Excerpt: “Boxharp is singer/songwriter Wendy Allen and producer/engineer Scott Solter. It is also a dulcimer style harp that frequently appears in the band’s intriguing mix of modern beats, Celtic/Appalachian folk, and antique musical renderings. Like other artists that have married unusual musical genres, such as Afro Celt Sound System‘s West African-Celtic melange, Boxharp deftly mixes ghostly vocals with warm, ambient tones. Wendy and Scott meander through Burl Ives, poet Vachel Lindsay, and dive back to 1733 for the Leatherwing Bat (also known as The Bird’s Courting Song). The ghost of Sandy Denny also seems to flit in and out of this antique ditty, which would slot nicely onto Fairport Convention‘s brilliant Liege and Lief (Island, 1969) album. Allen’s personal ghosts also inform some of her lyrics, and surround music box tones with a mystical air. All these elements fit together into a logical whole and make for an uneasy but always engaging listen. With no less a dignitary than David Bowie lauding them, Boxharp seems poised for a bright future in the ambient, folktronic, and experimental music space.”

Headphone Commute

Boxharp’s  The Green was chosen as one of 2010’s best by the US radio broadcast (its so much more than a show) Echoes. Echoes is regarded as an institution in radio bringing together a wide array of styles, from acoustic to electronic, jazz to space music, avant-garde to rock. The Green took up number 18 on Echoes Top 25 of 2010 keeping company which artists such as Hammock, The Album Leaf, Robert Rich, Jonsi and Manual.

Excerpt: “Their latest release, Loam Arcane, is an EP of two halves. The hallucinogenic pop of the first half springs to vivid life with opener “FanFin”, which ricochets with disorientating beats and refracted vocal melodies as if some sort of life-sized zoetrope. Sparkling single “Rainbirds” follows, interweaving ambient textures with Wendy Allen’s pure vocals, giving way to a harmonised middle eight. The melodies return, crested by sparkling, wavering tones –- and then it’s over. In the second, more abstract and haunting, half of the EP, the stunning “The Postcard” slowly dissolves the floor from under your feet. The track plays out like a consoling friend who turns into gas just as you need them most.”

PopMatters

Excerpt: “Boxharp is the band of one Scott Solter, a man who’s tagged himself producer of such artists as John Vanderslice, Superchunk and the Mountain Goats. But Boxharp, his project with singer Wendy Allen, sounds nothing like any of these…. It’s “expansive” in that each song starts with a fuzzy blanket of warm, Eno-like ambience that eventually swallows melodies whole. It’s “direct” in that those melodies are still very much there, rising from the mist with delicate immediacy, slipping their way gently into the folds with gorgeous harmonies and ghostly effects. Boxharp also highlights an intriguing divide somewhere between the celestial and worldly. The Green is late nights, fireplaces, ghost stories and legends, all rolled up into a NyQuil capsule of a record. Your dreams have never sounded so good.”

Tome To The Weather Machine