It took Jen Korte a while to get the album she wanted, but the reaction so far suggests it was worth the wait.

"Jen Korte's new album is, like, um ... wow! Just freaking wow!" Dave Herrera, Westword

"It has taken us over a year to get it right. The first time around, we did it in the very customary way of tracking the drums and bass first and then trying to add everything. I just could not connect with it as a whole at all. It was a very different record than the one we are putting out. I decided to scrap most of it and start over. The second time around, we played almost the entire thing in two or three sessions live."

Korte is a musical late-comer. Growing up an hour from Austin, Korte spent a lot of time there checking out the music scene, but her background was theater. "And, aside from being a dramatic child (in every sense of the word), I wrote poetry. Went to a ton of poetry reading clubs from around twelve on. I had a few published when I was very young. Did slams in Austin."

Her first real music experience was in college. She took a course called, "Rock Band Ensemble." "They put me in the lead singer spot in the beginners band. It was totally humiliating and great at the same time."

She played a bit in Austin as part of a "loud rock trio," came to Denver for a couple of months, and decided to stay. She started with local open mics. "I did the usual circuit: Mead Street, the Merc, etc. Someone saw me and asked me to play LILT (an all-women-fronted festival they were having a few years ago). From there, I met more people and played a lot more."

But she didn't find her musical style ("someone said I sound like Janis Joplin and Nick Drake's love child") until teaming up with her current band. "I had to strip down and start over. In one month, I wrote half of the material on here. I just hit a point and it started spewing out of me." What also helped was finding the right players. "Then I felt like I could put the movement into the songs because I had the instruments to back me."