The Wake

On a day when you feel like you’re losing touch with what it is that makes you human, there is nothing that peels back the emotional layers more effectively than perusing through your high school CD collection. No matter what your taste, there was something that you discovered when you were thirteen that broke your heart and tangled it back together. Years later, when you smooth out the scratches with your shirt sleeve and push play, you are reminded of just how raw that connection can be. Though it was released just this year, Jenny Dalton’s Fleur De Lily made me feel like I had unearthed one of those long forgotten albums. She’s a twist of Tori with a splash of the Cranberries chased with a chilled glass of Kate Bush and with a tenderness and honesty all her own.

The songs on this album are intimate and courageously candid, many of which were inspired by Dalton’s relationship with an American soldier deployed for a year in the Iraqi war. She details the most private heartache about a very public situation with unedited bravery. “I forget that it’s a diary entry,” says Dalton. “People relate to it in completely different ways.” The album art’s vintage design is evocative of the 1940s wartime era, making the album resonate with the timelessness and intrigue of a trunk of dusty photographs.

The Fleur De Lily CD release party at the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown showcased Dalton’s elegant vocals and passionate keyboard backed by members of Cloud Cult (who also contributed to the album). Their combined effect was unremitting and unavoidably visceral. They could have formed one beautiful living creature, the guitars and drums as two breathing lungs and a pounding heart, and Dalton as the tongue and teeth, delivering immutable truths of heartbreak and hope. Her presence was at once vulnerable and fearless.

The evening’s lineup (which also featured performances from These Modern Socks and Coach Said Not To) attracted a diverse crowd, and every set of eyes glistened as Dalton wove her story of two war-torn lovers. Lyrics like “Siamese, you and me / Iraqi sky, another blade to separate us” show her unbounded honesty that gives her widespread appeal.

Her performance was as delicate as it was driven, delivered with an endearing humbleness. “This is my first encore,” she confided, smiling coyly. With such a powerful album to support and cries of, “Jenny Dalton kicks ass!” from the back row, Dalton stands to see quite a few more.

“I really was just banging on the keys,” says Dalton of her earliest childhood experiments in piano. “I loved it, and I thought it was the most beautiful sounding thing ever. Eventually I got this tiny little Casio keyboard and started writing music right away.” Dalton has no formal training as a pianist. “The first song I picked up by ear was ‘Chariots of Fire.’ After that I just kept playing by ear and making up my own little riffs.”

Dalton seeks inspiration as a regular habit. “When you take out of the creative bank account you have to put something back in. A lot of songs have come out just from driving around, or going to a used bookstore and just grabbing weird books off the shelf. I go for a lot of walks.” Dalton is also an avid supporter of local music. “I go to a lot of shows.” She lists some of her favorite local performers as Cloud Cult, Thunder in the Valley and Mark Mallman.

Dalton has been paying her dues at local coffee shops and dive bars for years. “I’ve done the meat raffles,” she giggles, scrunching up her tiny nose. “I’d be playing for a blue collar crowd who’d been drinking there since two in the afternoon, and I’m thinking, oh great, these people are going to throw their beer bottles at me.” Dalton’s not sporting any scars, though. With a sound so decidedly classic, she has always been well-received, even among the most unconventional of crowds. She recalls how terrified she was at her first open mike night at the Terminal Bar. “Before that I was just playing for my cat …”

Her drive has paid off and her ambitions are clearer than ever. “In the next five years, I’ll hopefully put out at least three, or four, or five CDs. I’d like to keep doing more CDs as often as I can. I’d like to be touring a lot more. It’d be nice to do this for a living.” By day, Dalton works in communications at the university and runs her own record label, Glossy Shoebox Productions. “I like doing it all,” she says.

Fans are taking notice, and this Minneapolis artist has prompted an outpouring of support nationally and internationally. She is currently scheduling live performances in New York City and London. If you’d like to catch Jenny Dalton live and local, she will be performing with a full band at Mayslacks on April 29.