Album Notes

“The world needs more songs like this." - Americana-UK.com

"She’s an electric indie rocker - not your usual weepy acoustic chick - with a nicely unpretentious, assured voice like an urban version of the Walkabouts’ Carla Torgerson. She has an uncommonly good sense of melody, likes minor keys and reverb... Impatience, anger and frustration find their way into her smartly crafted, mid-80s style lo-fi songs. Catch her on the way up.” - lucidculture

Elisa Flynn's songs are like birds' nests--woven through with interesting and shiny bits. She collects situations and images the way other people might collect things, and then she turns them into songs that have sonic range and depth. Her voice is a big and wholly original soprano soaring over plaintive picking and vigorous strumming. In her lyrics, her dark sense of humor comes through in the story that makes up each song. In articulating the thoughts of a care-free serial killer, or conveying the secret terror of a woman in the Donner Party, or the thoughts of black birds flying towards the heavens, she shows her gift for articulating her characters' thoughts.

Elisa grew up in Yonkers, NY, and after taking years of classical piano lessons, discovered the Clash, and her life was changed forever. She decided it was her destiny to play punk rock guitar, but had no idea how. (This was illustrated in her role as a founding member of noise rockers the Bunny Brains.) She spent her early musical career in 90’s Danbury, CT, a small city with a robust local music scene. Learning as she went, she took up playing with a vengeance as a member of Freakbaby (later called Jet Jaguar), a roiling punk and free jazz-inspired combo, for 6 years.

After moving to Brooklyn, Elisa spent 2 years in The Happy Ending as a guitarist and singer, but when the band split up, she took this as a sign to change direction and go solo. After taking voice lessons from Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), she took her stronger voice and headed out with an acoustic guitar and a suitcase full of effects pedals. Her first EP, Dimestore Mary came out in 2006, and was called a “collection of songs raw and rigid in execution,” by womenfolk.net

Her first album, on her own Cat in a Dress Records, is called “Songs About Birds & Ghosts,” in tribute to Talking Heads’ “Songs About Buildings and Food.” Recorded at Emandee Studio in Brooklyn by Mark Ospovat (who has also worked with CocoRosie, Jeff Lewis, and Wooden Wand) it features Anders Griffen on drums, and Ospovat on bass.