Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Suzannah Johannes - Suzannah Johannes 7"

Suzannah Johannes – Suzannah Johannes 7”
Range Life, 2008
Acquired: Suzannah Johannes Live Show, New, 2008
Price: $5
 
I totally expected to step into a time machine when I put this one on. Like the Bandit Teeth/Dactyls 7” I recently wrote up (also from the anti-halcyon days of 2008), seeing Suzannah Johannes open half the Lawrence shows was a big part of that time period. The nice thing about Johannes was that she was an opener you actually wanted to catch. You made sure your pregaming was done by 9 and headed down to the Replay to see her play. It’s not like her sets varied too much—it was either Suzannah with her band or Suzannah on her own—but her songs were just so fucking lovely you never got sick of them. As far as I know, this is the only thing she ever released, and I’m fairly certain it was recorded on with the studio time she won when she won KJHK’s Farmer’s Ball (which used to have studio time at the Get Up Kids-owned Black Lodge Studio in Eudora, where bits of this record were recorded). Man, I can’t get over how pretty these songs are. It’s just plain pure, pleasant vocal pop that reminds me of an earthier version of Taken by Trees. It’s a nice slice of Lawrence music before everything got steeped in irony and cool.

"Horserider's Smile" and "Kelly Ann" can be found on this terrific Daytrotter session.

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