Girl, Where You Been?

For a long time, many fans had resigned themselves to the thought that – after a flurry of EPs and a lovely, critically-lauded, self-titled debut album produced by Richard Hawley that has gone on to be regarded as a great lost classic of sophisticated pop music (think Bacharach, Carole King, Carpenters, etc.) – we might have heard the last of A Girl Called Eddy. Blooming on the horizon seemingly out of nowhere, the New York/London-based singer-songwriter born Erin Moran played few live shows following the album’s 2004 release, and quickly dropped out of sight. Like, off the radar completely.

I didn’t really pay much attention until a half-dozen years later when a friend raved about the album and played it for me. Completely enraptured, and curious about her disappearance from the public eye, I contacted Anti-, the label that released her debut, inquiring about her whereabouts and whether any new music might be forthcoming. They claimed to know nothing.

Occasional hints of activity would emerge here and there, but nothing tangible came forth until a year ago when The Last Detail, a collaboration between Moran and French musician Mehdi Zannad, released an album of crisp, sunny early ’70s AM radio-style pop tunes, with a promise that, yes, a new album from A Girl Called Eddy was in the works.

Well, I’m listening to that album at this very moment – yes, finally, a second LP from A Girl Called Eddy – and I have to tell you, it’s tremendous! The term “timeless” gets bandied about a lot, but no exaggeration, it truly applies here. With its melancholy piano-based pop songs, buoyed by horns and strings, given muscle from drums and guitars and bass, and Moran’s dusky, yearning voice and words driving them directly to your heart, Been Around certainly proceeds directly from A Girl Called Eddy as if 15 years were a snap of the fingers.

Recorded in Nashville, New York and London, with Daniel Tashian (producer of Kacey Musgraves’ Grammy-winning album Golden Hour) co-producing, Been Around will be released January 17th on Elefant Records. The title track is also the lead single, and you should really take a five-minute time out to watch the video.

Photo by Julian Simmons.