Album Notes

Nedelle grew up singing to herself and her family in the sleepy town of Vacaville, CA. She learned to play violin, taking lessons from age seven onwards. Along the way, she picked up piano and guitar, feeling them to be better instruments for composing and arranging her own songs. Her father was a jazz drummer and her mother a dedicated pianist. Her own musical moments are intermixed with memories of listening to her father's vinyl records and her mom's impromptu recitals. She now calls Oakland home, where she's part of a budding new pop scene.

Nedelle exists somewhere between Ella Fitzgerald and Everything But the Girl, with vocal harmonies reminiscent of The Shirelles. At times tender and romantic, at others lovelorn and drained, and sometimes downright sexy, Nedelle's music mixes classic blues sentiment with modern pop stylings. Combining jazz melodies and lush production, the result is something new and quite obviously special.

Republic of Two is Nedelle's first album. It features eleven of the first songs she's ever written, which she produced and archived with vintage audio gear of the highest fidelity. Here her voice comes across as intimate and sincere, mirroring her real-life personality. The music is sparse when she whispers of isolation, and the arrangements are emphatically layered when she sings of losing love and affection. Every song hints at the serious introspection that Nedelle must have undergone during her 22 years, but none of the songs seem feigned or melodramatic. Rather, there's a maturity in them that belies her limited life experience and is sure to engage those of all ages, without limitation.