Album Notes

"Every now and then a musician manages to climb over my high wall of standards long enough to make me want to hear more only after twisting my head sideways like a hound dog a couple of times before I realize what's hit me. Denise Dill got me up off my feet at the 30th National Women's Music Festival and my feet were tired!" - Kara Barnard, accomplished multi-instrumentalist

Fifteen-year-old Denise Dill began songwriting to impress a crush, but it soon became much more than a gimmick. Fresh out of high school, Denise attended Berklee College of Music, but her heart forever marked by this experience, drew her back to the organic landscape of rural southern Indiana.

Her homecoming resulted in the foundation of Orenda, a band formed with life-long friends Victor Birkle, Summer Roedel, and Nick Turpen. Orenda created a buzz in the Evansville community that is still being talked about and put out the album “Mediocrity” as a documentation of these efforts. A much needed void was filled by their original music and they stayed strong for a year, but parted ways soon after to pursue new directions.

In August 2004 Denise released a solo album which generated her first large scale tour called "The Rose Street on the Road Tour," with songwriters Lisa Sanders and Irina Rivkin. This self-titled CD encompasses the deep connections shared with her community, relationships, and the ecosystem. The album resonates with natural and mathematical patterns in nature, love, and loss.

Presently, this trans-identified folksinger has relocated to Lewiston, ME to continue sharing new CD “Heartbeat Balloon” as well as working with a non-profit organization called Lots to Gardens. The instrumentation of this CD is Denise’s debut on banjo and a revisitation to piano and guitar. The album was recorded in her bedroom and is a unique lens capturing the importance of localism while applying it to the unsustainable model of our global world. It features Jason Ellis playing bass and doing production on "Techtonic Plates" and "Labyrinth". The rest of the CD was homemade by Denise herself. As with all of Denise’s songs, they are created from the inside out and reveal a level of personal vulnerability that you might only expect to share with a loved one. Heartbeat Balloon, with its lush imagery feels more like visual art than audible.


This past May marked her third tour which she organized solo across the Midwest and Northeast. On her journeys to date, she has shared the stage with recognized U.S. artists Pamela Means, Alix Olson, Hamell on Trial, Girlyman, Edie Carey, Anne Heaton, Andrea Bunch and Aerin Tedesco, Jamie Anderson, Wishing Chair, Ember Swift, Trina Hamlin, and more. Denise took her tour international when she performed last fall at Ladyfest Ottawa. She has also performed at National Women's Music Festival and The Big Tado. The self-proclaimed "earthy-folksinger with a queer twist" continues to reinvent her music with fervor. Profoundly personal, political, and poetic Deniseís songs draw the listener in deep and hold on tight.