Jenny Queen

Everyone who fell in love with Jenny Queen's debut album, Girls Who Cry Need Cake, will be thrilled to learn that finally, here it is - Jenny Queen's beautiful and brilliant new album, After The Dance, out through ABC Music.
It's taken the Ohio-born, Sydney-based singer-songwriter Jenny Queen the best part of five years to get around to recording and releasing After The Dance. Then, all of a sudden, almost as magically as it had unfolded the first time around, the songs materialised. "Lyrics were just pouring," Jenny remembers. "And you have to do something with them."
After The Dance opens with the sweet and weighty "Lost Thing", the album's lead single which immediately sets the tone for most of what's to follow - a sparse, acoustic-based arrangement, with Jenny's gentle fractured, melodic and melancholic voice up front and centre, almost whispering in your ear.
You also get the feeling that through all the quietly projected anguish, the singer is fronting the world with a little knowing smile on her lips. "You've still got a little bit of flirt and a little bit of angry in you," she explains.
But there's no denying there's also a lot of genuine pain caught up in the grooves of After The Dance. Part of the reason the record took so long is that Jenny had a lot of stuff happen in her life - not much of great - in the afterglow of the rapturous reception that greeted her debut, Girls Who Cry Need Cake, from music fans and critics worldwide back in 2004.
In early 2007, Jenny finally started work proper on After The Dance. Recorded in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the album is produced by John Leidersdorf. Musicians include Jon Graboff of Ryan Adams & The Cardinals on pedal steel, Eric Silver on mandolin, Marc Swersky on bass, Justin King on electric guitar, Ehren Ebbage on acoustic guitar and Andy Letke of DeSol on Rhodes piano and banjo.
Using the Wilco song "Sky Blue Sky" as a sonic template ["I must have listened to it 100,000 times," Jenny laughs], the singer and her band conjure an evocative brew on After The Dance's more mournful moments, such as the "Seven Days" and "Lullaby For Jayne". But they also show they're up for a party when the record takes a sudden upswing in the second half with tracks like "Headphones" and the lively [albeit rather macabre] duo of "Russian Roulette" and the rollicking closer, a cover of Guns 'N' Roses' "I Used To Love Her" [where Jenny breaks down in giggles as she repeats over and over the line: "I used to love him, but I had to kill him"].
After The Dance is a major new work from a gifted songstress. As sad as it might be, Jenny's pain has manifested itself into our gain. After The Dance is a record worthy of a sitting alongside albums by some of Jenny's own personal idols, like Wilco, Gillian Welch and Neil Young.
There's no doubt that after only one listen, Jenny Queen fans - old and new - will agree that After The Dance has been truly worth the wait.
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