Amy Annelle - A School of Secret Dangers (2001)

"A School of Secret Dangers is the bar at which modern singer-songwriters should measure of to, a tight recording stripped down to the bare essentials and somehow managing to sound whole in every way."--Alex Steininger, In Music We Trust

"Amy Annelle has never sung a word she didn't need. On her solo albums and in her work with the Places, she has a perfect sense of how to use silence in her recordings-- neither playing faster to fill the quiet, nor slowing down to create it."--Chris Dahlen, Pitchfork

A School of Secret Dangers is a campfire album with indie swagger; replete with songs that thrive on understated instrumentation and charming production values. Released after her gorgeous and critically celebrated Hi-Fi debut (The Places’ The Autopilot Knows you Best), A School of Secret Dangers recalls Springsteen’s Nebraska, a testament to the power of good songwriting recorded simply. This collection was handpicked from several seasons of self-recording using vintage world war II era microphones, short wave radios, and glorious analog tape. The result is a nest of an album with nostalgic melodies, autumn leaf vocals, cozy instrumentation, and the beautifully-odd interwoven found sound. Amy Annelle blends the voice of a nightingale with a hard-scrabble lyricism of Edith Frost.