White Hinterland

White Hinterland is the songwriting vehicle of Casey Dienel, whose chirpy vocals and jazzy arrangements draw similarities to Laura Nyro and Joni Mitchell. The Massachusetts native made her debut as a solo performer in 2006, when the album Wind-Up Canary was released by Hush Records. Dienel then returned to the recording studio with Matthew Jean-Paul Meyer, Maximillian Haft, and Christopher MacDonald in 2007, eschewing her brief solo career and becoming a bandleader instead. Later that year, she signed with the indie label Dead Oceans and changed the name of her act to White Hinterland. Phylactery Factory, the group's debut album, was released in March 2008, followed by the Luniculaire EP (an ambitious, avant-garde record sung entirely in French) in October.