Prudence Teacup is the brain child of Alfra Martini. To listen to her debut album, "Where All The Little Songs Go When They Die" is to travel through an unnameable landscape filled with beautiful oddities. Throughout the album she dons many masks, each one a side to her multi-layered persona. Whether it be the coy cabaret singer, the woe-begone songstress, or the whimsical chanteuse, together they make up the complex character that is Prudence Teacup.
Recorded over the span of a year in the confines of her bedroom in Brooklyn, New York, "Little Songs" was made intuitively and without the ultimate goal of making an album. The title name reflects the sentiment in which the songs were made, once a song was finished it was swiftly put to pasture in the purgatory of a computer hard drive. It was only through the assurance of close friends that the songs were eventually released from limbo and into the light of day.
"Little Songs" is a song cycle rather than a traditional album. With most tracks below the two minute mark, songs tend to slide into each other, bringing to mind quirky pop statement albums such as The Beach Boys "Smile" or Tiny Tim's "God Bless Tiny Tim". Some of the tracks that made the final cut were originally sketches, created with the intent to lay down an idea before forgetting it, while others were pure experiments in sound that in time were sculpted into songs. The song "Lorraine" for example begins with a dream sequence where Prudence is heard talking to herself, pondering the menu at a restaurant. Eventually she breaks into a ditty about which meal to order, the Quiche Lorraine or the Crepe Suzette.
There is a genuine playfulness in the way Prudence arranges her songs. The music isn't labored over but rather laid out in a broad expressionistic style. Primitively plucked classical guitars ring out over layers of percussion and midi-instruments. Ghostly sounds envelope Prudence's voice, which she expertly layers with splendidly odd harmonies. As a producer she has a real ear for drama with the sounds she chooses, songs such as "Little Lamb" and "Wrecked" bring to mind the same pastoral space that Brian Eno conjures on albums like "Another Green World”. READ MORE >>
PRESS:
“I flash to a million bands/artists when Where All the Little Songs Go When They Die hits the needle. The Pierces; Cat Power; Nico; Niobe; Fovea Hex; Hearts Of Palm; Kria Brekkan; Beach House; Alela Diane ... nothing comes close, people. Prudence Teacup won't be everyone's favorite beverage, but just a few of you will be hopelessly hooked. How can 150 strictly vinyl copies be enough? You just can't put a number on touches like ghost-parlour piano, soft, aching vibrato, dead soul shakers, Ten In The Swear Jar, "you asshole" accordions, mentions of "jingle-jangle mornings," spare, ominous soundscapes, and general melancholy. I love the way the songs last only as long as they have to, many of them just under a minute or so. No Milk-Eyed Mender-ing here. No elephants in the room. Just an art-sprawl full of Laurie Anderson and Eno, complete with a 20-page book full of Mount Eerie-esque visual ruminations on self and society. Never predictable, never static unless the crackle in the background demands it. Aural waterfalls, that sort of thing. She's been 'round but she ain't ashamed, to paraphrase. LP-only? Vinally...”
-Grant Purdum (Tiny Mix Tapes) READ COMPLETE ARTICLE >>
“My favorite record so far this year...’The Gift’ sounds like a lost recording from the Lady in the Radiator. So haunting and beautiful.” -Caleb Braaten (Sacred Bones Records) READ COMPLETE ARTICLE >>
“Train dashes through tunnels in the barely fallen night, one drop, two drops, lights are flickering, landscape twinkles, uncertain, as if every city lights were taking themselves for a candle giving its last breath.
-Leslie (DelicousScopitone) READ COMPLETE POST >>
