Thao Nguyen is the hetero-indie dudes’ dream girl: an adorable multi-instrumentalist who wears her heart on her sleeve yet is secretly really sad (but not too sad to dance). What makes Nguyen an even better catch is that she flies past the whole Jenny-Lewis-bunny-like-adorableness and straight into Ani DiFranco-intensity, with darker-than-Feist throaty vocals.

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Nguyen is radiant—almost spilling into you as she plays, a glorious mess of hair, skin and technicolor dress—and a particularly young front row cooed approvingly up at her as she played. Though she’s only 24, her lyrics dispense an amazing amount of truth and wisdom and walloping wit—songs so sharply observed that it’s almost as if she’s telling your future. Her voice seems to slip through the octaves, as if she’s splitting every syllable in her lyrics, and live it’s like watching bubbles fill up a bathtub. When she performs, it’s raw interaction between elements, and as the sound of her words hit you, you’ll see stars.

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