| "It is so" Reviews: NPR: Featured on The World Cafe Next 20 list "The arresting music that accompanies her words evokes her reverence for life and beauty...It Is So...is filled with heart-wrenching songs" Shh, Listen: "Yes, there is sadness and loss in It is so. And yet, the album is also a wonderful celebration of life in all its forms...[It] is an album that accomplishes the complicated task of fusing poetry, storytelling, and intimate reflection with breathtaking ease...Put simply, I love this album." Project Rhythm Seed: "Cotton’s latest release is folk at its finest...profound and exquisite" Muruch: "Sonya’s voice has never sounded so beautiful and her songwriting has never been as brilliant...a gorgeous, mournful masterpiece" Direct Current Music: "Cotton's latest collection of songs has a marked traditionalist feel, echoing delicate Laurel Canyon folk/pop harmonies, classic Sandy-Denny-styled U.K. acoustic balladry and elegant Americana. But despite the gossamer Judy Collins/Joni Mitchell feel, Cotton builds upon the retro foundations with a contemporary edge, turning songs like "Washington" and "Frozen Hands" into meditative folk hymns -- think Joanna Newsom without the dramatic pretense -- on love, loss and the beauty (and creatures) of the natural world." "Red River" Reviews: Jezebel Music: "Every song on Red River is so consistently and organically excellent: these are folk songs, but they are so maniacally composed, so surprising, that they exceed their genre...When I listen to Red River I feel graced, I feel my heart fill with the ghosts of everyone I've lost and loved, and I feel the promise of hope on the dawn." KQED: "A haunting and moving work" Viva Indie Rock!: "Sonya Cotton is one of the finest singer/songwriters of our time. Her latest album Red River is one of the most peaceful, delicate, and beautiful recordings I have ever heard." Shh Listen: "Sonya's tenderness and reverence for the world around her really shine on Red River, which has a gentleness that I find mesmerizing. But perhaps most intriguing of all is the way in which this music feels old. Old in a sense that it plumbs the deeper corners of the soul, and finds sparkling gems of natural beauty and humanity amidst the dark." Left Hip Magazine: "A beautiful album from start to finish" Spectrum Culture: "Red River is a tightly-woven tapestry of striking images and delicately blended sounds...the forests and animals alive in Red River call to mind a life lived with a reverence for and connection to nature that is rare in this young computerized century." Feminist Review: "Cotton's voice is delicate yet she unleashes an amazing power in her unassuming vocals" "Out of the Ocean" Reviews: 75 or less: "I expect a lot from my sophomores, and Sonya Cotton gets an A. To her second album of sorrowful folk- the lyrics evoke loss and yearning- she has added piano, percussion, and backing vocals here and there. I wish we could clone her, so everyone can have Sonya doing their harmonies; the end of "The Dying Light" has achingly beautiful ones. Her voice is just lovely, as if Karen Peris, Natalie Merchant and Judy Collins mixed theirs together to create one that wasn't babyish or throaty or reedy. Just lovely." Indie Folk Forever: "Sonya Cotton['s]...voice has the practiced power, assurance and cadence of a professional singer, clear and sweet. Songs are arranged with a light, tasteful touch -- mostly voice and guitar with occasional piano, drums and backing vocals...Her new album Out of the Ocean has found near-permanent home in my car stereo for the last few weeks. Along with those great, pure vocals, Cotton's songs have self-effacing charm, vulnerability, and low-key melodies that really stick. The effect is something like the Innocence Mission recast in a more confessional mode. Give a listen to "These Days"; the way she sings this line, especially, gets me every time: 'These days I've got little to say/what am I losing in these lonely rotting streets?/You say you miss me darling/well, I miss you too, my sweet.'" Plug In Music Out of the Ocean: A- "Cotton's weightless melodies are effortless, as is her wonderful delicate voice in which she offers soft combinations of folk and country music." Etc: Pitchfork Media: "Sonya Maria Cotton...is a really damn fine singer" (For her input on the National Lights' record "The Dead Will Walk, Dear.") Ample Sanity: "A voice that conjures shadows, reveries, and simple truths." Left Hip Magazine: "A voice that sends tingles down your spine, melts and breaks your heart in the same phrase." |