OUTscene Special
Whitney Mongé has a big, beautiful voice accompanied by the warmest, smoothest acoustic guitar I’ve heard in years. Her album Heartbeat is like a breath of fresh air in the Pacific Northwest. I first heard her performing live at the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle and was so impressed I bought her album on the spot. Inside her guitar case is a cardboard sign that says “Art is sharing love with strangers” and Mongé clearly puts her heart and soul into her music. She began singing and playing guitar as a teenager, but intended to pursue a career behind-the-scenes when she attended the Art Institute of Seattle for audio engineering. A year into her training she began performing live but her education came in handy as she was able to write, perform, produce, record, mix and master her own album.
Heartbeat opens with the song Good Things, Mongé’s voice clear and melodic, and maybe the most folk-oriented song on the album, reminiscent of Tracy Chapman. Mongé describes her style of music as pop/soul and we definitely hear the soul come out in a raspy and somewhat ethereal Serenity, her lyrics “I know just what is mine/and I refuse to see the lines/shame is the game/but it’s who I’m supposed to be/and I identify the claim/just for some serenity, serenity, serenity” embedded into one’s brain after escaping into this song.
