Mindy Gledhill brings her her infectious brand of indie pop to St. Helens' Columbia Theater on Friday, April 18 at 7pm.
About Mindy: SEARCHING FOR A SPARK
Part of being an artist is the never-ending, often frustrating hunt for a spark, seeking it out in new inspiration, new collaborators, new environments. For her latest album, Mindy Gledhill unearthed her spark in all of the above—pulling inspiration from cinematic scores by composers Jon Brion and Mark Mothersbaugh, while collaborating with ultra-talented, Nashville-based producer Cason Cooley (Katie Herzig, Matthew Perryman Jones, Sixpence None The Richer).
But she also found inspiration in the last place she thought to look: her very own pockets. In the three years since her last official release, 2010’s Anchor, Gledhill had amassed a veritable library of what she calls, “jotted down pieces of ramblings in random notebooks, on napkins, paper plates, or blank walls that begged for graffiti.”
She’d sung on a Grammy-nominated album (Kaskade’s Fire & Ice), had her songs featured in a variety of TV shows (So You Think You Can Dance, Bones, 20/20), joined a humanitarian expedition in Kenya where she sang and danced for/with women and elementary school kids and factory workers, had her third child (which probably merits its own paragraph), released a Christmas album, sang with orchestras, led a creative retreat to Morocco, had a #1 single in Korea, had a song in a beautiful commercial that aired during the Olympics, sang from rooftops, plotted from treetops, laughed, cried, and basically just lived life. All that–and more–was just sitting there in her pockets, waiting.
Hit songwriter/producer Trina Harmon puts it this way, “Mindy’s music reflects everything she authentically is in her life…practicing, becoming, experimenting, questioning, learning, growing, smiling, celebrating, embracing and loving it all.” That’s what Gledhill pulled out of her pockets and took to Nashville: the experience of living life, whatever it brings, whatever it looks like, all with her unmistakable point of view— one eye back to the handwritten, the thrift store throwback, like a vintage suitcase bursting with unabashed sentimentality, and the other eye towards the future, the unknown, the beautiful and mysterious great wide open, whatever it may hold.
And then, what started as midnight scribblings and airplane napkin sketches grew into the enchanting, technicolor songs found on Pocketful of Poetry. And they’re more than just a collection of songs. They’re a story arc that begins with Gledhill wistfully daydreaming in the title track and “Trouble No More”, then leaving home to try the world on for size in songs like “I Take Flight”, swimming through the world’s sea of love and loss before finally returning and “Finding Home” again. Pocketful of Poetry was artfully produced by Cason Cooley, mixed by Justin Gerrish (Vampire Weekend, The Strokes, Weezer), and mastered by Joe LaPorta (The Killers, Foo Fighters, Neon Trees). It’s the sound of hunting for that spark. And finding it.
“Every word Mindy sings comes from a genuine place. A voice that truly captivates.”–Finn Bjarnson, Grammy-nominated producer
“…cheery brimming-over of plucky banjo, snappy fingers, and sweet songbird lyrics that we can’t help but adore…” –Anthropologie.com
“Mindy Gledhill was a star at our Durango Film/TV Artist showcase. Her showcase was riveting. There was not a sound in the room. The audience of music industry pros and music supervisors was spellbound.”–Jim Attebury (co-founder and President of Durango Songwriter’s Expo)
FOLLOW MINDY
www.facebook.com/MindyGledhillMusic
