by Roy Scopazzi
One of the little things I appreciated about Joanna Wang at the Swedish American Hall was introducing nearly each and every one of her songs. She played two sets and the first consisted an entire playthrough of her latest album, Hotel La Rut. If you don’t know, that album consists of 23 songs and over an hour in length, various ditties about dreams and life and the kind of music project that feels like you’re exploring her mind. While she easily could have just played them all in a row with no break, the mention of the name of each of these songs gave me the impression she has the same importance of each part of that album and herself. Even then, the whole thing flowed so smoothly, the first part as it’s all part of a general vibe as it comes from the same album, and even the second part which moved from past works to covers of Steely Dan and Anita Mui, with her backing band changing on a dime with different tempos, energies, and even genres.
