Carina Round - Tigermending

Artist: Carina Round
Title: Tigermending
Producers: Carina Round and Dan Burns
Label: Dehisce Records
Genre: Pop/Rock

Even if lyrics aren’t your thing, the first line of the first song, ‘Pick Up the Phone’, will have you hooked for the rest of the album. Prepare to settle in and take the trip. It’s worth it. Tigermending is the latest release by singer songwriter, Carina Round. It made its debut to US audiences in May and will be available to the rest of the world on September 10th.

Performers that get labeled ‘singer/songwriter’ usually get filed in boxes for the sake of convenience. The boxes can be: Troubadours, Torch Singers, and if you are lucky, Artists. Carina Round is an artist of considerable talent and defies easy categorization. She slips fluidly between the confessional storytelling of ‘Pick Up the Phone’ to the quirky pop of ‘Girl and the Ghost’. Round can bring the folk on ‘You and Me’ or rock a little on the airy ‘Marcel Marcel’.

Haunting would be an appropriate word to describe the atmosphere throughout Tigermending and Carina Round’s influences move like ghosts in these tracks. Traces of Tori Amos (but with 70% less fairy dust) can be heard on ‘Weird Dream’. Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, and even Edie Brickell all inhabit the walls of the Mansion Round. The spirit of Johnette Napolitano permeates the overall vibe of the proceedings and adds a frank immediacy that invites the apparitions to the head and heart.

Tigermending sounds amazing. Acoustic/electric/and electronic instruments co exist peacefully here. The soundscapes shift and move like sand under your feet. Beautiful and sparse instrumentation allows Round’s sensual vocals ample space to breathe. The eleven tracks on Tigermending never hurry to completion but you will find that the whole affair slips by quickly will have you will back for more. This is a master stroke, here.

Carina Round has raised her profile in the US in the past couple of years. Her music has been featured on American Horror Story and she was the opening act/featured performer on the Puscifer tour in support of The Conditions of My Parole. Round is on a co headlining tour now through mid November.

Dave Buzard