Petra Haden Sings Brian Wilson

So apparantly I've got a real thing for eccentric violinists. In the last couple weeks, short of my weekly playlist, I've really only talked about musicians that got their start fiddlin'. (see my recent posts on Andrew Bird and Final Fantasy.)

Watch Out For Snakes recently posted a few tracks by Petra Haden. Included is a cover of Brian Wilson's opus "God Only Knows" done in the same style that she did The Who Sell Out last year. Essentially she takes the song (or the entire album in the case of The Who Sell Out) and puts it on an 8 track. She then records every part of the song with her voice on the other 7 tracks. What we hear is the vocals orchestrating the entire song. To sum this up mathematically (1woman+8track)/BrianWilsonTrack=PURE GENIUS!

Petra Haden - God Only Knows

This track comes straight off of her website so it gets my legit-music seal of approval! *STAMP*

Petra Haden is a terrific musician. She's had her violin playin' paws in a whole mess of great projects. Last year she cranked out two fantastic albums. First Petra Haden Sings The Who Sell Out, then she paired up with Bill Frisell to record an album of covers by musicians ranging from Elliott Smith and Coldplay to Stevie Wonder. That album was one of my top ten of 2005.

She's also worked with the Decemberists on their last album. She sings harmonies for everybody in the biz. Back in the day she hung out with a bunch of Weezer affiliates, such as That Dog and the Rentals. Somehow she's remained a consistant contributer to music that hits my ears for a good 12 years now (since I bought my first That Dog album at the Northgate Mall around 1994 or 1995...) Back in 2004 she took part in this totally rad musical experiment trying to apply the surrealist drawing and poetry method called "exquisite corpse" to music. Check out this site for further explanation.

Haden seems to be on a continuous role working on a gagillion different projects, few of which are turning into CD's any of us can take home. I'm hoping she'll tackle another solo record, or something along the lines of her Bill Frisell project. Until then I'll have my eyes open for some other eccentric violin playin' singer/songwriter.