You probably think you know everything there is to know about Eleanor Friedberger. “She’s that girl from The Fiery Furnaces,” you’re thinking. “She is a great singer, I think she plays guitar….does she play guitar?” you’re asking. “She has a really great haircut,” you’re musing. And yes, you’d be right about all of these things. 

But what you likely don’t know is that Eleanor Friedberger is not just the enigmatic mouthpiece of one of music’s most interesting, dynamic and constantly exciting bands. In fact, Eleanor Friedberger is an exceptional songwriter herself, playing a variety of instruments and crafting the very sorts of choruses that made you fall in love with The Fiery Furnaces in the first place.

She’s a lover of Led Zeppelin and Jorge Ben; she’s a fearless performer, as comfortable fronting a band as she is playing alone on a stage with an acoustic guitar; she’s one of the sweetest alto voices in music. Nowhere is all of this more apparent than on her very first solo album, Last Summer, out on Merge Records.