Azure Ray - nothing like a song, 2003

If you only listen to one song today, make it “Nothing Like A Song” by Azure Ray (2003, from the album Hold On Love). Azure Ray is an indie pop duo made up of Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink. They’re originally from Athens, Georgia, and they later relocated to Lincoln, Nebraska. They formed in 2001, made two records, took a hiatus between 2004 and 2008, then released another record in 2010. I’m not sure how I first learned about this band, but it was one of those things where I heard a couple of songs and immediately went out and bought everything I could get my hands on. At the time, in 2002, what I could get was the November EP and the Burn and Shiver album. I eagerly anticipated the next record, and when Hold On Love came out the next year, it was a big winner around here."

Azure Ray - for no one, 2001

"Maudlin at its best. Or maybe it's good at its most maudlin. Either way, that's Azure Ray. Even visually. Their album cover is simple: just an old, sepia-toned photograph of a little girl. She looks like my grandmother as a child. Nostalgia and melancholy rub off the liner notes and stain your fingertips. The little girl clutches her palms to her ears and wears an inscrutable expression that vacillates from pouty to fearful to verge-of-tears, depending on what mental angle you hold it at. Or she could just be pressing hard on earphones concealed beneath her baby tresses, trying to soak up every bit of this album."

Azure Ray - other than this world, 2002

"Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink have always had the unique ability to transform tragedy into transcendent, healing music. Azure Ray, their main creative outlet since 1999, began as a response to the horrific death of Taylor’s boyfriend, Peter Smith. For many musicians the gravity of this kind of trauma would be inescapable but Taylor and Fink managed to face it head on then build a fascinating, sonically adventurous body of work that has subtly reformatted part of the singer/songwriter landscape."

Azure Ray - look to me, 2003

"Whatever became of all the broken-hearted story tellers? Did being talked to by the TV for our entire childhood really kill our ability to talk back about how we really feel? If it wasn’t for those folks at Saddle Creek - producing soundtracks to the shy techno-trapped worlds of noughties indie-kids - the answer would be a doe-eyed, mumbled, 'yes'. But praise be to the Omaha music scene."

Azure Ray - your weak hands, 2002

"True to form, Azure Ray delivers another 12 tracks of curiously beautiful but quite intense melancholy on 2002's Burn and Shiver. Not since Lisa Germano dropped Geek the Girl almost eight years before has music so stark and so lovely made it beyond the dark confines of somebody's troubled mind and onto the brightly lit shelves of record stores. Well, "troubled" might be too harsh a word, as Azure Ray never approach the outwardly depressive lyrical statements of Germano on Burn and Shiver, but Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor do have a certain fascination with darkness."

Azure Ray - safe and sound, 2001

"Azure Ray is an Athens, GA, duo composed of Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor; their self-titled debut album is a quiet, gentle set of lovely songs that doesn't fit neatly into any current pigeonhole. Both women have contributed to more well-known projects - both have played in the ever-changing Bright Eyes touring band and Fink has played with the interesting Japancakes instrumental ensemble (but she didn't hint at the sort of lovely and emotional soul-searching found on Azure Ray)."

Azure Ray - rise, 2001

"A band called Azure Ray contributed a song to the soundtrack titled “Rise.” I made a mental note to Google the song while watching the movie. I loved its’ dreamy and reposed sound, similar to that of another band I enjoy named Beach House. This song comes from the self-titled debut from 2001. Two other albums followed"

Azure Ray - if you fall, 2003

"Azure Ray’s unique sound is highlighted by Taylor and Fink’s exquisite lead singing, combined harmony vocals, and delicate guitar playing; their lush and atmospheric music; and their tender and evocative lyrics."

Azure Ray - silver sorrow, 2010

"‘Silver Sorrow’ succeeds on aesthetics alone, its layers of vocal adornments recalling Cocteau Twins’ sublime Liz Fraser."

Azure Ray - for the sake of the song, 2002

"Azure Ray is extremely pretty, soft, easy-on-the-tympanum pop music built around acoustic guitar strumming. If you were silly enough to try to delineate an 'indie music aesthetic,' this would fall many city blocks outside of it. No fuzz, no feedback, no indigestible chords, and all with polished production and solid arrangements."