Botox Visuals
Extraordinary Girl Live Acoustic
From The Press
"Ringing guitar chords are backed by atmospheric layers of keyboards, but the true stunner is McDell’s unforced voice, which has already led the Americana artist to gold certifications and award nominations in her native New Zealand."
- Rolling Stone (on Extraordinary Girl Single)
"Showcasing more richness and density than the typical banjo and fiddle exercise, the album contains waves of haunting tremolo guitar, fuzzy squalls, heavy distortion and a keen sense for crafting rewarding, sometimes even dramatic, vocal melodies."
- All Music (on Extraordinary Girl Album)
"It is the raw honesty of the vocal performance that will floor you - McDell has had enough time to love, and be hurt; enough time to know the difference between the glitter and the gold. In her sweet-but-tough lead vocal you can hear the confidence, the pain, and the acceptance that only hard-living can bring".
- Chillfiltr (on Extraordinary Girl Album)
Now at age 26, New Zealand singer/songwriter Jamie McDell has achieved a prolific amount for someone so young. Being signed to EMI at age 16 sparked the beginning of a successful musical journey, making Jamie McDell a household name across the nation. With the release of her debut album ‘Six Strings and a Sailboat’, she went on to achieve Gold album sales, receive three NZ Music Award nominations, winning Best Pop Album of 2013. Her sophomore record ‘Ask Me Anything’ gained global attention, seeing album track ‘Moon Shines Red’ featured on American TV series Pretty Little Liars. A lot was going on for the young songwriter throughout her formative years.
Early 2019 marked McDell’s return with an independently-released record that celebrates her musical roots and the sounds of her upbringing. Extraordinary Girl came together between Auckland, New Zealand and Nashville, Tennessee where she recorded the tracks with Australian award-winner producer Nash Chambers. The record features a hearty cast of country music legends including Kasey Chambers, Bill Chambers and Tami Neilson. The 12-track album gained her a nomination for RMNZ Country Music Artist Of The Year 2019 with ‘Paint On A Sign’ also nominated for APRA’s Country Song Of The Year 2019.
It was the music of her childhood that would form the fundamental elements of what excited her about songwriting the most - an honest vocal, lots of acoustic guitar and deep storytelling.
It was at age 7, while living aboard a yacht in the Mediterranean, when McDell wrote her first song. On that yacht lived a small collection of her parents’ favourite tapes, including albums by Jimmy Buffett, John Denver and James Taylor, which the young McDell formed a particularly strong bond with. She fondly remembers watching her parents perform Jimmy Buffett duets - and occasionally chiming in, learning how to harmonise vocally with her mother. An eager learner, Mcdell picked up the guitar after studying her fathers’ John Denver chord book collection and has never looked back.
In March 2017, McDell booked a trip to Nashville for a change of scenery and to connect with the environment that birthed the country/folk music of her youth. There she wrote the songs that would make up the fabric for her upcoming record. ‘Extraordinary Girl’ was a departure from her nation-wide accepted commercial sound, Elsewhere’s Graham Reid explaining ‘McDell has always sung about matters which are more mature than her audience and these songs – in a lineage which includes Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss and more left-field country artists like Kasey Chambers – place McDell directly in front of her peers who understand the betrayals, bad choices of men, and the sexual and emotional territory being covered, which comes wrapped in classy country-rock, pop and blues-tinged rock.
McDell continues down the path of no-tricks, elegant honesty on her latest project The Botox EP. The title track speaks to her frustration around harmful values in significant relationships as she states ‘I have no issue with whoever doing whatever they need to do regarding their appearance, life, relationship if it’s something that is truly driven by them. I think the danger is when we silence our instincts and begin to change ourselves and compromise our values because a significant other has convinced you,
you need fixing.’
Bio
CONTACT
Management / Nash Chambers
PR North America / Nicole Poulos
Booking / Jamie McDell