(2021) Faye Webster - I Know I'm Funny haha


Review:
With casual irony and nonchalance Faye Webster’s second album for Secretly Canadian, I Know I’m Funny haha, arrives with much the same soft punch and subtle humor that made Atlanta’s Millionaires Club an instant sensation. I Know I’m Funny haha finds Webster growing as a person focusing on intimate and broken moments between partners and a songwriter building on her previous efforts without losing her uniqueness. Webster’s lyrical content and delivery belies her youth as it is imbued with a world weary seen-it-all-ness while retaining a sense of wonder at her core – a balancing act for which Webster seems particularly well suited. On “In a Good Way” she sings, “I want you to make me cry in a good way,” with longing of a hopeless romantic who though hurt hasn’t given up on the promise of love yet. A thick fat bottom bass line and soaring pedal steel inform the albums sonic landscape with a surreal atmosphere that is Webster’s home. A mix of easy listening, country, and R&B peak from behind the curtains at appropriate moments to remind listeners of Webster’s influences while still pressing forward into her own sound. There is even a slight tinge of a salsa in the mix on “Kind Of.” Players Harold Brown on drums, Bryan Howard on bass, Nic Rosen on keys, and Matt “Pistol” Stoessel on pedal steel slip into the role of pseudo-lounge act with aplomb and a casual confidence that mirrors Webster’s own. Webster released a couple of singles in 2020 that appear on I Know I’m Funny haha, including “Better Distractions,” “In a Good Way”. The rest of the collection on this release build upon the foundation established by these singles. Other stand out tracks include the unusually angsty “Cheers,” the R&B bump of “A Dream with a Baseball Player,” the string inflected “Stranger,” and the penultimate self-effacing title track. Recorded with producer/mixer Drew Vandenberg at the helm, I Know I’m Funny haha builds on Faye Webster’s already substantial career and established sonic environment. At a mere 23, Webster already has a catalogue many artists would envy – distinctively her own with the confidence to follow her muse and ignore populous trends





Track Listing:
1.Better Distractions 04:09
2.Sometimes 04:33
3.I Know I'm Funny haha 02:43
4.In A Good Way 03:43
5.Kind Of 05:25
6.Cheers 03:15
7.Both All The Time 03:12
8.A Stranger 02:59
9.A Dream With a Baseball Player 03:41
10.Overslept (feat. mei ehara) 03:29
11.Half of Me 03:33


Media Report:
Genre: indie-pop
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits