I attended this cd launch this week. It was great to hear songs about mothering in an Australian accent, and an Australian context. I'm glad it can be considered rock 'n' roll. Well done Mindy.
“When I first heard the sublime Mindy Sotiri sing about baby monitor static at an inner-city pub, I burst into tears and smudged all my eyeliner. Sure at the time I was a hormonal wreck because I, too, was up all night breastfeeding. But words can't express how amazing, re-assuring and downright subversive it was to witness my new maternal existence making an appearance at an actual live music gig. NO-ONE sings about this stuff. And they SHOULD. Because it's huge and it's important and it can make women crazy if they think they're the only ones going through it. Mindy is not just an outrageously talented musician - she's bringing women's intense private worlds into the public (or at least the pub-y) sphere. And that's as rock as it gets” (Emma Tom, 2010)
“Tender, stark and honest” (The Brag, 2010)
Mindy Sotiri is launching her third album Divorce Songs. Released through Laughing Outlaw Records, Divorce Songs is a close-up look at a long term relationship – it’s grand romantic threads (love, infidelity, ambivalence) set up against the domestic love catastrophe of real life: play groups, sleep deprivation, baby monitor static, sore boobs and toddler snot.
Situated somewhere to the east of Ani Difranco and Suzanne Vega, and occasionally channeling the eminent grumpy old men of folk, Mindy Sotiri makes music from the mess of everyday life. Incisive, direct and occasionally hilarious- this is alt-folk at its best; inventive playing, a unique voice, a cracking and versatile band. And tunes that have something to say.
Divorce Songs evolved in the rare quiet spaces of a busy, boring, and occasionally tumultuous domestic life. Retreating to the bathroom (the only room in the house to have the bonuses of both a lock AND sufficient distance from bedrooms to allow for noisy strumming) Mindy wrote songs while perched on the loo, paper, pens and capos balanced on the edge of the bath, pausing to open the door every 3 minutes to check no-one had woken up and started crying. This approach seemed to work. Babies slept a bit, were fed a lot, and over the space of a couple of years tunes for an album were written.
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