Top of the Pops

Folk singer Ivy Mairi had a show Sunday night at the Burdock. Her backup singer opened the night as Blunt Chunks. Though her fuzzy guitar, looping vocal layering, and lyrical snippets gave her set a meditative aspect, her songs were often too qualitatively similar.

For Mairi's set, their voices blended quite nicely on both original material as well as covers such as The Beatles' Julia. With a full band, Mairi explored pop sensibility with several new songs. I enjoyed these the most only because when I last saw her at The Dakota, she promised a full set of pop music. The audience also loved Strange Love with its 80s Whitney Houston vibe. But Mairi couldn't help but dipped into her old material which had a timeless quality. Both in the sense of feeling like an old folk melody but also running into 8 and 10 minutes long! For her encore, she did a great cover of Bowie's Soul Love.