt, garnering the songwriter comparisons to Cat Power and a very respectable 36 ranking, just ahead of Tom Waits.

What's so special about Because I Was In Love? Well, for one thing, Van Etten's voice is pure and extremely beautiful, with a little of Joni Mitchell's dreamy clarity, a bit of Kath Bloom's tremulous slides. She's sung in choirs nearly all her life, starting in elementary school, but her voice has a simplicity that belies formal training. That makes sense since she says PJ Harvey, another very capable singer who sometimes throws formal technique to the winds, was one of our her primary inspirations. She particularly likes the demos where Harvey is at her bluntest and least premeditated. "She just lets go and doesn't add too much," said Van Etten in a recent phone interview. "It's raw and real. It made me realize that you can know how to sing and know how to play and still be yourself. "

On her first record, Van Etten performs nearly the all the parts (producer Greg Weeks added a few synths, one woodblock and a bit of guitar on "It's Not Like"), including the lush, eerie harmonies that embellish songs like "Some Dream" and "Keep." Her lyrics are mostly couched in ordinary, day-to-day language, without much reliance on metaphors or flowery description. "I know that my lyrics are not overly poetic," said Van Etten. "That's on purpose. I want to have a regular conversation, being really direct without having to go overboard on imagery. "

Van Etten wrote her songs over a six-year period dominated by one difficult romantic relationship, so there's a fair amount of heartbreak in these achingly beautiful songs. Even "Consolation Song," written after she'd moved back East from college (and her unsupportive, emo-kid boyfriend), reflects a wary frustration with social life in Brooklyn, where she now lives.   "That song is about going back into the dating world and meeting real New Yorkers that just have no attention span," she said. "You know, people that are always waiting for someone better to come around. It was me learning how to deal with that after a six-year relationship."

Van Etten has been touring lately - she was getting ready for a show in Milwaukee when we spoke - so she hasn't had much time to write. She's got lots of ideas, though, she says, and plans to concentrate on new material after her tour.  She's thinking about old-time country music she says, and maybe even some pedal steel.

In the meantime, there are those dates with Damon & Naomi (and also Michio Kurihari from Ghost). Asked if she sees any similarly between Damon & Naomi's music and her own, Van Etten says, "Not now - they're more polished than I am - but I would one day like to be more like them. I really like the love that they have for each other and for the people that come to their shows. I like the really subtle instrumentation that they do and the focus on the lyrics."

[Photo credit:  Dusdin Condren  www.dusdin.com]