theresa andersson is phenomenal

I heard Theresa Andersson earlier this morning on Morning Becomes Eclectic, and I fell in love with her music after about 30 seconds, and that was before I saw how she creates it:


Phenomenal.

Theresa Andersson on MySpace.

“Hummingbird, Go!” from Amazon MP3.

31 thoughts on “theresa andersson is phenomenal”

  1. While perusing NOLA musicians, check out this video – it’s the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with Clint Maedgen performing Complicated Life, and it is pretty much guaranteed to put you in a good mood.



    The song kicks in at ~1:00. And yes, I did upload it for them.

  2. I would say, “OMFG.” but I don’t think that quite covers how phenomenal that was. I have no words. Thank you for posting this.

  9. That was incredible. She’s getting a full-body aerobic workout in the middle of it all and still sounds beautifully amazing. I heard her as well this morning but didn’t have the capacity to look into her further. Thanks for the hook up. I’m really impressed.

  10. She was also recently (last month) on Conan when she did this. We in her adopted hometown of New Orleans, are so glad that others in the country are falling in love with her. She is a sweet heart to boot! I am looking forward to her gig at the Botanical Gardens in April, as well as her Jazz Fest set. It will be fun, that is going to be a STELLER weekend of music. Thanks for spreading the love!

  11. she’s great and i do believe morning becomes eclectic will reveal a gem once in awhile but c’mon. eclectic? i’ve always thought they should call it morning becomes pretty much the same. i would say the VAST majority of the music on that show falls into the same genre. which in my mind does not supply a multifarious musical experience.
    i hope that doesn’t sound snarky because i don’t mean it to. although i feel kind of snarky. where’s my coffee?????

  12. Stunning!
    Lots of artists (incl. me XD) work with live-looping devices, but most of them lack creativity (and passion) in applying them. This is some really brilliant stuff!

  13. That’s AWESOME!!! The next generation of musicians are so very multitalented that they can sing backup for themselves 😉

  14. Yeah, I saw KT Tunstall do something similar at SXSW a few years back. It was a wonderful happiness to hear one person create such intricate music and sounds with simple instruments and repetition, especially after a loud obnoxious large band experience right before her.
    I do wish the sound on this video were better, though. You can hear the instruments better than you can hear her.

  15. Her work is amazing and it must have taken a lot of time to figure it all out, and then to practice it enough to do it all. The mind boggles. I was watching so much and listening to all the parts so intently, I missed the lyrics.
    That said, it struck me as a very lonely way to make music. It would be fun to play with, but part of my joy in making music is doing it with others and having everything click together into a better whole than the parts.

  17. I too saw her performance on Conan a bit ago. I was impressed, but had forgotten to follow up on looking for her work. Thanks for the reminder.

  18. Wow, that’s awesome and you can see how much fun she is having doing it too which just makes it so perfect.
    The first time I discovered looping could be cool and good, rather than bizarre “audio experiences”, was when I saw KT Tunstall on the awesome and very eclectic UK show “Later with Jools Holland” when she did an amazing cover of Want You Back by Jackson 5. Performing it on a french show:


    and her song Big Black Horse & the Cherry Tree:



    I did a bit of research a year or so ago and discovered she uses an Akai Headrush E2, which gets rave reviews all over the place as it’s one of a smaller number of pedals that don’t alter the tone in any way.
    I’ve been using it for a little while now, and it surprised me just how damn hard it is to get the initial loop perfect, takes so much practice to hit the pedal fractions of a second before the start of the rhythm you want it to sample. Once you get it it’s well worth the effort 🙂
    The HeadRush has gone on to replace my normal delay pedal in my line up too, it’s much more practical for my needs than the DD5 & DD6, tap tempo doesn’t involve so much hassle, it’s on all the time.
    So far I’ve used the pedal for looping only a few times during open mic slots, and only after a few pints of dutch courage 😀

  19. Truly amazing. I am always looking for new music, but finding someone who stands out like that is always a rare thing. A truly talented individual. Thanks for the post.

  21. Without sounding like a pretentious jackass (too late?), I wish Tyondai Braxton (now of Battles) would get far more credit for kicking off the idea of using looping pedals this way.
    I caught him doing a solo set back in March of 1999 up in Connecticut, and it was one of the most mind-blowing sets I’ve ever seen. It was one of those completely unexpected moments (I was there for another band) where you turn and go, “What am I seeing?!?” In fairness, what he did was more avant-garde in nature, but he was doing exactly that – banging on a guitar and/or a microphone for percussion and layering guitars and vocals to create songs. And nobody made a true looping pedal back then – he was using a delay pedal that slowly faded out, so he had to keep relayering the parts as he went along.
    Within months, a number of NYC-area solo artists picked up the idea, and eventually, more and more singer-songwriters picked up the idea to fill in what they couldn’t play on an acoustic. Tunstall wasn’t even the first “pop”-oriented artist to do it – it just happened that she was the first to be seen on national television.
    And I agree with one of the sentiments here – I would much prefer that songwriters play their songs (and show off their songcraft) on a guitar rather than force some looping something-or-other behind it. While some musicians do the looping thing very well (like Theresa), most would accomplish more by preparing a solid backing track (see: Anna Ternheim) and just using a sampler to play it back. And most folks who stick to looping end up playing the same riff over and over for five minutes because they can’t switch keys.
    /worried that I sound too much like one of those “the Pixies did it first” folks

  22. Awesome. I suppose you’ve heard of Toby Lightman? If you like this, you might like her, too. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why she’s not a superstar. Perhaps she will be yet. Give her a listen. (No, I don’t know her or have any affiliation.)

  24. I have fallen in love with a lot of live loop mixers who are talented at it, such as Imogen Heap:



    Also another I discovered because of him touring with Imogen Heap was Kid Beyond:



    When you can do live looping correctly it can produce some of the most amazing things

  28. Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this!
    To say she is “phenomenal” does not begin to describe her. What I really love is that, amid all the stuff she is doing, her voice is just so *huge* that it seems to take up the whole kitchen!
    I had to go buy it on iTunes right away.

  31. This girl is really amazing. She has an incredible voice, and just watching her perform is a treat indeed. Thanks for sharing it with us, Wil.

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