Karli Fairbanks is having a yard sale and everything must go! Including apparently her brother’s clothes. That’s right, she’s selling her house and most of her possessions and is about to embark on the peripatetic journey of the itinerant musician (itinerant in the “bohemian rover” sense, not in the “moth-eaten vagrant” sense). Scary, yes, but I predict great things.

Karli is from the Pacific Northwest corner of the United States, but (gasp!) not from Portland. She is in fact a native and citizen of Spokane, Washington, which is situated only a stone’s throw from the Idaho and Montana borders. I asked her about the “scene” up in Spokane, and apparently the place is blooming with singer-songwriters these days, and there are plenty of places to play, so perhaps taking up a musical life isn’t quite the roll of the dice that it might otherwise be.

Anyhow, I found Karli’s music on myspace, and when I first heard her my reaction was complete shock. From her pictures she looks like a little sprite of a thing, but I can assure you that girlfren’ has some pipes, people. Such an incredibly evocative, soul-stirring voice, which she accompanies beautifully with a delicately strummed banjo or guitar. If there’s anything better in this life than a pretty woman playing a banjo I haven’t heard it, unless perhaps it’s a pretty woman playing an accordion. And hey! She plays accordion too. Is there anything she can’t do?  Just achingly gorgeous.  I’ve been listening to her music incessantly for the last week or so, and I hear echoes of Samantha Crain (she just keeps coming up, doesn’t she?), Ghost Bees, whose “ghostly, spectral folk tales” were reviewed by Matthew back in March, and perhaps even a bit of Pittsburgh’s own Emily Rodgers.  Yes. That’s right.  I just name-dropped.  But sometimes you just gotta.

Karli has a splendid full-length called “Bitter Blue” out that you can buy through the link below, and the record is also available for digital download on Amazon. The two tracks posted here are from that record. And she also has a 4-song EP that she’s been kind enough to make available for free download here.

If you can’t get to the yard sale at least buy the record. I’m so happy to have found this.

Karli Fairbanks – Take Me Home
Karli Fairbanks – Canyons

Website | MySpace | Buy from CDBaby