181 State St
Portland, ME 04101
USA
Doors open at 7pm. Starts at 8pm.
One Longfellow Square presents an intimate evening of solo performances from three rising singer-songwriters in New England. Geneviève Beaudoin, of Portland’s indie folk-rock outfit Dead Gowns, will be joined by special guests Louisa Stancioff (Camden, ME) and Eliza Edens (Brooklyn, NY).
Dead Gowns is the songwriting project of Geneviève Beaudoin. The band began touring the northeast in support of their first release, the New Spine EP, in late 2018. Since then, Dead Gowns has released a handful of songs, including “Lyon Alt. Version,” “Castine,” and “See People.”
The band’s latest single, “How You Act,” is out now on all platforms. It’s the first in a series of songs that the band will release this year, featuring a cast of good friends/collaborators from the New England DIY scene, including Luke Kalloch, Peter McLaughlin, Alex Millan, Aisha Burns, Nat Baldwin, and Brett DesChenes.
This body of work began in early January 2021, during a period of personal and professional flux, when Beaudoin found herself taking stock of what to hold onto. Having been immersed in the recording process of a separate Dead Gowns full length, “How You Act” and a handful of other songs bubbled to the surface out of necessity and quickly took on a life of their own. When a recording opportunity emerged, thanks to a grant offered by Portland studio Prism Analog, this new collection became a reality.
Beaudoin first wrote these songs as unspoken dialogues but later reconceived them as auto-fictive (vs. auto-biographical) affirmations – it’s not all true, but there’s something tangible to glean for herself. ‘How You Act’ is a reclamation of agency, empowering the narrator to forgive and accept. “Yeah, it’s messy/ grow up your heart” elucidates this revelation, with Beaudoin’s voice ringing out in a moment of quiet triumph: “Do you think you did right from the start? / Collect the lawn chair debris from my yard and/ paint my doorway the color of a birthday card/ Well, happy birthday to you.”
Of the band’s new song cycle, UK blog For the Rabbits writes: “If this is the start of a new project for Dead Gowns, it’s already one that seems to suit her, the sound of a songwriter coming good on all her promises and then some.”
Louisa Stancioff, originally from Chesterville, ME, has lived a transient last 10 years working seasonal jobs and playing and witnessing music in towns such as Ithaca, NY, Missoula, MT, Asheville, NC, Los Angeles, CA, and Camden, which is the small town in Midcoast Maine she has continuously come back to and is comfortably settled in for now. She has toured around the country a number of times with her previous band, Dyado, opening for and playing alongside artists such as The Weather Station, Sadurn, Lula Wiles, Slow Packer, Izaak Opatz and Oshima Brothers. Her songs are of the folk genre, and often tell stories based on personal experience, embellished with fictional narrative and magical elements to more thoroughly convey reality. Louisa’s Bulgarian heritage shows through in her intricate melodies, having grown up singing the ethereal, often dissonant traditional music with her family. Her electric guitar playing and dynamic arrangements exhibit a more contemporary version of “folk”, and could be likened to the music of Big Thief or Phoebe Bridgers. She still revisits her bluegrassy ways with Dolly Parton and Hank Williams era country covers and the occasional old time fiddle tune with her locally beloved country cover band, Cattail. These days though, more than anything, she loves to croon a crowd with her original folk n’ roll style songs. In these early stages of her solo career, she has been lucky enough to open for bands and artists such as Indigo de Souza, Eleanor Buckland, Darlingside and Golden Oak. You can listen to her previous band, Dyado, anywhere, or her solo EP Tape Recordings on Bandcamp, which was recently featured in Down East Magazine. Keep a watch out for her upcoming self titled debut LP, recorded with producer Sam Kassirer.
Born and raised in rural Massachusetts and currently living in Brooklyn, NY—via Colorado and then Philadelphia—Eliza Edens weaves together disparate influences of people and place into her work to create mesmerizing sonic tapestries with guitar and voice. With a love for tinkering with alternate tunings à la Nick Drake, a curious harmonic ear from years of childhood classical piano lessons, and an ever-expanding affinity for words and stories, Edens’ songs build a kaleidoscopic world that documents the parallels between hope and heartbreak. The resulting sound is a diverse palette of guitar-based, experimental folk-rock centered around Edens gently cradled voice and brimming at the edges with pockets of sonic whimsy. After cutting her teeth touring the DIY and folk circuits around the Northeast for the past few years—playing everywhere from West Philly basements to folk mainstay Club Passim—Edens is currently putting the finishing touches on a new sophomore album.