New Buffalo

Seltmann delivers vocals with a detached allure that recalls Emily Haines' understated charm while demonstrating uncommon facility in both composition and production choices. As New Buffalo in essence, she stands as Australia's foremost voice within the global wave of artists merging folk elements with electronics, a circle that encompasses Beth Orton, Keren Ann, Feist, and Victoria Bergsman, once the singer for the Concretes. Her path nevertheless began in Sydney's early-1990s indie-rock circles clustered around the Half a Cow imprint. Performing then as Sally Russell, she shared leadership of Lustre 4 with guitarist Lara Meyerratken, who later joined Ben Lee's band, and later joined cult twee-pop outfit Spdfgh—already the home of her song "You Made Me"—after founding member Liz Payne departed. Once Lustre 4 disbanded, Russell relocated to Melbourne and pivoted toward keyboards, samples, and electronic rhythms beneath her voice. New Buffalo first appeared with the 2001 EP About Last Night. Fruitless recording attempts in London and Los Angeles prompted a return to Melbourne, where she completed the self-produced full-length The Last Beautiful Day in 2004. A self-titled remix EP arrived the next year and contained a new collaboration with Swedish counterpart Jens Lekman. Around the same period she married Darren Seltmann of the Avalanches and began recording under her married name. New Buffalo's second album, Somewhere, Anywhere, reached Australian stores in early 2007. That year Leslie Feist placed her rendition of Seltmann's "1234" as the lead single from The Reminder, an association that brought the album to Arts & Crafts—Feist's label, operated by her Broken Social Scene associates—for North American release that summer. Seltmann issued Heart That's Pounding under her own name in 2010.