Thursday, March 15   11:00 p.m.
Buffalo Billiards   (201 E 6th St)

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Jesse Sykes is an extraordinary singer and amazing writer whose stark, beautiful songs roil with themes of loss, resignation, reconciliation, and love laid bare.

Transplanted from her birthplace in the damp cold of New York state, Sykes has made a home in the damp cold of the Pacific Northwest for the past several years.

Back east, she attended the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design and is an accomplished photographer. Her vivid, impressionistic lyrics reflect her visual-arts background, their musical foundation placing them somewhere between Pour Down Like Silver-era Richard & Linda Thompson or vintage Neil Young, the warm country-gothic-noir of Nick Cave, and the elegant indie-rock of Cat Power.

Oh, My Girl is the second full-length release resulting from Sykes’ collaboration with guitarist/songwriter Phil Wandscher. Wandscher’s last musical project was Whiskeytown, the revered North Carolina post-punk alt-country band that he co-founded with Ryan Adams; that band’s artistic demise and eventual dissolution were sealed, in the opinion of many fans, by Wandscher’s departure after its first two records.

If the tepid third Whiskeytown record isn’t sufficient support for this view, then Wandscher’s great playing and writing on Oh, My Girl and on the acclaimed Sykes debut Reckless Burning (2002, Burn Burn Burn/Barsuk) are further evidence of just how essential he was to Whiskeytown’s original lineup. Similarly, the rest of The Sweet Hereafter — seasoned Joel Phelps/Neko Case sideman Bill Herzog on stand-up bass, Walkabouts violinist Anne Marie Ruljancich, and stylish brush-and-mallet drummer Kevin Warner — is sublime.

Utterly beautiful live, the band's relaxed and intimate presence has solidified a large west coast following and bolstered praise in the US and Europe:
"Blessed with the kind of high, disconsolate voice that sounds as if it's blowing through the pages of a Cormac McCarthy novel, Jesse Sykes seems to be a woman unlucky in life and love but...her losses are our gain. Reckless Burning is a gloriously bleak collection of songs, sparsely ornamented and drifting like smoke in evening chill." - David Peschek, Mojo

"... a slow-burning gem of a record as insidious as poison ivy. ... an exercise in understated majesty, like Low or Cowboy Junkies with added twang and ground in pepper." – UNCUT

"Hypnotic in places, even narcotic, "Oh,My Girl" continues to reverberate long after it ends. Like the Velvet Underground's third record or Bob Dylan's Desire, what resonates after "Oh, My Girl" fades isn't any specific moment, but the feel of the world created in it and by it." - Magnet
" ...suggests Cat Power's resigned sadness and the inherent strength of country icons like Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams... It's a foregone conclusion that the No Depression set will flip over this nearly flawless debut. What's less clear is when the buzz will catch on with fans of evocative, slow-tempo indie bands like Low, Cat Power, and Mojave 3....Listening to the bleak, beautiful, distorted guitar shudders on the title track's introduction or the sorrowful, Throwing Muse-y refrains on "Don't Let Me Go," no one can accuse these kids of operating strictly by the alt-country playbook." – Hannah Levin, The Stranger
After making year-end lists for 2004 in the New York Times, Tracks, Harp, Magnet and LA Weekly the band started 2005 with a two-week tour support supporting Bright Eyes and has since headlined their second national tour. More touring is the works in the US and Europe where the band has garnered great critical praise and a much loved, loyal fan base.