Keegan Ales welcomes back O+ artist Liana Gabel to our main stage on Friday January 12th!

Liana Gabel is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and tap dancer, who lives to perform live in intimate solo settings as a one-woman band, or screaming her heart out with her rocking backup band (the Liana Gabel Band). Born and raised in Rochester New York, Liana made her home in the Hudson River Valley, lending her unique voice to the local music scene. Apart from fronting her own band, she has appeared in a steady stream of different projects—jazz quintet Liana and the Musicals, an EP of songs with songwriter Oscar Bilger, and currently performing with Los Doggies. Her own debut solo studio album—Rest and Heal—was released in 2013.

Liana’s music is familiar yet strange and new, like meeting an old friend again, after a space of years that sweetens your past and present connection. Drawing from a range of influences from jazz pop, big band folk, and indie rock, the ten songs off Rest and Heal showcase Liana’s dynamic voice and diverse songwriting skills. She burns with a multi-colored fire on “Emerald Green”—a song that progresses like a mini-opera through bursts of minimalism, a bossa-nova bridge, and lyrical frolics in the Alaskan Bush, before settling into a final guitar-wailing waltz. On the dance-hall ballad “Big Sur” and the Brazilian-infused “Fundamental Sweater”, her singing voice wets the ears with a gently stacked two-part harmony. Her love of Jazz pops up everywhere, especially on the lucidly dreamy “Ti Voglio Bene”; shuffling along at an andante pace, it features novel chord progressions, a melody of honey and glass, and a heart-aching orchestration of flutes, strings, and glockenspiel. The boy-girl duets on “Foolish” and “Another Place, Another Time” add a nice bit of variety to the vocally rich collection, where every chorus is cinematic, the lyrics hopelessly hopeful, and the music endlessly upbeat, adventurous, and fun. The subtle complexity of the arrangements is perfectly attuned with the breathtaking simplicity of these straightforward singsongs. Each moment is handcrafted to provide a new sense of wonderment at the sound of music, be it mellow in a groove or belting out on top of the beat—sure to get parts of your body moving, if not your entire form rippling with delight.

The title track “Rest and Heal” sums up everything that is the Liana Gabel experience; she asks you to rest your busy brain, open your ears, and let her voice do the healing.

Check her out here!