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Hello, Blue Roses

Who? The love child of two multi-talented,multi-tasking eclectics, Hello, Blue Roses pairs visualartist/vocalist/flautist Sydney Vermont with her scraggly-hairedsweetheart, artsy singer/songwriter Dan Bejar (Destroyer, NewPornographers, Swan Lake), to make up this charming duo. Their intimacybeget a distinctive and engrossing debut album, complete with the awww-inspiring title, The Portrait Is Finished And I Have Failed to Capture Your Beauty… due Jan. 22 via the Locust label.

What’s the Deal? Like a Sonny & Cher for the hippest sectors of the Great WhiteNorth, these Vancouverites are anything but frigid, delivering 14 warmembers of by-the-fire folk fitted for the lovelorn literati. Written byVermont and arranged by Bejar, the set sounds pristine and nearly regal– Vermont’s chandelier-shaking falsetto ever-climbing as on theautonomous lead track “Hello Blue Roses” and Bejar’s compositionalmajesty unleashing glimmering galactic synths on “Shadow Falls” or hissignature ’70s-gone-bare wailing riffs riding acoustic strums during”Coming Through Imposture.” Elsewhere, the almost-medieval “ComeDarkness” conjures frills and flowing dresses in a flute-filled reveriewhile their cover of Kevin Ayers’ “Hymn” demonstrates a couple’spremonition in a winding acoustic duet, each idiosyncratic voicerising, falling, and breaking in harmony.

Fun Fact:“My art usually comes out of books of fiction, and tends towardswomen,” Vermont tells SPIN.com. In fact, the band takes its name fromthe Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie, in which thetragic female lead Laura explains her affliction as pluerosis,misunderstood by her great love Jim as “Blue Roses.”

Now Hear This
Hello, Blue Roses – “Shadows Fall” DOWNLOAD MP3

On the Web:
Hello, Blue Roses at MySpace

Talk: Does Hello, Blue Roses capture “your beauty” in their Portrait?