Daily Camera, May 25, 2001

Revolutions Per Minute
By Greg Glasgow

Boulder's Beer gets real on CD

She's a young female singer-songwriter who performs most of her songs on piano, so it's natural to want to compare Marie Beer to Tori Amos. But the Boulder musician's roots go a little deeper than that on her new CD The Garden. With a powerfully quiet voice capable of great emotion (check out the peaks and valleys on "Please Let It Be Him") and tastefully varied instrumentation (slide guitar, keyboard, cell), Beer also recalls pioneers such as Joni Mitchell ("Happy Birthday" borrows from the party-favorite original in the same way Mitchell's "River" appropriated "Jingle Bells") and Rickie Lee Jones.

Lyrically, Beer is all about love, either falling into it ("Please Let It Be Him," "Come Down and Play," "The Garden") or falling out of it ("Sundown," "Mercy"). A bit one-note, but the works seem to come from an honest and sincere place. And with singer-songwriters, that's a good thing.

Beer debuts The Garden at a CD release party Wednesday at Tulagi. Find out more at www.MarieBeer.com.

Daily Camera Friday Magazine, May 25, 2001