Jenny From The 'Rock

By Joe Kavanagh

As major labels appear fixed in their path toward extinction, more and more musicians are taking a DIY approach to releasing their work.

Instead of using the old formula, whereby acts would set out to attain a record deal and then become label lackeys for the foreseeable future, artists now frequently set up their own labels, sign distribution deals and lean heavily on the internet and sites such as MySpace when it comes time to promoting their product.

Increasingly this ploy appears to be working with Irish acts such as Damien Rice, Julie Feeney and Republic Of Loose now setting their own courses in the music world in a highly effective fashion. Jenny Lindfors now adds her name to this group, having recently released her second album to across-the-board acclaim in Ireland and - thanks in large part to the Internet, she is now set to spread her wings and make a concerted effort at breaking into overseas markets.

Born and raised in the affluent Dublin suburb of Blackrock, 26-year-old Lindfors is the daughter of an Irish mother and Swedish father, who both passed on a their love of music to her at a young age.

It was from her antique dealer father, however, that she found her true musical inspiration, once describing him as 'too pragmatic to follow his muse.'

Instead he taught his daughter how to play guitar at 11-years-old and watched proudly as she began to pour through his record collection, learning songs by artists ranging from the Byrds to Carole King.

By the time she was a teenager, she had begun playing in a variety of cover version bands, that plied their trade around the Dublin area. Describing herself as 'feisty and focused', she knew from early on that music would be the defining force in her life but upon finishing high school, she enrolled in Dunlaoghaire Technical College, where she studied a course in TV and video production, 'just to please the parents.'

Balancing her pragmatic and idealistic sides, she managed to fulfill her educational responsibilities, even as she moved away from the cover band circuit in order to begin playing her own compositions almost exclusively as a singer/songwriter.

Upon turning 20-years-old, Lindfors was named as a beneficiary in a will and immediately set about using her inheritance to further her music career.

Hiring out the studio above Dublin's famed Temple Bar Music Centre, she set about recording her debut album, enlisting the help of some musician friends.

Driven by what she now confesses were delusions of grandeur, she insisted on recording everything on ancient analogue tapes (in a nod to her love for older music) and employed 16 instruments to translate her far-fetched musical fantasy.

Adding to the cringe-worthy nature of proceedings was her decision to use a bizarre US twang when laying down the vocals, which was yet another misguided homage to the west coast American acts that initially inspired her.

With the benefit of hindsight, she can now admit that the whole thing was a costly mistake, resulting in an album so complex that she could not reproduce it live, which was probably just as well given the fact that it was swiftly put to the sword by those critics that heard it.

The entire event translated into such a debacle that Lindfors decided to take an extended hiatus from songwriting and her only contact with music was those nights she stood in behind the turntables in some of Dublin's indie clubs and bars.

She even took up a full time job working as a receptionist in order to pay the bills as her music career slipped further and further into the background. In fact, her decision to walk away from a singing career might have become permanent were it not for the fact that filmmaker, Lance Daly, persuaded her to sing on the soundtrack to his movie: The Halo Effect.

The experience reawakened her love for songwriting and she spent the next couple of years starting from scratch, while also becoming involved with the so-called Happy Gang Collective; a group of Dublin-based musicians that shared resources and often played live with each other in different permutations.

Upon building up a new collection of songs, she returned to her roots as a singer/songwriter and spent time opening for Irish acts such as Mundy, The Devlins and the honorary Irish guitar duo: Rodrigo y Gabriela.

By 2005 she was ready to make a tentative return to the studio, resulting in the highly-acclaimed, four-track Carry Us Away EP, which saw critics buzzing about her new folk-pop direction.

This year she cemented her reputation as an Irish artist of note with the release of her debut album proper, When The Night Time Comes, which drew favorable comparisons to artists such as Stevie Nicks, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.

The self-produced, 12-song collection ebbs and flows through several moods, dealing with the various relationships that people experience in life, whether with other individuals or the world that surrounds them.

Although she claims that she has already moved on to thinking about her next project (even going so far as to learn Afro-Caribbean drum styles) her last release still has a way to run on the international stage with interest now beginning to pour in from music fans throughout the globe.

In particular, music fans on the west coast of America have recently injected a new degree of interest in her album with Lindfors claiming that the region that spawned many of her own icons is perhaps not unsurprisingly the place that is now showing her the most amount of support outside of Ireland.

At a time when Ireland is suffering from one of the darkest, most miserable summers in living memory, the sunny west coast of America has never looked brighter, particularly for Jenny Lindfors.