Zee Avi is just 23 but she’s an old soul. A huge talent in a petite frame bringing a universal message from the unlikely birthplace of Borneo, an ancient island east of Malaysia which remains an untouched, natural paradise, an apt description of her songs.

Born in the tiny town of Miri in Sarawak on the island of Borneo, Zee grew up near the South China Sea in a liberal, encouraging household where her father owned an energy consultancy. “I was bred to be a lawyer,” she says, but music was in her blood. Her father’s father sang and played double-bass, accordion, violin and guitar in bands.

With an eclectic pool of influences that range from such eccentrics as Cat Power, Regina Spektor, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Jolie Holland, Daniel Johnston and Chris Garneau, to jazz greats Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, to classics like Velvet Underground and Led Zeppelin, this self-described “rock lover at heart” captures the dark, bittersweet qualities of romance with a crack left open for hope and optimism.

The songs on Zee Avi’s debut are about an outsider’s desire to belong and the tentative hope of moving on, filled with regret and loss, but boasting an impish, worldly wise sensibility. “I tend to be a loner,” she nods. ” ‘Honey Bee’ is about a romance between two nonconformists who are different from the rest of the hive, and are trying to avoid the pressure to be like everybody else.”

This summer, Mishal’s flagship single, “Oh Lord”, comes out on Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez's new Ill Friction label via Itunes. They plan to release the complete album by fall, but are still sorting through hundreds of potential tracks! The creative marriage between Moore and Gonzalez is as smooth and organic as her videos. Formerly one half of the internationally-known Masters At Work production duo, Kenny is no stranger to dynamic collaboration, and has worked with and for some of the world's most polished performers of salsa, jazz, funk, and pop soul.

As you'll hear on "Oh Lord", Kenny's approach to production is the same Promethean approach which produced classic hits by the Moonglows, Aretha, the JBs, Joe Cuba, The Shangri-Las, and yes, even Lauryn Hill. It's an approach where capturing raw emotion, acoustic textures and ad-libs makes a song come alive.

So if this is your first taste of Mishal Moore, get ready for a very pleasant surprise. If you are already familiar with her iconoclastic brand of 21st Century pop, go back to her Youtube channel and click through some of her most recent uploads. If only the winners of American Idol could have controlled their media image so well! Then consider that this is an artist who counts Jiminy Cricket as a mentor and listens to Judy Garland and T.I. on the same Ipod. Mishal Moore wants and intends to astonish her listeners, only not with a pyrotechnic bang, but with a soulful whisper that reminds her listeners not to let racial stereotypes limit what they enjoy, think or do. Here we have a songwriter who believes there is power in singing about the simple things of life and that we should appreciate human history, but not let our obsession with history blind us to our magical present or our potentially marvelous future.

"Profound in a way that you've never heard. There's so much at work in all of these miraculous songs about some of the roots of evil and wonder. A man this enlightened might glow in the dark." - Sean Moeller / Daytrotter