Zoey Van Goey - Cage Was Unlocked (2010)

Zoey van der Kamp was born into a strict Amish community in rural Pennsylvania in 1969 and never saw an automobile until the age of 12. She ran away to New York at the age of 15, changed her name to Zoey van Goey and quickly became immersed in Manhattan s burgeoning street-art movement before relocating to Berlin and finding considerable success with her street murals and installation-based work. She became a constant, if peripheral, fixture of Berlin's cultural elite in the late 80s, embarking on an affair with (and subsequently breaking the the heart of) German film director Wim Wenders (you can spot one of her murals in Wings of Desire ). After the Wall came down at the end of the decade, her movements become less clear, many saying she moved into East Berlin before fading enigmatically from public view...

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So with The Cage Was Unlocked... we find bandits and buried treasure co-existing with tales of TEFL students teaching in Fukuyama; dark ruminations on the coming apocalypse alongside romantic kidnap ballads; a surreal journey that s as melodically whimsical as it is structurally complex. With the fairytale element heightened further by Peter Diamond's Hergé meets Henry Darger artwork, Zoey Van Goey s debut album becomes a work of charming ambition loaded with full-blooded sing-along choruses, understated keyboards, close harmonies and irresistible melodies - all underpinned by various musical ephemera including vintage Super Mario sound effects.

The album was produced by Chemikal Underground s Paul Savage (The Delgados [...]

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