karen pernick: press

Poised at the crossroads where Jesse Sykes, Cowboy Junkies, Neko Case, and Shawn Colvin collide...quiet, huanted refrains...touchingly beautiful.

"Karen Pernick’s soulful sound winds around your heart like a fog around a lonely mountaintop."

It’s been 10 years since Karen Pernick released her debut CD, Apartment 12, and she spent much of that time pursuing non-musical paths. However, her sophomore disc, Two Kinds of Weather, is a stunning effort that serves as a reminder that quality the dark, slightly edgy, full-band setting is perfect for Pernick’s alluring, slightly raspy voice and her evocative, sometimes melancholy songs. Pernick’s imagery is captivating, whether it be the seductive immolation of the romance in “Brightest Blaze” or the powerful spell cast by childhood memories in “Rain.” Pernick’s melodies are similarly rich and complex, whether it be the restrained Delta blues of “Name of That Bird,” the feedback-driven dirge of “Seven Limbs,” or the warm, major chords that compose “One Way Ticket.” The sole cover is possibly the most achingly beautiful version of “Wild Horses” I’ve ever heard with Horvitz’s grand piano and Timothy Young’s ringing electric guitar weaving circles around Pernick’s world-weary vocal. Two Kinds of Weather casts a powerful spell and is a triumphant return for Karen Pernick.

Two Kinds of Weather - Karen Pernick

Soaked in the trademark velvet reverb of (engineer) Tucker Martine (Laura Veirs, Jesse Sykes), Karen Pernick’s Two Kinds of Weather signals the songwriter’s welcome return to recording. Luscious vocals dominate these tracks, as Pernick spins intricate, emotional tales of human-relationship plot points, together falling in tone somewhere between Ennio Morricone and Cormac McCarthy. In Pernick’s world, a poetic dualism of weather reigns: night rain becomes an embrace (“Brightest Blaze,” “Rain”) and sunlight can never keep you warm (“Angie’s Tavern”).

(Joseph Riipi)

Horvitz and Pernick keep things dark and quiet on these brooding little gems. (Pernick's) voice sounds like a smoother, mellower Marianne Faithfull...with a weary resignation that approaches a strange state of grace.
There's an ominous pressure building in the air, and in the heart of the singer...that mixture of dread and anticipation creates the tension that makes Pernick's art so compelling."

Karen Pernick - Two Kinds of Weather
"...The
ten songs on Two Kinds of Weather - including a beautiful, drawn out, over/nearly six minute
long version of Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones - take on difficult
relationships and the other side of luck. Her messages are packaged in a
midtempo altcountry-desert sound that breathes. The songs, melancholic
and dark, gain atmosphere with flares of the electric guitar, stripes of
harmonica and pedal steel, and keys for extra color. In the space that
remains her slow intimate voice falls beautifully, especially when the
playing becomes modest. Imagine a small theater with a softly lit stage
and red plush chairs and the ambiance would be near perfect for Karen
Pernick.

Two Kinds of Weather - Karen Pernick (4 stars)

'Two Kinds of Weather' is the perfect second CD from Seattle singer-songwriter Karen Pernick. …The melancholic opening 'Angie's Tavern,' is beautifully drawn out, with fine pedal steel and subtle piano by (producer) Horvitz himself. And, the level of this calming album remains high, with the main triumph being Pernick’s voice - - dark and lived-in, while simultaneously offering a pristine clarity. She sounds seductive in 'Seven Limbs,' threatening in 'Greater or Less Than,' and… beautifully contrasting this is the closing track 'Name of the Bird,' with the lyrics: 'Cry, oh she's cryin/ the saddest song I've ever heard/ cry, oh she's crying/ wish I knew the name of that bird.' The name of that bird: Karen Pernick.

(Machiel Coehorst)

Tempered by a Rickie Lee Jones-like romanticism...a kind of gutsiness comes through in her songs, which portray people battling with independence, stubbornness and the tenuousness of human connections.

With Pernick, whatever is, is right. Melancholy and longing are syncopated to perfection. In the title song of her record, Apartment 12, she sings, "I wish that I could find a way into that other clear refrain." The thing is, that's exactly what she does.

...Pernick has a sharp eye for minutiae; her songs are alive with the details of real life, making her subjects believable and intimate. There's nothing left to waste in these gossamer songs... (Chad Driscoll for Rhapsody.com)

Pernick has matured into a thoughtful lyricist with a gift for probing the heart's contradictory cravings for spiritual communion and independence. Her songs are full of lovely, poetic details and possessed of a cool, unsentimental wisdom rare among contemporary singer-songwriters. (Thom Jureck for Schoolkid's Records, Ann Arbor MI)