Album Notes

"At once sweet and sassy, celebrating reckless behavior with a charmed wink."
-Time Out NY

Sweet Soubrette plays the ukulele, but she’s no novelty act; this sultry songwriter sings about love (mainly the doomed kind) with wit, depth, and charm. With a sound that brings to mind artists like Regina Spektor and the Magnetic Fields, her songs are wickedly captivating—playful, tender, and wry.

Sweet Soubrette is New York native Ellia Bisker, whose musical influences range from early popular song, musical theatre, and blues, to folk icons like Leonard Cohen, to contemporary artists like PJ Harvey. Some of her songs evoke alt-folk artists like Joanna Newsom or Feist; others are reminiscent of classic Tin Pan Alley numbers. What they all share is a single sensibility: as her song “Suckerpunch” asserts, “There’s nothing more romantic than a doomed romance.” Bust Magazine recently described her as “Brooklyn’s fishnet-clad femme fatale,” and it can’t be denied that her songs are dangerously seductive.

Sweet Soubrette got her start in show business the old-fashioned way: by running away with the circus. A stint with the offbeat Bindlestiff Family Cirkus developed her gift for spectacle; once she picked up a ukulele, she was unstoppable. Following a year performing in New York’s independent music scene, including appearances at Galapagos Art Space, Mo Pitkin’s, and Sound Fix, in early 2008 Sweet Soubrette will release her debut album, Siren Song (MH Records), produced by Tim Cohan, frontman of indie-pop group Tryst.

Each track on Siren Song is unique—from “Lucky to Be Here,” in which loops and beats provide a heartbeat for a cautious avowal of love, to “This Little Song,” an unadorned live recording that is as simple as it is heartfelt. On the title track, a mermaid sings to beguile a shipwrecked sailor, and shimmering harmonies evoke a sea of beckoning mermaids. The album itself is a similarly irresistible invitation into deep new waters.