Drifting in Circles by Dafni

In contrast, the new album's songs were all written after the release of Red, and there's a distinct shift away from the folky/country girl-with-acoustic-guitar style to a professional recording, a full band sound, and a more mature introspection.

"This record is a hundred times better than my Red album," says Dafni. "The songs are better. I was learning 'God Bless the Child' and 'My Funny Valentine' so I started incorporating some of those jazz chords into my new songs. That has completely changed the way I write now. Also, I saw Eleni Mandell play here in L.A. and I was inspired to challenge myself to write in a more sophisticated style. I think my playing is better now and my singing is better, but the biggest difference between the sound of these two albums is my band. I've been so lucky to find such wonderful musicians who have spent so much time with me working on the songs."

Dafni built up her band slowly over a period of about six months. She was introduced to pianist Craig Bender through a mutual friend and coworker at UCLA. "Craig picked up the songs really fast. He has a very lyrical style that adds so much to my sound." Dafni found her drummer, Alejandra Cuesta, through a traditional L.A. source: the back pages of Music Connection magazine. "It's pretty much hit-or-miss when you post an ad there, but Alejandra was the first to reply and we hit it off straight away. She's very musical with her drumming and is comfortable with the different styles I write. And she introduced me to Yannig." Yannig Luthra was the bass player on Drifting in Circles. Finally, after deciding that she wanted to have accordion on her record, and knowing that her friend Maggie's brother played one, Dafni got in touch with Josh Bandur. "Josh is very mature, intelligent, and tasteful with his playing. And I tell everyone that he looks like an accordion player---he just needs a beret and some suspenders!"

Another major influence on the sound of Drifting in Circles was Dafni's chance encounter with the album's engineer and co-producer, Jeb Lipson. "Originally I was thinking of recording this record myself again, but with my band. There was no way that ProTools Free [bare-bones, eight-track recording software] was an option again!" she laughs. "My friend Jay works as an engineer and he was helping me decide on what to buy---stuff I don't know anything about, like compressors and pre-amps. It would have been very expensive! I found a guy on Craigslist who was selling something I was interested in. It was Jeb. He told me about his studio and when I found out how much it would cost to spend a week recording and mixing, I realized that it would actually be cheaper and sound better than anything I could do myself." The recording at Big Scary Tree studios in downtown L.A. ended up taking about four months of part-time sessions on weekends and weeknights. "I loved the whole recording process. I loved being in the studio and taking part in the process of developing the songs and watching them come together. Jeb and I hit it off. He's a musician himself and it was wonderful to run into someone who cares. He put his whole heart and soul into this project."

The songs on Drifting in Circles arose from diverse sources of inspiration. "'Falling' is my major-seventh lovefest!" laughs Dafni. The song was written from an image in the film Baraka of a homeless boy and was combined with a feeling of loss for a loved one. It features Tom Terrell on trumpet. "Tom is a star in the making. He's got a lot of taste and soul in his playing---he knows when to hold back and when to go for it." "Norma" is a song that Dafni wrote as her "little way of honoring a remarkable woman." It describes a wake attended by former colleagues of Dafni's research advisor from graduate school. "It just was amazing how many people loved her and how many lives she had touched." The accordion on this song is significant---Norma's husband used to play the instrument. "I originally wanted him to play on the record, but it was in storage in England and he hadn't played in years. That led to meeting Josh." The song "Dance" is something completely new to Dafni's sound. It has a Latin groove and conjures up images of balmy summer nights in the south of Spain, flamenco dancers, and soaring passions. "'Dance' was a real challenge for me. I wasn't writing about how sad I was or how I missed someone---just writing from another woman's point of view. It's quite hot and steamy---at least to my mind!" Dafni's former job inspired at least one of the songs. "I was at a low point during my research job as a postdoc at UCLA. A lot of the time things don't work and it becomes really frustrating. I kept a guitar in my lab; I locked the door and wrote 'One day' really quickly. The lyrics---'one day I'll wake and this will all be a dream'---are quite over-the-top and funny, I think!" The arrangement of this song on the album is very sprightly; a jazzy Americana feel that features Brian Robbins on banjo. "Brian's my guitar teacher and I'm so happy that he played on the album." Another stylistic turn---this time into classic rock territory---occurs with the song "Send my love," which Dafni wrote after listening to the Ziggy Stardust album. "I don't think it sounds like a David Bowie song, but all those barre chords inspired me." "Send my love" features Robbins' slide electric guitar. "Jeb was pretty pleased to get a vintage tone that reminded him of Ry Cooder on Paris, Texas."

Dafni grew up in Wisconsin, the daughter of Greek immigrants. She took to organ at an early age and throughout school played bass guitar, French horn, and piano. One of her earliest musical achievements was the writing and arranging of an eighties pop instrumental, "Tough guy". "I had a crush on boy at my school," she recalls. "I wrote all the parts on the organ and transposed it for all of the other instruments and then hearing it all come together with the jazz band was the most amazing experience for a 12-year-old!" Dafni continued to write sporadically during high school, but put her music aside during her college years. Only in her senior year at UW Madison did she begin to playing piano again at open mikes, turning to the acoustic guitar when the events moved outdoors in the summer months.

Moving to Los Angeles solidified Dafni's love of the guitar. She started playing regularly on the Sunset Strip at the now-defunct Crooked Bar. "I played their Monday open mike and the booking agent heard me and said they had an opening for that Friday night---I knew only about five songs and I couldn't believe that I could get a gig in Hollywood!" After a couple of years of playing solo gigs and recording a four-song EP (2001's Dreamland), Dafni and two graduate school colleagues formed a folk/punk band, Stay at Home. "We pretty much rocked up my songs. I played my acoustic guitar though a distortion pedal. We had some really good musical moments. I learned a lot about being in a band." Stay at Home recorded an EP---they disbanded in 2003 and it was never released---but the recording process inspired Dafni to record her Red CD herself. "Compared to Drifting in Circles, my Red album now sounds pretty amateurish to me, but I think recording it was a necessary process. I got the old songs out of my system and I learned about microphones and multitracking." The album received some airplay on radio stations playing folk and women's music. Reviewing Red, Suzanne Glass of Indie-Music.com said, "Dafni has a rich and expressive voice, with considerable flexibility and a chic modern hipness. [She] blends rhythmic acoustic guitar, like [Ani] DiFranco, with a smooth full vocal that slides and exudes attitude, like [Billie] Holiday." The analogy was furthered by Amy Lotsberg, writing for Collected Sounds: "[Red] is filled with lush songs that are at the same time raw. The production is warm and solid. She has a great vibrato that skates over the melodies nicely...a touch of Ani DiFranco's edginess that is quite appealing. This girl is truly a musician."

Currently Dafni continues to play with her band, now featuring Geoff Rakness on upright bass, in support the Drifting in Circles album, but her eyes are already on its successor. "Actually, I'd love to release an album a year over the next few years. I have four or five new songs finished, and a two or three more that are pretty solid ideas." Currently Dafni's favorite albums include Madeleine Peyroux's Careless Love, Inara George's All Rise, and Ry Cooder's Chavez Ravine. "I love the sounds of the songs on these records. For my next album, I think I'll concentrate a lot more on the sounds than on the songs. I may need a producer. Are you listening, Ry Cooder?"

Average Customer Review: