Gimme Five! Maria Albani of Organos

This week, I’m proud to kick off a new feature to spotlight artists and entertainers in our community who though deserving of a real high five, will have to settle for our internet version–although this one‘s pretty great too.  The concept is simple: one person, five questions.

Kicking us off is Maria Albani, who after playing bass for some of the area’s best (once upon a time with: Pleasant, Un Deux Trois,  and Tennis and the Mennonites, currently with: Schooner) is now ready to take center stage with her own understated and wholly mysterious music under the moniker Organos.

Given her murky lyrics and percussive arrangements, it’s clear Albani’s new found stake to the spotlight is less a calculated progression than an artistic risk.  The tracks are cluttered with more cardboard boxes and kitchen utensils than typical indie rock dude-bro instruments and the song narratives feel unselfconscious, fragmented, although the hooks are catchy.

The sound bespeaks the project’s beginnings as a little homework experiment, but now it’s grown legs with Albani set to release her first EP of tunes this February.  She’s also assembled a seaworthy crew to aid her in translating the music to the stage which you can catch in action at the release show for Organos’ The Limbs EP on Pox World Empire Records at The Pinhook on February 5th featuring openers Birds and Arrows and Ye Olde Shoppe with members of Wild Wild Geese.

Now all that’s left are the five hardest hitting questions in faux business. Get at ’em:

1. If your band were a movie, what would it be?

Gremlins

2. When did you start to think music might really work out as something more than a livingroom hobby?

When I played my first show at CD Alley. It was 1996, and we set up outside  behind the dumpster of University Massage. And hornets were swarming around my hands and nobody elses! At that moment I was like, “Wow! I can totally do this, for real!”

3. Describe your typical high school dance experience.

I barely went to High School, let alone a dance. I can tell you about some Middle School dances though. Sneak drinkin’ Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill and/or Mad Dog 20 20 beforehand, and dancin’ my butt off when any INXS song came on.

4. Who/what might be a few inspirations or influences that might really surprise people?

Stevie Nicks, Michael Hutchence, Pepe The Prawn, Cats, & tequila. I don’t think that people would be too surprised by those last two.

5. What did you dream of being when you were a kid? (how ’d that turn out?)

Ricky Schroder’s wife (now known as “Rick” Schroder), an artist, & a singer. Ricky and I never hooked up, but the artist and musician dreams have come true!

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Tune in next time, you never know who’s coming or what questions will be thrown their way. And by all means, if you happen to see Maria on the street, give her a high five.