With a back story heavy on collaboration, Madison, Wis.-born violinist Marla Hansen is best known as a sidewoman for clients ranging from Duncan Sheik and Jesca Hoop to the National and My Brightest Diamond. Another collaborator is Sufjan Stevens, with whom she has toured and recorded repeatedly; he returns the favors by singing and playing piano on several tracks on her debut EP, Wedding Day. Perhaps more interesting than these indie gigs, however, is her recent work with two names that stick out on her résumé: In 2006, she performed with Jay-Z during his Reasonable Doubt anniversary show at Radio City Music Hall, and earlier this year, she was part of Kanye West's backing band for his "Saturday Night Live" appearance. Neither of these stars shows up on Wedding Day of course, but the hip-hop influence is subtly present on these songs, specifically in the way Hansen uses her violin to create rhythm rather than melody.
When she bows, she bows for ambience, but on Wedding Day, she primarily plucks out simple staccato notes to form percussive themes that will define and drive the songs. All other instruments follow suit, whether it's tambourine and sleigh bells bolstering her rhythms on opener "A Friend Indeed", a full band and choir filling out "All Clear", or Stevens' plaintive piano intertwining with her ascending notes on the title track. The minimal and mostly subdued music on Wedding Day creates a unique space for her vocals, compensating for her limited range with unexpected filigrees that enlarge but never disrupt the record's genial ambience. Her voice is surprisingly malleable on "Talk to Me", where she sustains and slurs notes to draw out the title phrase to fit the melody. The downside to this approach is that these six songs all seem to convey the same mood, which makes this EP sound repetitive and as long as a full album.
As Hansen transitions from a sidewoman to a frontwoman, she occasionally sounds more imitative than original, as passages sound overly similar to artists like Regina Spektor (especially on "Talk to Me", which mimics "Fidelity" down to the vocal breaks on the phrase "break my heart"). She's not as flighty as Spektor, which means Hansen doesn't have as much personality. Nor does she have the ambition of Tin Cup Prophette, the Athens, Ga. violinist whose album Liar and the Thief was flawed but much more exotic and distinctive. Nevertheless, Hansen asserts herself fairly well on Wedding Day, mapping out her own songs and trying hard to determine her own sound-- a challenge for any debuting artist, but a necessity for one so strongly associated with other musicians.
