I’m going to copy and paste a big chunk of his comment, change the names, and use it to finish giving C&B a bollocking for comparing Marcus Mumford to Dave Fucking Matthews. Again.

DC has nailed exactly what I was trying to say!

(But with different singers, obviously.)

The Bjork comparison was really more down to hearing the songs on Anni Rossi’s MySpace and thinking ‘Oh Christ, another yelping female’. I can love that kind of thing actually – even Bjork can be really good on the increasingly rare occasions where she tones it down enough. Spektor I really dislike because the squawks absolutely invariably arrive just as I am starting to think ‘ooh, I quite like this’, which I find incredibly frustrating.

As to Anni Rossi, well I think anything with women yelping, squawking, chirruping or anything else is, in terms of my own taste, incredibly sensitive to the timing and extent of the noises themselves. Anything too extreme or too abrupt and my ears reflexively close and I get cross. I am almost always incredibly close to really liking it, however, so I am certain that if I were to find someone who kept it carefully under control then I would be able to enjoy the music all the more – I just haven’t found that person yet.

I’ll definitely give her a try the next time she’s in town though, because it sound intriguing, and there’s definitely a decent chance I’ll really like it, from your description.

jesus i’m happy i don;t do this blog thing

Anni’s something special live — its typical of such uniqueness & invention, really, that her live solo shows wildly differ to her recorded material, & it’s here an interesting paradox lies. Anni’s said to me on a few occasions that it’s with her work on CD/vinyl where she stretches herself & experiments with the music (rather than the spikey, jagged, honest live performances). She brings in & collaborates with/bounces off other musicians, plays with/changes the forms/structures of her songs & generally has fun letting her stuff just develop rather than relying on restricting structures.

If you listen to the demos vs. the CDr releases vs. the album proper vs. the vinyl 7″ etc you’ll hear the differences in the same song that develops across the processes. Then, live, it’s all stripped back to just her voice, footstomps & viola; almost to the point at which each song was conceived, sketched, elbowed into shape & then memorised.

She really is hypnotic live, especially if its an intimate setting.

I dislike & disagree with the Bjork comparison as it does neither party any justice & suggests dismissive &/or lazy listening. True, there’s an organic quality to both their vocal/tonal expressions, but I think any similarity ends there.

Rossi’s squeaks & chirrups are entirely in-keeping with the glacial & geographical/physical aspects of her lyrics & music; it reflects her (successful) attempts at capturing that unpredictable, natural movement.

Bjork, on the other hand, is a giddy giggle bag (http://www.blueeyeboy.com/catalog/350_laughing%20bag.jpg) with a ticklish vocal cord prone to bursts of exclamatory squawks as if to trot out a leitmotif.

Another lazy comparison is Joanna Newsom, which I think is far more accurate a description of directional ’style’ (faerie-folk, anyone?) but its still not taking on board how obvious it is that Rossi’s vocal elasticity is an extension of her viola. An embelishment rather than an accompaniment.

As for the Samantha Crain vocal comparison — that’s just fucking nonsense. Rossi is in an entirely different register, for one, & uses her singing voice (minus the gymnastics) in an entirely different way. As delicious & familiar as SC’s voice is (possibky my favourite vocal for 2years+), Rossi is not from the same petri dish.

Next time she’s in town go & see her Toad; go with no expectations, relax, say hello (she’s an exceptionally polite & unassuming, almost apologetically shy, person) & buy her a G+T.