Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Sophie Austers haunting voice and soaring, lush poetry set to music is what you might expect from a daughter of both NYC and author parents, but her reach is much more worldly, hovering somewhere between French luminaries like Charlotte Gainsbourg, British folk masters like Marianne Faithfull and telling stories like a young Tom Waits. Plus, shes pretty big in Spain. And while shes got some major musical accomplishments worth celebrating --from releasing her first album at 16, to winning The John Lennon Songwriting Contest at 29, to collaborating with accomplished songwriter Barry Reynolds and having just released her third full-length and first new record in four years --when we asked Auster to make us a playlist, the one thing she sought to celebrate was her decade plus retirement from teenage years.Says Auster: "This playlist is an eclectic mix of nostalgic and contemporary songs. It represents my love of wide ranging pop music from yesterday and today and captures my own personal melodic and diverse leanings as a songwriter. The most surprising pick on the list is probably "I remember" by Molly Drake. Mother to Nick, I found her album while poking around in a record store in Seattle, on tour. It was an amazing discovery since I had only known of her son. In the same haunting vein is Sibylle Baier, who I discovered some years ago, through a musician friend. Baiers son released her home recordings thirty years after their inception. I find them beautiful and ghostly intimate."Listen above, and check out her own ghostly intimate album Next Time, out now.
