This CD was created mostly while Amy was a college and grad student, as a "pop" reaction to the her classical training. It's influenced by many of the sounds and artists of the '80s New Wave but has a charmingly lo-tech quality -- the result of cheap equipment and quick all-nighters in the studio when no one was looking. Regardless, you can hear a lot of the multi-layered vocals, quirky lyrics and heartfelt melodies that have become part of Amy's signature sound. A great review in Keyboard Magazine helped this CD launch Amy's career:
"Neuburg's talents as songwriter, singer, arranger, studio technician, and keyboardist distinguish this remarkable release. From "This is the last," an intricate a capella exercise in polyrhythms and accessible pop tunesmithery, Neuburg stretches to a sequence-driven recitatif, "Nothing," with staccato vocals skipping over a spiky synth pattern. No slouch on keys, she plays some lines on "Get you out" with a most peculiar lead texture -- analog synth with snarling animal sample? (Cut in 1985, this track forecasts the techno phenomenon with a frenzied clairvoyance.) A hypnotic quality permeates her arrangements -- not the stupor of new age but the more dynamic stasis of minimalist repetitions powered, as on "Keep us 2," by displaced accents and emphasized by sharp, low-budget, buzzy textures. Even on the sparer pieces, such as "It never ends," a restlessness underlies her languorous vocals and lazy, legato synth lines. If the world was fair, Songs would win this Bay Area performance artist acclaim as America`s answer to Kate Bush. No, even that isn't fair: Neuburg is a major player in her own right, a unique voice in the true sense of the word." [Robert L. Doerschuk]
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