This came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
If British trip-folk balladress Beth Orton had moved to New York to go to college and become sisters with Liz Phair and Jennifer Trynin, she might have ended up producing the same sultry, sweet-and-sour sounds as Leona Naess.
This disarming, charming alt-chanteuse (the stepdaughter of Diana Ross) actually did grow up in the U.K. and head to NYU, where she apparently picked up a downbeat downtown edge to go with her delicately beautiful guitar-folk songcraft. On this debut disc she combines equal portions of Orton’s intimacy, Phair’s lo-fi deadpan and Jen’s riffy sugar-pop. Along the way, you’ll also hear traces of P.J. Harvey, Luscious Jackson, Rickie Lee Jones and Kim Gordon if you’re paying attention. I bet you will be — powerful in its simplicity, compelling in its emotionality and alluring in its adventurousness, Comatised is a disc that leaves you magnetised.
