Album Notes

KELLY BUCHANAN
MATCH

"Describing Kelly Buchanan's music as emotionally intense is like describing the Great Fire of London as a bit of a glow, like describing foie gras as a bedtime snack, like describing Jack the Ripper as a bad dancer. Kelly Buchanan has more raw power in one acoustic downstrum than most bands have in their entire arsenal."
--Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone

"Natural talent combined with an innate enthusiasm that could take her places... her songwriting is strong, with influences ranging from Jeff Buckley to Ani Difranco."
--Steve Morse, The Boston Globe

Listening to Kelly Buchanan sing can be unsettling. Themes of separation, deception, abuse and rage find an abrupt clarity in her fractured ballads, and her sweeping melodies and offbeat time signatures create a near-constant dramatic tension. But the emotional whirlwind of this Boston singer-songwriter's new album, Match, finds a balance for its jarring dirges in songs of hope and reconciliation.

Adventurous musicianshipp is countered by straight-ahead rock, and soaring lilts are followed by punkish attitude. Match is a head trip and a reality check, able to inspire tears one moment and headbanging the next.

Coming three years after her debut, the solo acoustic album A Bipolar World, Match finds Buchanan's songwriting and her sound having grown immensely. Attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, she recruited classmates Joshua Sadlier-Brown (guitar), Tony Grey (bass), and Akira Nakamura (drums) to help expand her music and develop the arrangements of her songs. Three tracks from A Bipolar World were reworked with the band for Match, alongside eight new original songs. The album was recorded at Boston's famed Fort Apache studio, and was co-produced by Buchanan, Carlos Olmos and Leo Grunbaum.

From the Jekyll-and-Hyde techno-metal of opening track "Liar" to the jazzy "Boy," Buchanan's versatility is evident on Match. The band locks in perfectly on the odd-time rhythms of the title track and "Shoebox," which earned Buchanan a songwriting award while at Berklee.

Her robust alto carries the heartwrenching "Here with a Bruise" and the bitter anthem "The Song You Wanted." She goes it alone for the closing track, "Breathe You Om," ending the album with a song of hope and acceptance that points the way out of the darkness of her more turbulent compositions.

Buchanan grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where she began piano at age three. In junior hight she started learning to play guitar as well, and her acoustic hasn't left her side since. Stints living in Ecuador and France were followed by a brief period at Penn State University, after which she transferred to Berklee, earning a scholarship at the prestigious music school.

Along the way she's developed loyal fan bases in several states, earned college radio airplay with A Bipolar World and performed solo and with her band at venues ranging from small coffee houses to some of Boston's premiere clubs. With Match, Kelly Buchanan has realized the true potential of her music - and the world need only embrace it. Or brace for it.