Priscilla Ahn comes from the same singer/songwriter circle that spun off
Sara Bareilles and
Cary Brothers, having cut her teeth in a dizzying array of L.A. venues before wooing Blue Note Records with her gently confident music. Like the material of many L.A.-based musicians,
Ahn's songs brim with sunshine and poppy sparkle, but her East Coast roots lend some earthy depth to this debut.
A Good Day draws as much from SoCal's sunny environs as
Ahn's home state of Pennsylvania, where the burgeoning musician spent days wandering the vast, rural acreage of her family's home. "I was a little girl...I played pretend between the trees and fed my houseguests bark and leaves," she recalls during "Dream," a whimsical ballad that mixes fingerplucked arpeggios with a tasteful string arrangement. Harmonies swirl throughout the song's conclusion, recalling the earthy atmospherics of
Emmylou Harris'
Wrecking Ball while keeping
Ahn's whimsy and innocence at the forefront. By the third track, however, she transforms herself into a champion of female autonomy, chastising a man for attempting to toy with her heart in "I Don't Think So." The album proceeds in that same fashion, with
Ahn jumping between character roles and instrumental duties with equal dexterity. Highlights include "Astronaut," whose carnival rhythms and eerily gorgeous harmonies sound like the orchestration for a
Tim Burton film (or perhaps a psychedelic
Beatles song -- just listen to the way she slurs the "Ohhh boy" lyric during each verse), as well as a cover of "Opportunity to Cry," which adds a bright shuffle to
Willie Nelson's heartbroken original. Given its range and self-assured delivery,
A Good Day doesn't quite sound like a debut effort -- a telltale sign that
Priscilla Ahn (only 24 years old at the time of its release) is on her way to bigger and better things. ~ Andrew Leahey