Danielle Ponder

MASS MoCA

Danielle Ponder’s mesmerizing eight-song debut Some of Us Are Brave, three years in the making, was a leap of faith: she left her job in the public defender’s office in her hometown of Rochester, NY to bring it to life—and the world is glad she did. Her sound is a refreshingly original, shiver-inducing mix of pop, R&B, blues, rock, and moody trip-hop topped by Ponder’s celestial voice—an instrument that can plumb melancholy depths and scrape the sky with hurricane-force wails.