She Keeps Bees
Minisink Hotel
"There are few albums that are more endearing than the charmingly underproduced bedroom record, especially when that record features the introspective musings of a husky-voiced chanteuse." -Washington DC City Paper April 2007
As if held suspended just above the earth, the music of She Keeps Bees nestles the listener amongst the roots of homespun folk, blues and soul. Most singers only sing from their throat-maybe their chest. Jessica sings from the toes.
Nurturing Minisink Hotel, her first full-length album, was recorded, mixed, and mastered at home with little more than a microphone and a computer. Jessica played all the instruments you hear on these recordings, with the exception of the banjo played by her co-producer and engineer Andy LaPlant.
PRESS
"The music drips with a world-weary pathos...heartbroken romanticism is so genuine it can’t be denied." - LVHRD.org
"Brooklyn's rising bedroom blues star" - DCist.com
L Magazine's Eight Bands You Need To Hear -Summer 2007 Issue
"New York City is now and always has been positively lousy with Gram Parsons- and Joan Baez-loving folk singers. They’re an important part of the city’s musical framework, but truth be told, too many of them seem to get caught up in the traditional confines of the genre, and they wind up sounding like weird revivalists rather than forward-looking artists. It’s nice, then, to find someone like Jessica Larrabee, the main force behind She Keeps Bees, who could not only beat those people at their own game, on their own turf, but also bring enough clever variations and interesting song structures to the table that she stands to attract a slew of people who are interested in something a bit more challenging. Like so many other artists today, Larrabee just self-released her debut record, Minisink Hotel, which she recorded mostly by herself on her home computer. Surprisingly, the recording is amazing, providing the perfect stage for her deep, powerful vocals that will inevitably evoke comparisons to Cat Power’s Chan Marshall. She just embarked on an east coast tour, during which she’ll be accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Andy LaPlant."
Blues: Electric Blues