source: allmusic.com

Recently I was going through my music collection, and I stumbled upon a few CDs I'd never even opened. You might think this is wasteful, but the story is that in college, I served as the school newspaper's Arts Editor, which meant that I was sent free movie passes, press kits, albums, books and other random things to review. Rarely did we actually do any of these things, but every once in a while, I'd spot something that'd catch my eye and I'd bring it home with me to peruse.

Nell Bryden's 2004 EP was one of the things I took home with me ... and forgot about until I unearthed it recently. In 2004, I had one leg firmly set in pop radio, and the other just toeing the line of acoustic-folk music. Nell Bryden's music is actually more beat-driven and jazz-y than the type of acoustic-folk-borderline-bluegrass music I prefer today, but in 2004 (if I had given the album a shot), I would've absolutely loved the EP.

The EP consists of four songs: "White Rose," "Daylight," "Meridian" and "Goodbye," two of which I can't find anywhere on the internets. 2004 was early days for video and audio archiving.

Nell's voice has an extremely convincing, decisive quality to it, despite being quite low-key. She almost sounds like a siren (not the annoying, emergency kind, but the Greek mythology type), calling out. And there's something archival about the songs on this EP in and of themselves ... it's almost a time capsule back to the late '90s, and highly reminiscent of something like, say, the soundtrack to the WB show "Felicity."

Nell Bryden is still making music, and oddly enough, in 2012 she released an album titled "Shake The Trees," which included a song called ... "Sirens."