Ever-Shifting Guitarist Wendy Eisenberg Dares With Homegrown and Poetic Songs, In-Studio

Wendy Eisenberg is a Brooklyn-based guitarist, improviser, and songwriter who uses guitar, pedals, the tenor banjo, the computer, the synthesizer and the voice. They are also a professor of songwriting, and a constant collaborator in many different circles: with the improvising trio Squanderers, an art rock band called Editrix, and the minimalism-inspired guitar quartet led by Bill Orcutt, to name a few. Their latest album, also called Wendy Eisenberg, is full of tracks that almost present as conventional songs, but which actually dance around form and genre. Some of them may be indebted to jazz, and also inhabit the in-between space where folk, pop, outsider country music, and math rock all hang out.

OH. And the riffs! Their masterful fingers climb through odd rhythms, spidery melodies, and unexpected progressions, taking sudden swerves and turns while still creating a sense of spaciousness. On the record, the songs also feature contributions from friends and collaborators on pedal steel, strings, synth, bass, drums. Over this all, Eisenberg’s clear voice conversationally addresses time – reflecting on memories, embracing change, growing - while they describe “moving through this new world right now,” (Bandcamp). Wendy Eisenberg plays some of their songs in a solo set, in-studio. – Caryn Havlik

Photo of Wendy Eisenberg by Eleanor Petry

Set list: 1. Meaning Business 2. Vanity Paradox 3. Will You Dare