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VIENNA TENG | Inland Territory
ARTISTS
Vienna Teng
TRACK LISTING
1 Salty Dog Blues
2 Borrowed Love
3 Earl's Breakdown
4 Streamlined Cannonball
5 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
6 Soldier's Joy
7 In The Pines
8 Doin' My Time
9 Sittin' On Top Of The World
10 Sally Gooding
11 Foggy Mountain Rock
12 You Are My Flower
13 Bound In Jail All Night Long
14 Black Mountain Blues
15 Step It Up And Go
16 Ballad Of Jed Clampett
17 Foggy Mountain Breakdown
18 Lonesome Ruben
New album by songwriter, singer and pianist Vienna Teng. Inland Territoryis a tour de force musically and lyrically, a complex and deeply thoughtful work from an artist cut loose from limitations. Recorded over five months and in four cities, with instrumentation ranging from foot stomps to vintage keyboards to full string orchestra, it’s without question her most ambitious work yet.
With producer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and friend Alex Wong sharing the helm, a fresh, adventurous sound emerged from the studio. Inland Territory opens with “The Last Snowfall,” interlocking choral lines soaring over Wurlitzer piano and vinyl-record crackles. Her classical piano training still shines on several tracks, especially the Debussy-like cascades in “Antebellum” and the giddy fluttering of “Stray Italian Greyhound,” this time playing counterpoint to Wong’s intricate string arrangements. Even in pared-down numbers, like the plaintive ballad “Kansas,” subtle touches—a distant wash of cymbals, elegiac horns—render the emotions in Teng’s vocals more vivid than ever. Teng also explores some unsettling themes, letting her imagination run dark and detailed. “No Gringo” uses horns, lap steel and sandpaper to paint the picture of an illegal border-crossing attempt and “Radio” illustrates a sheltered, San Francisco-dwelling narrator imagining her local bus being shattered by a suicide bomber and the city shut down by civil war.
Now thirty, the songwriter, singer and pianist has released three critically acclaimed albums, landing her on three Billboard charts and in Amazon.com’s top ten. She regularly sells out theaters across the U.S. and Europe, fans travel hundreds of miles to catch a single show, and her opening sets for the likes of India.Arie, Joan Baez and Madeleine Peyroux end in standing ovations. Mere months after quitting her job as a software engineer in 2002, she was being interviewed on NPR and performing on CBS Saturday Early Show’s “Second Cup Café” and The Late Show with David Letterman, who declared that he’d listened to her entire debut album and that there was “not a dud” on it. Her brand of sophisticated, piano-driven pop has been gathering accolades ever since: “seductive and transcendent” (Amazon.com), “gorgeously conceived…accomplished yet understated” (Paste), “singular among her peers” (Variety).
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