Reviews & Press

…Courtney Collins, whose sultry and expressive voice would sound great singing just about anything.

The Onion AV Club

Hinterlands has a gorgeous, melancholy, evocative sensibility. Beautiful songwriting and singing…

Veronica Rueckert, Wisconsin Public Radio

Hinterlands excels at creating an atmosphere, evoking the feeling of frozen plains and sweltering days of summer. A Midwestern night’s dream.

Lawrence Gann, Isthmus

The eclectic ability of Courtney Collins to adapt to a style is uncanny.
Violet Night is an excellent recording that should be sought out by all musical thrill-seekers and by those who appreciate the injection of some mystery into their rock.

Rick Tvedt, Rick’s Cafe

[Collins and Ylvisaker] added a subtle percussion track and a lonely, watery guitar line reminiscent of The Handsome Family and Andrew Bird. Wait, it is Andrew Bird: Ylvisaker plays guitar and bass in his band. Combined with Collins’ voice — part lounge singer, part Marianne Faithfull — it sounds like an old country ballad drifting through Elvis Costello’s dreams.

Jessica Steinhoff, Isthmus

Sultry chanteuse Collins covers Idlewild’s 100 Broken Windows’ hotfoot Roseability. Credit: does anyone else cover Idlewild?! More credit: Collins has no intention of xeroxing songs she digs. Roseability’s dirty, slamming guitars are traded wholesale for weightless keyboard bloops, yet its magic melody is refreshed by her husky Debbie Harry meets Lulu croon. Ditto Cheap Trick’s warhorse I Want You to Want Me, delightfully reborn as a whisper-C&W song for Patsy Cline, young Willie Nelson, or Ray Price to warble. Perhaps she’s all over the map on seven covers and five originals, but like iPod shuffle buttons, that isn’t so “off” these days, and Violet is tempting.

Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover

All in all, a pretty remarkable solo debut.

Tom Laskin, Isthmus

Courtney Collins makes it work with the sheer power of her low sensuous voice.

Chris Jorgensen, Billings Gazette

Hinterlands is “honing a shivering, glacial beauty.  Mazzy Star meets Portishead.”

Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover

Courtney creates music that crosses genres and demonstrates her singular character and style. She is a perceptive observer whose dreamy voice creates a playful mood…

Amandagaze, Rick’s Cafe

Collins’ sultry voice steals the show. She occupies the lower registers with sensual flair, sometimes exuding a jazzy, torch singer approach, and other times presenting a more mellow, low-key sensibility.

Carol Swanson, Christmas Reviews

…Courtney Collins’ silky voice, which sounds especially good when she is singing a cappella…

Kenneth Burns, Isthmus

Collins’ dreamy legato voice glides smoothly…

Mike Huberty, Maximum Ink

Courtney Collins’ brassy, sultry voice is perfectly suited to classics…

Rob Thomas, The Capital Times

Collins’ vocals, sweltering in the jazzy prolongation of her notes, will get her just about anything she wants underneath the tree.

(Review of “Yuletide Swank”) Christine Holm, the Badger Herald

Collins’ voice is a dark, sultry cocktail of sensual tease and she loves to experiment with arrangements that ultimately suit her style quite effectively.

Local Sounds

Her solo work — especially on “Hinterlands” — is more stately and contemplative, her singing carrying a kind of emotional weight and purity…”

Randy Erickson, La Crosse Tribune

“Thirteen Men” is a vampish-sounding bass-heavy delight. Collins’ temptress tones are at their best. “Used To,” an original, resembles Blondie in their punk pop glory. Collins is both a gifted interpreter and a good songwriter in her own right.

Anna Maria Stjarnell, Collected Sounds

Courtney Collins’s seductive vocal style meshes with a surprising range of musical genres from lounge to tear-in-your-beer to Blondie-ish punk.

Mel Goldsipe, Go Girls Music