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About True Margrit

After the release of True Margrit’s 4th album SEAWORTHY (released on BoboTunes Records and distributed internationally by BURNSIDE DISTRIBUTION CORP)-- the band has undertaken an ongoing series of regional tours of the west coast. In May 2006, the act also ventured to the east coast for a few introductory shows in Boston and NYC. This persistent touring, along with west coast record-store listening stations, podcasts, radio play, universally positive reviews (plus visibilty on pandora.com and myspace ) is generating buzz for the piano-pop trio from San Francisco.

On SEAWORTHY True Margrit presents a lyric-driven variety of witty-yet-raw piano-pop. Topically, SEAWORTHY navigates the waters of interpersonal politics, vanity, history, time-travel, and mortality; and musically it merrily knocks genres on their ears, by smearing and stretching stride-piano into retro-pop and even touching upon a periphery of neo-prog-rock. True Margrit's sound is fueled by singer/songwriter/ piano-player Margrit Eichler's distinctive alto, her percussive/melodic piano, and by the fleet-yet-muscular rhythm-section of Gary Hobish on bass and Andrew Bacon on drums. SEAWORTHY's arrangements are fleshed out with guitar, cello, oboe, bassoon, sax, and flute by an array of Bay Area guest stars including Pam Delgado and Jeri Jones (of Blame Sally).

Although reminiscent of Ben Folds, The Decemberists, Fiona Apple, Elvis Costello, and Aimee Mann, True Margrit has an easily recognizable sound all its own, that explores the tension between what is catchy and what is complex.

True Margrit has probably played near you (or will be playing at some point soon) in a solo or band jaunt from NYC to Seattle to Los Angeles (or beyond) in nightclubs, cafes, theatres, radio & television stations, and sailboats.

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Press Release

By Margrit Eichler, 2007-04-24

"Breath-taking!"-- Jason Hoffman, Whatzup Magazine "...quite the talent, one to be reckoned with. Brilliant."--Alan Haber,WEBR/budge.com "...infectious beat-heavy piano licks."-- Laurie Koh, San Francisco Bay Guardian "Get this album now."-- J-Sin, Smother.net "I love it."-- Amy Lotsberg, Collected Sounds *************************************************** Seaworthy/True Margrit--Editors Pick-- J-Sin: Smother Magazine Piano-pop. It’s fun, that’s for sure. Smart and witty lyrics with borrowed lounge piano that bubbles with pop bliss is the main theme veining throughout “Seaworthy”. The female vocals are sultry alto with perfect harmony and great accuracy. But perhaps the most impressive element is that they arrange their songs with a brilliance that never masks the intimacy of the lyrical content. They add in oboe, sax, flute, bassoon, cello, and guitar to a piano-pop sound that would make Ben Folds jealous and blush with delight. Get this album now. Seaworthy/True Margrit -- Jason Hoffman (June 2006, Whatzup Magazine) Sometimes you can listen to the radio for hours and have the music float right over you. But then a new song starts and it immediately grabs your attention and reminds you that music is supposed to be enjoyable. Such was the case with “True” by True Margrit off their album Seaworthy. Perhaps it was the strident piano that is soon accompanied by staccato cello that leads to an ominous verse that often takes a relaxed, hopeful breath in the simple chorus. More orchestration occurs as the song develops, at times refreshing and then suddenly threatening, taking the listener through many moods in just three and a half minutes without ever leaving its original melody. Breathtaking! Fortunately the rest of the album is just as impressive. The band is formed around Margrit Eichler on piano whose lead vocals are lonely and soulful, expressive and sensitive without a trace of ego, similar in times to Aimee Mann or Mary Lorson of Madder Rose. Joining Margrit is Gary Hobish on basses and guitars and Andrew Bacon on drums, plus a whole slew of friends on cello, flute, sax, oboe, bassoon, and percussion. The music they create is very organic, sweet, and sincere, mixing pop, folk, cabaret, and jazz, a kind of friendly Dresden Dolls without the cruel self-aware pomp. Consider the dramatic “Everyone Wins” where Eichler examines our need for love with a wistful longing, singing “It’s just a game / If there’s no risk / The whole world wants this” in a resigned fashion, building to an aggressive chorus of pizzicato strings and digging cello. The sedate “Electricity” cleverly compares the interaction between electricity and water to human relationships: “We never touch / We’re separate atoms.” Muted sax and a midnight feel lend to the stark and sobering feel of the song. Seaworthy deftly combines mostly upbeat, bright, cheery melodies with a dark or melancholy edge a few yards below the surface. “Deliver Me” sounds like a breezy Randy Newman song with a hint of New Orleans jazz but the lyrics deal with blame and revenge. In the enjoyable “Members Only” Margrit recalls a dream in which she “joined the club” and became “endowed in ways I was not born”, stating “Now when I drift off to sleep/ I want my piano but you keep/ Strapping that guitar on me/ An instrument I do not need”, all with a wistful, playful, jaunty piano riff. Thirteen songs and not a sinker in the bunch. True Margrit composes appealing songs in a variety of styles whose melodies are as playful as their lyrics, incorporating everyone from Carol King to the Breeders into a cohesive unity. The band gracefully rounds out their adult-oriented sound with enough layers, instrumental variety, rich harmonies, and rousing, singable melodies to bring you back to their open waters time and time again. Available at cdbaby.com and Amazon. SEAWORTHY/ True Margrit--Alan Haber: WEBR/ buhdge.com Seaworthy is a singular, astoundingly magical creation that announces itself like stride piano amplified for a very large body of water... Just when you wonder where all the Ben Folds clones are, along comes Margrit Eichler and her able-bodied trio, True Margrit, to dispel the myth. While there are some Folds comparisons to be made, this is no attempt to fan the keys of a piano in the style of one who came before or since; Seaworthy is a singular, astoundingly magical creation that announces itself like stride piano amplified for a very large body of water (go with me on this, will you?). Possessing the soul of a jazz player trapped in the body of a popster, Eichler tickles the ivories and stomps on them, often at the same time. It is important to remember that the piano is a percussive, as well as melodic, instrument, and this talented, committed player uses that duality to her advantage. Sweet at one turn and elasticized the next, Eichler's voice is somewhat reminiscent of Aimee Mann and Andrea Perry; she bends the notes when it’s appropriate and sings them straight ahead when it’s not. Hers is a remarkable instrument emotive, sensitive, and aggressive when the mood demands. She’s quite the talent, one to be reckoned with. Eichler's music falls somewhere in the pond in which swims Billy Joel, Elton John, Mann and Perry. She’s intelligent, and not afraid to run the style gamut; she’s confident enough to deliver a hysterical tour de force, a thinly-veiled song about sexual confusion (but on whose part?) that is two-thirds of a step away from brazen, “Members Only.” The poppy number is a catchy winner, masterfully crafted, with one of the great lyrics of the year: “Now when I drift off to sleep/I want my piano but you keep/Strapping that guitar on me/An instrument I do not need.” Brilliant. In fact, Eichler's playful use of language and keen ability to flesh out a story, sometimes with the barest of details, is one of this singer/songwriter’s greatest, most affecting traits. In the beautiful ballad “Electricity,” Eichler plays with the idea of electricity and waters sparking attraction, if not necessarily traditional contact; the lines “How can you say lights like sparks on the bay/Don’t reflect on the way waters illustrate/How they connect like electricity” are boundless as thoughts to spark our brains as we consider the basis and veracity of our connections in life. Channeling the stride piano and New Orleans jazz of Randy Newman on the sprightly “Deliver Me,” Eichler weaves a “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” type of tale about blame, something she sings is “easier to spin&I’m vain enough when I get killed/To smile at the tears you spill.” With blame, I guess, comes revenge. Hah! The idea of wanting something so bad that you’ll take the risk to survive is explored in the fetching “Everyone Wins,” wonderfully arranged to spotlight Eichler's piano and widescreen vocal. The song builds to an aggressive harmony onslaught, as sweet as it is propulsive. The other ideas explored in these songs are common to everyone’s consciousness, and subconscious, to be sure; the spin Eichler puts on them how she adapts them to her musical attack is the key to listeners being awed by her. Water can be an incredibly passive image; it just lays there, affected only by nature’s gyrations and human activity. The image of water floats in and out of many of these songs. In “Hours in Reverse,” polar ice caps melt; in “Deliver Me,” the narrator smiles at the tears a person spills; in “Great Praise,” stars rain down; and in the closer, “Nothing,” the question is asked whether there is a “peaceful sea/you can go when you’re not yet dead/where waters lap and now you’ve snapped/nothing needs to be said.” Water appears, then, to have somewhat of a three-dimensional personality, affecting us in many ways, even as simply as the first drops of a shower slapping one’s eyeglasses with a liquid stain. At its most extreme, water gets us from here to there; drinking it makes us stronger, even when our bodies’ inclinations are to be weak. On this dramatically musical and literate album, Eichler and her cohorts Gary Hobish and Andrew Bacon, along with a parcel of special guests, shine their spotlight on all manner of water perhaps, most especially, the people who are made of so very much of it. True Margrit SEAWORTHY (Bobotunes)--- Laurie Koh: San Francscio Bay Guardian Margrit Eichler is a full-time working musician who wears the badge with pride. Over the years she has put in hours teaching piano lessons, moonlighting in the metal band Sparrows Point, producing albums for others in her new home studio (Absolutely True Sound), and fronting her own piano pop-driven ensemble, True Margrit (Eichler on keyboard and vocals, Andrew Bacon on drums, and Gary Hobish on bass). Eichler can claim to fit into both the folk and rock spectrums she regularly gigs at a range of Bay Area venues, from the Rose Street House of Music to the Red Devil Lounge and in True Margrit, she straddles the line between both genres. The band's latest album, Seaworthy, is a collection of Eichler's clever and sea-salty ruminations on space, time, vanity, and ethereal connections. The songs are part of a still-in-progress rock opera titled Glampyre on the Bounty, about a time-travel reality show that dumps contestants onto an 18th-century ship. Eichler's lyrical sensibility melds with her infectious beat-heavy piano licks. Bacon and Hobish ably back her, adding counterpoint and weight to the band's overall sound. Those who are tired of tremulous emo-drenched acts, and want to hear a singer-songwriter whose words and music stand up for themselves, should give this album a listen.

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