Piney Gir

Born Angela Penhaligon, the offbeat indie pop artist Piney Gir took her stage name from a nickname dating back to childhood. Piano studies started at age four for the Kansas native, who nevertheless spent her early years inside a strict Pentecostal home where her father prohibited both television and secular music, even as her mother occasionally permitted small doses of pop culture. Defiance took the form of a music major in college, followed by a 1998 move to London, England, and enrollment at Saint Martins in search of like-minded collaborators and creative outlets. There she teamed with Adrian Morris to form the synth pop group Vic Twenty, which backed Erasure on a 2003 tour of the U.K. and Europe. After the band dissolved later that year, she signed with Truck Records and issued her Piney Gir debut, Peakahokahoo, whose eclectic mix of styles included a guest turn from Irish musician Simple Kid. Another Erasure support slot followed, this time under the Piney Gir name, and she supplied a remix of the duo’s U.K. Top 20 single “Don't Say You Love Me.” The next album, Hold Yer Horses, arrived as a project with her new ensemble the Piney Gir Country Roadshow and leaned into a tighter, upbeat country sound whose full-band approach echoed that of Cambridge’s Broken Family Band; the two acts had already collaborated on the sardonic “Alone in the Make-Out Room,” which appeared on the Broken Family Band’s 2006 release Balls. Solo work resumed with production assistance from the Age of Reason, while she also contributed guitar to the short-lived all-female garage pop act the Schla La Las, whose press coverage grew in the U.K. The self-released The Yearling surfaced in 2009 as her third solo album, delivering another wide-ranging indie set, and 2010 brought Jesus Wept, the second Country Roadshow outing. Geronimo! followed in 2011 on Damaged Goods; its promotion included her first CMJ Festival appearance in New York City and a Glastonbury performance that reunited her onstage with former Schla La Las members. Electric guitar reverb, melodic percussion, and both vintage and modern synths shaped the sixth album, Mr. Hyde’s Wild Ride, which Damaged Goods issued in 2015.