If you are asking “Who? On what?” well, that’s what I’d have asked about a week ago. Since then, I’ve discovered the music of this singer-songwriter. She is often backed by a wonderfully-titled band: The Get Down Stay Down.
I discovered Thao via Colin Meloy, Rhapsody, and the rather good Kill Rock Stars compilation album The Sound The Hare Heard. Her track on that album is “Feet Asleep.” Here’s a different version of the same song.
This version is from a session at Daytrotter, as is the picture at the top of this post. Here’s what Daytrotter’s about.
We’re giving you exclusive, re-worked, alternate versions of old songs and unreleased tracks by some of your favorite bands and by a lot of your next favorite bands…
These fine people – as they’re traveling through America’s heartland – take two hours out of their travels between shows to stop in for a Daytrotter Session at Futureappletree Studio One in downtown Rock Island, Ill.
So Daytrotter is worth checking out. If you want to check out further stuff by Thao, I’d start with thaomusic at MySpace. I’ll steal from there some words to describe her music (since I haven’t provided any of my own): “tangles of guitar, knots of singing, threads of beat and thump make a rope fit for hauling the heavy machinery of your day.”