Eleni Mandell, based in Los Angeles, wove vintage outsider attitude together with present-day backdrops and sharp ironic humor across her vocal and songwriting approach. She first presented her hazy, noir-tinged sketches laced with punk and jazz textures on the 1998 release Wishbone. Her fourth album, Country for True Lovers from 2003, offered an homage to longstanding country traditions, after which she returned to her signature aesthetic the next year with Afternoon. Mandell also participated in the indie rock outfit the Grabs and the harmony-focused Living Sisters, whose sound drew from the Andrews Sisters, while her solo work during the 2010s encompassed the 2012 Yep Roc debut I Can See the Future and 2019’s Wake Up Again, the latter shaped by her experiences leading songwriting classes inside a women’s prison.
Born in Los Angeles, Mandell grew up in Sherman Oaks within the San Fernando Valley. As a teenager she admired local punk band X and beatnik revivalist Tom Waits, prompting her to pick up guitar and begin composing material that she eventually shared in public performances while studying at Berkeley. Shortly afterward Chuck E. Weiss, a Waits associate and the real-life figure behind Rickie Lee Jones’ “Chuck E’s in Love,” took her under his wing. She funded Wishbone herself in 1998; Jon Brion’s production lent the record a gritty mood that prompted Waits comparisons and dramatic vocal parallels to PJ Harvey. The following pair of releases, 2000’s Thrill and 2001’s Snakebite, stayed within a torch-song framework until Country for True Lovers in 2003 drew from classic country figures including Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard, and Hank Cochran. To capture this blend of covers and new songs she recruited producer and ex-X guitarist Tony Gilkyson, whom she had encountered via Weiss, along with several leading Los Angeles country-rock session musicians such as Wilco’s Nels Cline, former Lone Justice drummer Don Heffington, and X’s D.J. Bonebrake. The project served as her introduction on the Toronto label Zedtone Records. Afternoon, her fifth album issued in 2004, steered back toward nocturnal urban scenes. One year later she fronted the Grabs on their opening long-player Sex, Fashion, and Money, joined by Blondie’s Nigel Harrison, Lavender Diamond’s Steve Gregoropoulos, and percussionist Elvira Gonzales.
Working again with producer Andy Kaulkin, she delivered 2007’s Miracle of Five, which once more included Cline. Artificial Fire from 2009 emerged as a broader team effort involving producers Dave Trumfio and Jeremy Drake, and in 2010 Mandell united with vocalists Alex Lilly, Inara George, and Becky Stark to create the alternative harmony group Living Sisters, whose initial album Love to Live appeared on Vanguard that same year. A second Grabs record, Political Disco, arrived in 2011 and spotlighted contributions from Bonebrake and Blondie’s Clem Burke. Returning to solo work, her eighth album I Can See the Future marked her first outing for Yep Roc in 2012. Living Sisters issued a follow-up, Run for Cover, in 2013, and Mandell resurfaced alone the next year with Let’s Fly a Kite, helmed by Neil Brockbank, longtime associate of Nick Lowe, and supported by Lowe’s regular band. Dark Lights Up came out in 2015, co-produced by Mandell and engineer Sheldon Gomberg.
Across the four-year interval separating Dark Lights Up from her eleventh studio album, Mandell instructed songwriting at a pair of colleges and inside a women’s prison through Jail Guitar Doors, the program founded by MC5’s Wayne Kramer and Billy Bragg to supply musical resources to inmates. Inara George meanwhile curated the tribute concert Unsung Heroes: Songs of Eleni Mandell featuring Jackson Browne, Van Dyke Parks, and Lera Lynn; both the event and its companion Yep Roc album surfaced in January 2017. The subsequent year France’s Bonsound Records re-pressed the limited 2007 single “Dis-Moi au Revoir Encore” b/w “Francais 1.” Partly drawing from encounters with her incarcerated students, the Gomberg-produced Wake Up Again appeared in 2019, with guitar support from Milo Jones and longtime road bandmates Ryan Feves on bass and Kevin Fitzgerald on drums.
