Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter
Binki Shapiro first gained notice in 2006 when she appeared in a series of videos made by
Beck to promote his album
The Information. The next year she met
Strokes drummer
Fabrizio Moretti and
Los Hermanos singer/guitarist
Rodrigo Amarante, who had become friends when meeting the previous year in Lisbon, and were hanging out during breaks in sessions
Amarante was playing on for
Devendra Banhart's
Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon.
Shapiro suggested that the two friends work together on some new songs and they asked her to join the band they decided to form. Featuring her angelic vocals, the band was called
Little Joy and they released a self-titled album on Rough Trade Records in late 2008. The album gained some favorable press but it turned out to be the group's only recording.
Shapiro appeared on
Megapuss' album
Surfing and
Sia's
Some People Have Real Problems in 2008, then
Beck's Record Club covers album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, in 2009. Soon thereafter she met New York City-based singer/songwriter
Adam Green and the two began collaborating on songs together, often flying to meet in one city or the other in order to work on lyrics. The breakups each writer was going through informed the finished songs, the first of which were released in 2012 on the
Fall EP (released by venerable label Rounder). The duo's folky Nancy & Lee-styled duets and incisive lyrics were on full display on their debut full-length,
Adam Green & Binki Shapiro, which was released by Rounder in early 2013. ~ Tim Sendra