Album Notes

"Nervous Breakthroughs" is the second album recorded by Peccadillo, the Sydney-based chamber pop band formed by Greta Gertler; the major outlet for her early songwriting and performance. The basic tracks of the album were recorded by legendary engineer Michael Stavrou (Stevie Wonder, Elton John, The Pretenders) at Paradise Studios,
Sydney in 1998. In early 2004, Greta completed the tracking
with Damian Press (The Fragments, Expatriate) and mixed the album in New York with Noah Simon (Neil Finn, Suzanne Vega)
at Jarvis Studios. The album features an all-Australian line-up of musicians. Greta released it independently in 2004. It features Greta's version of "Charlie # 3" which she co-wrote with Tim Freedman (The Whitlams) and which appeared on their breakthrough album, "Eternal Nightcap".

"A spacious voice and a welcome weakness for lushly
orchestrated 70's-era singer-songwriter pop"
- The New Yorker

"Once in a while a voice comes along that makes you
sit up and take notice"
- Headliner Magazine, Radio City Music Hall (NYC)

"Like Christine McVie joined at the hip with Rufus
Wainwright"
- Bernard Zuel, Sydney Morning Herald

"Gertler occupies a place not dissimilar to Lisa
Miller, though with the country inflections repaced by
piano-bar lustiness"
- FilmInk Magazine, Australia

"There's a touch of Katie Noonan in Gertler when she
hits those wispy, ethereal higher notes"
- Sunday Telegraph, Sydney

"Greta presents both a sense of innocence in her voice
and maturity in her songwriting"
- City Hub, Sydney


Peccadillo is a wood and string concoction that fuses
classical, pop and jazz sensibilities. It emerged as
one of the more critically-acclaimed Australian acts
from the mid-90s piano-based pop movement (comparable
artists include Rufus Wainwright, Penguin Café
Orchestra, Belle & Sebastian and Melanie Oxley/Chris
Abrahams). "Nervous Breakthroughs" captures the
five-piece band at its peak, occasionally enlarged by
woodwinds, electric guitar and percussion.