Tag Archives: Caisy Falzone

EP Review: Caisy Falzone – All That I Know

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Caisy Falzone

photo courtesy of Caisy Falzone

EP Review of Caisy Falzone: All That I Know

I first discovered Caisy Falzone‘s music when she performed upstairs at Pianos in 2017. Later that year, I reviewed her four-song EP, Your Time. I was drawn by the personal nature of her well-written, stripped-down singer-songwriter fare.

Caisy’s new five-song EP, All That I Know, retains the intimate appeal of her songwriting but quite interestingly presents it with a slightly different arrangement, a bit more dreamy and floaty that my live experience or that on her Your Time EP.

Caisy Falzone – All That I Know

photo courtesy of Caisy Falzone

The first song, “Drift,” is one of two tracks in this collection that appeared previously on Your Time. Here on All That I Know, it has been reimagined into a dreamy, almost shoegaze, echoingly ethereal pop number, yet Caisy’s vocals pierce the musical veil a bit more than is typical of dream pop, ably highlighting the identifiable features of her vocal that help listeners recognize it quickly as a Caisy Falzone tune.

“Stay” follows, with a much slower tempo that matches the wistfully melancholy lyrics, Caisy’s upward vocal lilt at the end of the word “stay” subtly punctuating the emotion, convincingly compelling the listener to “just stay with me for tonight.”

“Into You/Into This” follows with a upbeat, cheery pop rhythm that matches Caisy’s peppy, thoughtful vocals. Probably my favorite of the three new songs on this EP, I enjoy bouncing along to the song’s tempo, its well-placed stop-starts, and its indie-rock mini guitar run. If I were an independent filmmaker producing a relationship-focused film, I’d probably place this in the soundtrack in support of a relationship-building montage and/or as a closing credits number.

Caisy Falzone

photo courtesy of Caisy Falzone

“Hold Me Down” is the second of the two holdovers from Your Time. It retains the persistence of Caisy’s prior recording but is produced with more of a soft echo-chamber ambience, delivering a vibe that’s even a bit more introspective, both as a standalone and definitely as part of this collection. As was true a few years ago, I still really dig the way the song slow-builds through its length, ending more powerfully than it began.

“Anything, Anyway” closes the EP with a guitar-picking melancholy, again true to the EP’s production value but a bit more stripped-down and vulnerable than the preceding tracks. Caisy’s slowly stylized guitar picking and hoarsely melancholy delivery, with the occasional pause adding emphasis to an already slow tempo, provide the perfect fade-to-black for this EP.

All That I Know is a stylized slow burn, a package of introspective deep thought that presents Caisy Falzone’s songwriting style in an echoey, softly thoughtful package. It’s coolly interesting at first listen, and it continues to grow on you from there. While remaining true to Caisy’s past, this EP also highlights that her journey as an artist continues, leaving me excited for her future releases, while I enjoy the intriguing music she’s creating today.

Caisy Falzone

photo courtesy of Caisy Falzone

Looking Ahead

You can find Caisy live performance schedule on her Facebook page or from Bandsintown, either via the “live shows” tab of her Facebook page or directly on the Bandsintown website. Both pages are empty. Caisy may also mention upcoming shows, when they happen, on Twitter.

EP Review: Caisy Falzone – Your Time

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Caisy Falzone

photo courtesy of Caisy Falzone

I reviewed one of Caisy’s gigs at Pianos in New York back in February. Now, I’d like to introduce you to her EP.

EP Review of Caisy Falzone: Your Time

Caisy Falzone‘s voice is a little raspy, a bit emotional, and relatively alt-rock, and she utilizes it to good effect in a singer-songwriter setting. Coming across sometimes as hoarse, other times as gravelly, and often kind of hoarsely haunting, Caisy’s delivery actually reminds me most, from among those I’ve reviewed in Blog, of Sophia Ward (of local Boston-area band TOS), just in more of a singer-songwriter format (rather than in TOS’s more raucous rock-band setting).

Caisy Falzone - Your Time

image courtesy of Caisy Falzone

The EP itself, Your Time, is a nice little collection. It’s stripped-down singer-songwriter fare, rough-hewn a bit, primarily just vocals and chord-strumming with the occasional background vocal track. It showcases Caisy’s pleasantly raspy voice and her lyric and melody writing skills. It doesn’t purport to be a big production album; rather, it’s a nice little EP. Pleasant, easy to listen to, and a good representation of Caisy’s fun live gigs. I do wonder what these songs would sound like with a full band and lush production. Quite different, I suspect, but they’d still be the same well-written songs powered by Caisy’s sweetly gravelly voice. As much as I’d love to hear that rendition of these four songs, Your Time really does remind me of Caisy’s live show. And with that goal in mind for this recording, I’d change nothing.

Caisy Falzone

photo courtesy of Caisy Falzone

Though none of the songs are fast-tempo, three of the four are mid-tempo. “Hold Me Down” is a bare-bones number, with Caisy’s voice showing vulnerability, in sync with the lyrics, her strumming gaining in intensity over the course of the song as the mood of the song ever-so-slowly builds in intensity, as well.

“Your Time” has a really cool tempo, with Caisy’s vocals carrying more emotion than their simplicity might otherwise suggest. On the whole, it’s a slow-things-down, thoughtful, melancholy number that’ll bring any room down emotionally… by design.

If I had to pick a favorite on this EP, it would be”Drift.” There are some cool lyrical elements; I’m oddly fond of her use of multiple “you (I) know”s as lyrical bridges; this track also has the best subtly catchy guitar-strum hook, used sparingly but just often enough.

Caisy Falzone

photo courtesy of Caisy Falzone

“Feel So Good,” the disc-ender, is Caisy’s ballad. It’s a nice tempo change. She sings with a more haunted tone, “bringing the room down” again with her melancholy delivery, not quite sad as much as simply exhausted.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Caisy’s Your Time EP is a good representation of her live performances. If you’ve seen her perform live, these songs will carry your memory back to the night of her show. If you haven’t, well, this is what she sounds like. I’d suggest snagging this four-song collection from Bandcamp, and I’d definitely recommend getting out to a Caisy Falzone gig. Bring friends. Drink. Enjoy. Make it a fun night.

Looking Ahead

The events page on Caisy’s Facebook page lists one upcoming gig, Jun 16th at Lovecraft in New York. If you check her Facebook page periodically, you can see other upcoming shows as she adds them.

Live Review: Caisy Falzone at Pianos

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Caisy Falzone

photo by Geoff Wilbur

Caisy Falzone

Pianos, New York, NY

February 11, 2017

Backstory

Occasionally, I day-trip to New York. Typically, I hit a museum or two, visit a couple restaurants, walk around the city a bit, and catch a little live music.

Caisy Falzone

photo by Geoff Wilbur

There were a couple bands performing on Saturday night who I’ve reviewed before and would have gone to see if it had been possible. But Amy and the Engine, whose album I reviewed last year, was taking the stage at the Bitter End a little too late for me to make it to the show and still catch my train home. Project Grand Slam, whose album I reviewed last year, was performing at Sugar Bar; I’d’ve probably attended their gig, but I didn’t know about the show until I saw the band’s Facebook posts after it was over. I did, however, search show listings and sample several artists’ music in the day or two before my visit, and a listen to Caisy Falzone’s Your Time EP convinced me I’d almost certainly enjoy her live performance. So I made my way into Pianos early Saturday evening relatively sure I’d enjoy Caisy’s set before it even began.

Caisy Falzone

photo by Geoff Wilbur

The Show

Performing solo with just a voice and a guitar, Caisy Falzone sings charmingly catchy, stripped-down, singer-songwriter pop-rock. In addition to an inherent vocal sweetness, Caisy infuses her songs with emotion at times via a somewhat uniquely hoarse delivery style, something she uses coolly effectively where many singers might instead lean on vocal gravel. It, when combined with her engaging stage presence and strong songwriting and wisely-selected cover song selection, provides Caisy with a memorable calling card in an otherwise relatively crowded sub-genre.

Caisy Falzone

photo by Geoff Wilbur

Caisy opened the evening with “I Feel You Look At Me” (note: my song title accuracy may vary), immediately charming the audience with sweet, echoing, atmospheric vocals. She followed it with a song that’s more of a strummer (“Almost There”?), one on which she showcases a typically singer-songwriter styled rhythmic vocal emphasis.

Caisy Falzone

photo by Geoff Wilbur

Caisy next served up her version of Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me.” She nailed it, leaning particularly effectively on her hoarsely emotional vocal delivery for this one. It was followed by a new, untitled pop song which was, yes, more pure radio pop styled but still clearly stylistically Caisy.

On “Hold Me Down,” from the Your Time EP, Caisy laid down a steady, strumming rhythm, with her voice cracking compellingly in the emotional spots. She followed with a cover of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”; in this case, the emotion was drawn directly from the song, as Caisy clearly connects with this classic guitar-pop rock hit.

Next up was “Say”(?), an “old song,” Caisy noted, from her acoustic duo past. This song explored the more ethereal end of Caisy’s vocal delivery, complementing it with particularly emphatic strumming.

Caisy Falzone

photo by Geoff Wilbur

Her rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” was engaging and almost innocent-sounding. Worth mentioning is the original way in which Caisy delivered these vocals, seeming to round the vowels a bit, resulting in a unique vibe and memorable performance of this often-covered tune.

Caisy closed her set with “Drift,” another track from her latest EP. On this she employed a persistently hoarse vocal delivery, rhythmically rising and falling in power, combined with a simple-but-effective, interesting guitar rhythm.

Indeed, this set was a great way to cap a day in New York. Caisy’s musical toolbox isn’t notably exceptional, but she mixes and matches her tools effectively. An evening at one of her shows seems to be a guaranteed enjoyable time, and I look forward to hearing how she utilizes her skills and builds upon her song catalog as her career advances.