Lyricist Rennie Sparks found inspiration for this album from 1990s inventor Nicola Tesla, whose encounters with electrical power moved him to retreat from modern life. One line in “Tesla’s Hotel Room” suggests a space where the Handsome Family makes music: […]
Once upon a time, the Handsome Family hated music and they took it all out on you. Rennie Sparks, a solo performance artist and author of comically disturbing fiction, would cover a show’s many flaws with off-the-cuff non-sequiturs about, say, […]
If all you heard was the synth wash and piano chords that open Twilight, you might mistake the Handsome Family for an Abba knockoff. Then Brett Sparks starts to sing, the major key turns minor, and the dancing queen lies […]
Having charted a sleepy path from the lo-fi, garagey folk-rock of their 1995 debut Odessa through the wickedly deviant country-blues of 1998’s Through The Trees, Chicago’s Handsome Family now turns its heavy-lidded eyes toward traditional country. Musically, Brett Sparks has […]
With Invisible Hands, indie twang’s most outspoken Jewess has graced us with six lovely hymns about afterlife. Rennie Sparks says they reflect a long slump from which she sought solace in Christian radio and thoughts of heaven, which normally doesn’t […]
