Nothing can prepare you for hearing and meeting Casey Dienel for the first time. It seems to be the same sort of unexpectant breathlessness you get when you find the body that fits with your own, the shoulder that’s softest and the face that’s brightest. You fall deeply in love with the vivacious characters of her songs as well as the ones careening between a hard place and an escape. And then you realize that all of these people are being manufactured and set to gorgeous piano strains by this sweet 21-year-old Massachusetts native who is so personable and unpretentious that you wish she could just stay and be your best friend forever. You wish that she wasn’t driving to another city, but that she’d just be here – with all of her wonderful creations – and you’d all just sit around eating chips and salsa and having a Fanta when you got thirsty. Dienel is that rare combination of someone you feel like you’ve known all your life and someone that you’ll never ever get a full sense of only because her mind and her emotions are always working overtime. She’s smart as hell and she does a great impression of Aerosmith’s Joe Perry. If you ever get a chance, ask her to tell you about her camp experience with Joe Perry’s son, but realize that she might not want to retell it if you’re the hundredth person who reads this and decides to act on it. Just know that it’s funny and he gets sent home. The greatness is in the details though, in the telling, as it is with all of Dienel’s songs on her spectacular debut, “Wind-Up Canary.” The real treat in this session is the unreleased song “Better In Manhattan,” the most infectious song I’ve heard this year. I’m certain you’ll see what I mean about her. Listen closely and you’ll definitely hear fingers tapping keys, you might think you hear her batting away a bang from her eyes and you’ll certainly hear something with even more allure. Something unreachable. – Sean Moeller

First Song
Better In Manhattan (Casey Dienel) [4.56MB] [14852 downloads]
- unreleased
“I like the humanity in everybody – that’s why Sugar’s character is so appealing to me. I think some people polarize things too much – I feel like Sugar’s job is just a job, and what’s really interesting about her is what happens when she goes home to her apartment and she’s by herself. Some might find the song sad, but I don’t, I think it’s just about how everything that gets thrown away is reused, everything good needs to be worked for to be enjoyed.”

Second Song
Doctor Monroe (Casey Dienel) [3.70MB] [5485 downloads]
- original version appears on “Wind-Up Canary”
“On a train to Berlin, this man came up to me and I literally could smell him the moment he entered the car. It was like watching a train wreck. I felt like he was hallucinating in front of me, and so this song’s a near word-for-word portrait of the man my father and I later nicknamed ‘Doctor Monroe.’”

Third Song
Everything (Casey Dienel) [3.23MB] [5808 downloads]
- original version appears on “Wind-Up Canary”
“Growing up on the beach really effects you – I had this literally vast blue expanse in front of me every day for over 10 years before I moved to Boston. I feel like this song is kind of what my head sounds like sometimes, because to go from feeling like a speck of dust to living in this urban maze where everyone is so HUGE – sometimes the buzzing in my head gets too loud and sounds like this song and I need to go away for a little and feel small again.”

Purchase Casey Dienel music at: Insound