Gwendolyn's Lower Mill Road: With some idiosyncratic time changes and mannered yet playful vocals Gwendolyn definitely sounds at times like Robin Williamson’s little sister. Opening song “Lady Belle” mines the Incredible String Band’s leylines and “Drumming Down Water” would not be out of place on “The Layers of the Onion” album. There is also an undercurrent of that weird faux folk to be found on the Wickerman soundtrack although without the sinister aspects... and a tiny little hint of Nick Drake peeks from behind the curtains. - Paul Kerr, Americana UK

Singer-songwriter/TV composer Gwendolyn was queen of quirk on the local scene even before freak folk had a name, which fortuitously led to some success making music for kids. But her newest release, recorded five years ago in Scotland with producer Ben Vaughn thoughtfully minding the proceedings, traces a more traditional folk path. Lush Celtic settings are well suited to these nine songs about false-hearted lovers, communing with the elements and the cycles of time.
- PASADENA WEEKLY

91.7 FM KOOP - PAUL BORELLI - 7/28/2007
Gwendolyn is a California-based artist currently associated with the freak-folk movement, though apparently she has been playing this style of quirky folk music a while before there was a handle attached to it. This 9-track EP was actually recorded 5 years ago in Scotland and has sat on the shelf since then due to the conflicting schedules of producer and artist (she also runs the Whispersquish label and composes music for the Showtime program "Weeds"). Gwendolyn's music and vocals might be described as a cross between the girlish-sounding folk of Nanci Griffith and the neo-Renaissance sound of Loreena McKennitt, without taking herself as seriously as either of these artists. The quirkiness is apparent from the opening song, which describes Lady Belle writing "love poems and all of the extraneous kind/with a quill upon her thumb and the tears upon her eyes." "Bu Cartoon" (#7) skips along to accompaniment from flute, acoustic guitar, harp, and tambourine, changing time signatures several times, and vocals that at one point sound like a skipping record. But she can also tackle serious subjects, such as jilted love in "Honest" (#6) and the sense of déjá vu & a past life in "Emily" (#8). She can also render a nice murder ballad, as on the rollicking "The Search" (#3). Taking the role of Renaissance balladeer is certainly inviting ridicule given how easy the genre is to satirize, but Gwendolyn manages to pull it off because rather than falling into the stereotypes of the style, she manages to keep delivering the unexpected.

CitizenRobot - Interview [PDF]
music central | pick 'n' indie band by Sherrie Gulmahamad – GWENDOLYN

Gwendolyn At Tangier w/ Jonathan Richman
Clad in a long blue Little-House-On-The-Prairie ruffled dress and London raver-style black boots, Gwendolyn in person presents a striking and dichotomous persona, at once folksy and then somehow uber-hip. Her band consists of... a broken stand-bass... glass harmonica... percussion out of such varied and untraditional instruments as pots and pans... while Gwendolyn plays guitar as she sings. A rag-tag ensemble, looking as if they fit best in some gypsy encampment in an abandoned train yard somewhere, like a bunch of hobos. A cynic might initially sneer at her sweetness and simplicity, but give them five minutes in her presence... they'll be won over. Gwendolyn is redefining folk for an all ages, all levels of cool crowd, and her sincerity shines through every unconventional tune she sings.

#1 Album of the Year: DEW - Gwendolyn
The Music Never Stops' Top Ten Albums of 2003 - KPFK

LISTEN2THIS What's Rocking Our World
Few musicians ever successfully develop dual careers doing adult songs and kid stuff. (Not even jazz composer Fred Rogers.) But LA's GWENDOLYN has released two CDs on her Whispersquish label destined to appease both art- pop aficionados and preschoolers. For postcollegiates, DEW offers abstract meditations on obsession amid a psychedelic-acoustic cabaret that suggests Sam Phillips borrowing Tom Waits' bottle-banging percussion. Even when she sings of being swallowed up in some ill-chosen lover's void, Gwendolyn maintains a sense of wonder about the whole consumptive process. Said wonder blooms more fully in GWENDOLYN AND THE GOOD TIME GANG, in which she and her side project band celebrate sharing, baths, good manners, and monkeys. From "Farm Animal Friends" (a rival in catchiness to "Old Macdonald...") on, it's as good as tot rock gets, and a tonic for grown-ups who miss Jonathan Richmond's midperiod infantilism. DEW: B+ GANG: A
- ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

Homegrown Artist Pick - Amoeba Music

Best New Genre/Uncategorizable Artist of 2003 - LA Weekly Music Awards
Hear and Now in L.A. (Photo by Larry Hirshowitz) Pop in the Playhouse: Gwendolyn gives the whole weird world Perhaps her hippie parentage explains it all. The genre in which singer-guitarist Gwendolyn has evolved can be called psychedelic folk, preceded by '60s progenitors such as the Holy Modal Rounders and Pearls Before Swine, though she sounds similar to no one on Earth. Her earliest self-penned tunes reminded producer Ben Vaughn so much of Celtic folk music that he flew her to Scotland and recorded her with local musicians. (The result, Lower Mill Road, is scheduled for a 2004 release.) Yet her music stems from a limitless imagination that distills everything she's experienced to create highly peculiar soundscapes whose closest comparison may be a musical Pee-wee's Playhouse. Gwendolyn does indeed have a childlike quality: She often dresses in baby-doll shoes, short skirts and pigtails, and has recently released a kids' album -- but more about that later.

Gwendolyn had a last name but has dispensed with it professionally, further adding to her mystique. Born in Philly and raised in Sierra Madre, she attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where she met two-thirds of her current band. She's worked as an actor since age 13, beginning to play guitar and write songs at 19, and to play live at 22, a mere six years ago. Incessant gigging honed her chops, and an open mind allowed her to season. "When I sit down and write, it doesn't come out that odd," she muses. "There are a few chords where people say, 'How'd you come up with that one?' And I go, 'I don't know. I just let my fingers do the walking, open my mouth and out it comes.'"

What often emerges is steeped in kinky time signatures and bizarre harmonic modulations. "Haphazard" on her new album, Dew (www.gwendolyn.net), begins as a slow blues, shifts to an amphetamine shuffle and winds up in a rhythmic/melodic free-for-all. Her band consists of Robert Petersen on upright bass, Quazar (of Quazar & the Bamboozled and formerly Lutefisk) on percussion (pots, pans, bicycle wheel, candlestick holders, Tibetan bells, etc.), and Douglas Lee on glass harmonica, banjo, saw and water jug. The glass harmonica is actually 26 wine glasses bolted into a wooden box and tuned with various amounts of water; Lee rubs the rim of each glass with wetted fingers. Dew is bolstered with guests including guitarist Smokey Hormel and Ralph Carney on horns and lap guitar.

Gwendolyn's songs deal with love and politics and sexuality and the human condition, but you wouldn't necessarily know it. It's in her obtuse lyrics where an analogy to Captain Beefheart is most pronounced. "Beetle of strife/You're the scholar of life/The insect perspective is modest/And quite valuable," she sings in "Insect Perspective." She's capable of being a lyrical conversationalist as well, then will lapse into a Philly street-chick rap. "Ben Vaughn thinks I have 18 different personalities and probably more that have yet to be discovered," she says, laughing.

Gwendolyn's "Freedom of the Heart (Ooodily Ooodily)" was featured in the film Chuck and Buck, and while the playful sing-along was used to accent a particularly strange adult theme in that movie, its popularity led Gwendolyn into performing and writing for children. So in addition to Dew, this year's seen the release of Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang, one of the rare kiddie albums that's endearing to tots but has enough weirdo musicality to make it appealing to adults. She and her gang do the occasional nursery-school gig. "I think anyone can tap into their imagination," adds our faerie princess. "Life is like a trip. You're just gonna have to hold on and have some faith, and that's it." -- Michael Simmons

Gwendolyn has the oddball metaphors and quirky, rolling acoustic guitar melodies that recall Syd Barrett and his Madcap Laughs albums. This madcap, crazy wisdom exudes from such tracks as "Eskimo" and "Cuckoo for You". This gives her songs a unique quality and fills the arrangements with surprise and freshness. You may have heard Gwendolyn before, she is responsible for the catchy "Freedom of the Heart (Ooodily, Ooodily)" from the film Chuck & Buck. She also has a medieval, almost eerie quality to some songs, like the dirge ballad "Lady Strange". She is also in good company here. Ralph Carney (Tom Waits) provides some horns and lap guitar while Quazar is on hand to provide all sorts of found object percussion. Quirky and engaging, this is a splendiferous album. (4.5)
- TOM SCHULTE (Outsight, ink19, hEARD Magazine)

"THE FOLD COMPILATION" (Credit Records). Most small and infamous rock clubs in major cities present the same touring bands. The only identity they tend to have is in the local bands they discover before the acts graduate to college radio and major labels. Thus, the boon of this compilation of alternative-rockers who have performed at the well-booked Fold in Silverlake Lounge in Los Angeles is not in its songs by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Patrick Park and Polyphonic Spree. It's in allowing the rest of the country to discover quality unsigned SoCal acts like Midnight Movies, Trespassers William, Silversun Pickups, Gwendolyn, and Eleni Mandell.
- NEW YORK TIMES

The music they make is cheerfully indefinable, strange and whimsical and threaded through with an innocence that inspires.
- LOS ANGELES TIMES

Gwendolyn: A quaint naturalism resounds through this unknown Cali-kid’s guitar and voice presentation. Her tunes account for equally quaint forebears like Tom Rapp, Judee Sill and other curious charmers who felt restricted by G-C-D chord patterns. If she has a good night, don't be surprised if you hear the thinking person's Jewel.
- THE VILLAGE VOICE

There's nothing normal about Gwendolyn, and that makes her ever so bewitching. She's the gilded-tressed beauty of psychedelic folk, a flower child who sounds as if she might skip naked through the forest with psilocybically pinned orbs. In a straightforward alto, she sings her skewed kiddie songs about jars full of dew or her salty slow-burners celebrating sleepwalking, subtly revealing a degree of dementia as she accompanies herself on acoustic guitar (joined tonight by Quazar of the Bamboozled on pots, pans and peculiar percussion; Douglas Lee on glass harmonica; and Robert Petersen on standup bass). Appropriately for an artist whose landscape is the dream world, tempos and chords shift when and where they shouldn’t. It all adds up to exquisite aesthetic escapism
- LA WEEKLY

The mono-monikered Gwendolyn is one of LA's sweet pleasures and secret treasures. She sings in a crisp and warm multi-octaved voice while dressed in ensembles out of a Renaissance Fair being held on Mars. Her utterly hooky, memorable melodies take the quirkiest turns, making one wish that Zappa was alive to hear her - he would have been smitten by her both childlike and demented demeanor. Her album, Ultrasounds (Whispersquish), a difficult thing to categorize, roughly belongs in the open-ended Psychedelic-Folk genre. "Freedom of the Heart (Ooodily, Ooodily)" was featured in last year's film Chuck and Buck and contains a bubblegumed chorus that will follow you around like a warm kitty. And the avant-garde kazoo break in "Snail Trail" breaks new ground for that petite toy ax. She'll be accompanied by standup bass, glass harmonica and percussion - and her guitar and endearing smile.
- LA WEEKLY

Magical in both voice and appearance, Gwendolyn plays her acoustic six- string like a magician's wand. Enchanting listeners with a voice as clear as glass and as soft as a feather pillow, she weaves tales that possess shimmering charm and timelessness. - LA WEEKLY

Remember the cool girl back in high school, the pretty eccentric who was into lava lamps and Black Sunday, when everyone else was into cheerleading and Top Gun? Well, that girl is all grown up now, plays guitar and sings eccentric ditties that are made weirder by subtle arrangements, and smart writing. Gwendolyn's bizzaro world Folk Pop employs the melodies of the '60s but funnels them through off-kilter narratives and oddly frightening scenarios. You may want to stop by at Gwendolyn's groovy inn, but like Teri Garr's twisted Beatles shrine in After Hours, you may find it easier to check in than to check back out.
- LISTEN.COM

This unique Gwendolyn sound works best accompanied by candle-light, a comfy couch, a glass of wine while her ethereal vocals comment on the complicated aspects of reality, existence and everyday life.
- PASADENA WEEKLY

Gwendolyn's clear, unaffected voice and crisp guitar delivers flying Eskimos, wise owls, insects, trains, the nature of thought, Laurel Canyon, coconuts and kaleidoscopes. Very good indeed. The singer hasn't bought the lie that you must sound like someone else to have appeal. With a sampling of the radio dial one hears so many vocalists who strain their tongues in an unnatural way or project thought their nasal cavities in order to get the "alternative" sound. No, Gwendolyn's delivery is free of attitude and borrowed effects. It's difficult to make comparisons. Among her influences is Robin Williamson (ex of Incredible String Band) and her song writing has a Nick Drake/Tori Amos kind of appeal. We're not talking about neo-pagan music, but more of a magical-musical-lyrical art form that speaks to many of the craft persuasion. They call it "ecto" on the East Coast, as expressed by the likes of Happy Rhodes, Jane Siberry and others. Now younger vocalists like Gwendolyn are reaching new ground they are each breaking in their own way. The perceptual folk cannot be called a "style" because each artist is unique in the same way that each person has a different natural speaking voice and a mind with a dreamscape that's all their own. This music may not redefine the universe (what can?), but it does add more definition to it by expressing a clear perception of the inner and outer world. True, it can be heavily poetic and some might even say "artsy," but by it's very personal nature it is NOT pretentious. It IS enchanting.
- RAVEN'S DAWN JOURNAL