Thursday, April 16, 2009

Deep Sea Diver's New Caves

You might recognize Jessica Dobson from Beck's Modern Guilt tour...if you need a refresher, here she is, on guitar, on the left:


And here she is with Beck on KCRW:


Yeah, I think so too - all kinds of stage presence, which is why the camera, i.e. the eye behind the camera, betrays its weakness for her magnetism.

She has a new EP called New Caves, and its only fault is that it has only six songs. New Caves is direct and bare, delivered with all the rawness of P.J. Harvey, yet each song is a little spell, channeling Jeff Buckley's chiming chord sincerity. She shows us that rock doesn't need power chords--chords played right, and in the right places, have their own power, and more muscle than maxed-out sound levels. And like Buckley, Dobson is the kind of performer that you just want to sit there and listen to, and let the talent sweep you up and away as you try to take it in. She laments in the closing track, Pillars Of Fire, "I Wish I Was Under Your Spell." New Caves is still in my CD player, and I remain under its spell.

Deep Sea Diver - Snowed In (mp3)

You can get a copy of New Caves on the Deep Sea Diver MySpace. Highly recommended.

Finally, a video of her recent performance of Hangin' On at The Art Theater in Long Beach:

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