c o o k i e b a k e r…
‘Clever, sophisticated, laid-back, personal and inspiring…’ – Rip It Up
Cookie Baker grew up on a farm by the seaside. She can be spotted gallivanting around our fair city and consistently throughout the countryside. She also has a talent for hiding and is a sucker for adventure. The warm melodies, cool wordsmithery and a sugar-velvet voice that Cookie pulls from thin air and wraps in her whimsical guitar ‘n’ piano licks create a potent faux-folk pop-cabaret sensation that these experiences and environments only serve to benefit.
An effervescent yet relaxed and personable performer and an introspective songwriter, Cookie Baker has shared stages with Augie March, Little Birdy, Ben Lee, Kate Miller-Heidke and The Audreys. A penchant for creating innovative new concepts in live performance and being a huge supporter of our local live scene saw Miss Cookie sell out her 2008 Adelaide Fringe show ‘Dark Horse in an Ivory Veil’ (which received a Fringe Award nomination for Best Music) and its subsequent encore performances of the same name. She was also recently handpicked to appear in the inaugural Coopers Alive Live Music Showcase event, which sold out beyond capacity and resulted in Cookie being approached with a proposal to produce and present her own theatrical music production as part of the Adelaide Festival Centre’s inSPACE program in 2009.
Uplifting, wry, observant and downright honest in her approach to life’s little tricks, flips and whimsies, Cookie Baker’s debut album Gala Day is at once gently arresting, mature yet playful – story time for grownups – an aural novella laden with haunting strings, barnyard percussives and a rich, raw and melancholic vocal quality aimed square at the heart.
From the opening sparse acoustic heartbreak of ‘Espery’, to the childlike circus/schoolyard bop of ‘Walls Made Of String’, to the gut-wrenching majestic beauty of ‘Bad Weather’, Gala Day is no walk in the park, but a trip down memory lane, a shout-out to home truths and a face-off with lost love, found habits and laying your bones bare. |
