Byrd’s Corner Music Review: Szjerdene Mulcare
By Aaron Byrd
Twitter: @itsAByrd
Sometime in the Spring of ’09 I stumbled upon an amazing singer/songwriter out of London by the name of Szjerdene Mulcare (pronounced Jerdene). A the time she was a young 20 year old college student and former model who was simply just making music for the love of it, with no particular aspirations. She dropped a free download of a 3 track e.p. called “Collage: The Demo” and it made quite the impression on me.
The influence of London’s melting pot of cultures is heard clearly with Szjerdene’s voice. She exhibits a chameleon like vocal ability, allowing her to easily be able to hold her on on any track, no matter the genre of music. And not just hold her on, but actually sound really good. It’s not hard to imagine hearing Szjerdene on a country, rock, hip-hop hook, emo, house, blues or even a reggae song. Once again, a quality which seems to be endemic to London and it’s vocalists.
Lyrically, Szjerdene is very mature, vocally, very polished and musically/production-wise, “Collage” reminds you of the first Res record. I actually reached out to her at the time and told her that her sound had been missing and she reminded me of Res. She replied back, “Oh yeah, I don’t know them. I’ll have to check them out”. I then realized “How I Do” Res’ major debut, was released 9 years prior, in 2000, meaning Szjerdene was only 11 years old, of course she didn’t know who Res was…my first senior moment.
Anyway, over the years I’ve kept in touch, eager to see what else she would follow up with, if anything at all and to my pleasant surprise not only has she continued her musical endeavours but she has since started working with some of my favorite contemporary future soul producers, Full Crate, out of Amsterdam, and Robin Hannibal of Quadron/Boom Clap Bachelors.
As a matter of fact, Szjerdene has just released a two track single, which includes “Lead the Way” and “If 6 was 8” (both of which are produced by Robin Hannibal) on Los Angeles’ very own Plug Research Label. This single also marks her first official U.S. release and you can purchase the two tracks now online at Amazon.com. Make sure to check Miss Mulcare out, she’s quite the talent and is here to stay.
