Towering Emotions Flood the Songs of Joanna Sternberg
Towering emotions flood the songs of Joanna Sternberg, often spilling over the music’s edge into the songwriter’s visual art and stage chatter. Sometimes upon wrapping up a song in concert Sternberg laughs; other times, they cry. “Between self-hatred and self-awareness,” they sing at one point, “is a very small, thin line.” Years ago, this wordy, worried style might have been branded anti-folk; it seems a distant relative to the records that Kimya Dawson produced in the wake of the Moldy Peaches. A clearer tag for such music, which wields neurosis as a weapon, might be “New York folk.” Gifted a Manhattan upbringing and a family tree filled with Yiddish-theatre luminaries, Sternberg pursued standup bass before finding a suitably off-center voice as a singer-songwriter. This residency comes a few months ahead of their second album, “I’ve Got Me,” but already the singer devotes stage time to work that’s slated for records to come, as songs and sentiments pour forth.— Jay Ruttenberg