Broken Water
Tempest
Hardly Art
May 2012
Broken Water is a collaborative ensemble, made up of members of Sisters and Congratulations. In the sound trails of their post-punk and grunge predecessors, Broken Water composes fine spun and unsettling melodies, concocted by Jon Hanna’s swimming effects, Kanako Pooknyw’s expressively frayed percussion, Abigail Ingram’s steady punctuated bass, and the sweetly jagged vocals of all three. Broken Water frenetically shifts instrumental and vocal roles. Ingram luridly delivers “Orange Blossom Stains” and “River Under the River.” Schools of fish seem to ripple beneath our eyelids, bridges and planks rise suspended in sadder times in tempo shifts, while Pooknyw brings us crashing back to the water surface, layered in circles and tilts.
Listen to this: In an artists’ studio surrounded in butcher paper, charcoal, and gouache.
— Bonnie MacAllister