Martin Howth - "Dear Dorine"
Photo by Alex Jackson Most people tend to recoil from a cappella acts (unless it's in a trilogy of Hollywood movies). However, Martin Howth is not your typical a cappella performer. The solo project of New Jersey jazz vocalist Audra Mariel is more like Petra Haden than Rockapella, although she's not really much like Haden, either. Mariel uses looped vocals to create an ethereal soundscape that can be quite catchy at times. Her latest single, "Dear Dorine," is a contemplative and laid back track that nearly instantly grabs the listener. A cappella isn't normally done well enough to be both experimental and mainstream. "Dear Dorine" can be listened to just on the surface level of being a gorgeous song, but you can also listen more intently and dive into all of the loops and layers. Audra Mariel says of her single: “This song was intended to be a letter to a young girl named Dorine whom I had never met and turned out to be written to a younger version of my...