(09 August 2009) The nomadic journey and sojourn of Toronto singer songrwiter Lindi Ortega has led to the Ron Lopata-produced four-track The Drifter EP (Cherrytree Records (USA), 2009). On the heels of two full length self-released LPs--The Taste of Forbidden Fruit (2002) and Fall From Grace (2006) and a 2008 self-titled EP, the Cherrytree/Interscope release is the world's four-song introduction to this remarkably exceptionaltalent.

"There's a little bit of loneliness to a number of mysongs," admits Lindi, a sultry Mexican Canadian beauty, blessed with the most angelic voice this side of Emmylou Harris with a tinge of Katie Melua. "Because I feel I know it well through the experiences that I've been through, and also because I'm an only child, I want to speak to thataudience and convey to them musically that I understand what it feels like. But I also want to reassure them that it's okay to be different and to feel like that; to be your ownperson and do your own thing."

With one foot in the outsider troubadour camp best exemplified by Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Leonard Cohen, and another in the old school country integrity of DollyParton, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash, Lindi Ortega fuses both these influences with gifted observation on her first single, "Dying Of Another Broken Heart."

"I don’t believe in fairytales/I don’t believe in fate/ I don’t believe I’ll ever find my very own soulmate / So take me to the hospital in my terminal state/ I’m dying of another brokenheart," warbles Lindi in her anthem for the jilted. But it’s an anthem underscored with the smirk of a silver lining. "I've gone through a number of my own heartbreaks, and I’d justbeen slammed with another," explains Lindi, who also counts Cat Power, Ray Lamontagne and Jeff Buckley among her chief inspirations. "I was tired of crying aboutit all the time, so I thought I would take a different approach and sort of make a satire of it. Maybe if heartbreak was a little melodramatic and satirical like that, people might not feelso bad about it."

Lindi Ortega's knack for narrative imagery can be heard on "All My Friends," a spirited acoustic number that finds her personifying numerous vices and vocalizing some poignant irony. "All My Friends" is a little bit of a Johnny Cash inspired number. The compelling and reality-challenged "Black Fly" and the itinerant "Drifter" round out on appetite-whetting The Drifter, the EP is a precursor to a full length Lindi Ortega CD due this autumn. The four songs offer a slice-of-life-honesty that is as organic as Lindi’s self-evolvedtalent.

Raised in a Toronto suburb near a nuclear power plant as the only child of a Mexican father and Northern Irish mother, Lindi discovered music through osmosis. "My father was a bass player in a Latino band that backed up different singers," Lindi recalls. "I must have been only four or five years old, watching him play on stage with these beautiful Latina women. I was mesmerized."

Surprisingly, Lindi didn’t pick up a guitar until she was 16. "My Dad had bought my Mom this old classical guitar to teach her how to play, but she wasn’t interested, so he hung iton the wall like an ornament," she chuckles. "One day I asked him if I could play it, and he taught me a 'C' chord. I just wanted to learn three chords; because I knew once Ilearned them I could make a song from there. "I ended up teaching myself the rest through a book and watching peoples' hands on MuchMusic."

Encouraged by a classmate, Lindi found her public voice auditioning for a high school talent show. "The fact that people clapped for me was amazing and gave me this rush.I just wanted to do it again." Branching out into the Toronto club scene, Lindi performed at such venerable landmarks as The El Mocambo and The Free Times Café. ProducerRon Lopata eventually discovered her MySpace site, and a partnership was born.

Since signing to Cherrytree, Lindi Ortega has played SXSW, performed in the UK and North America and opened for James Blunt, Ray Davies and Noah and The Whale.Although it won’t be long until the striking singer and songwriter makes thousands of new friends through her evocative slice-of-life sonnets, Lindi Ortega says it's important to reserve the alone time that fuels her creativity. "I need that alone time because I've had it my whole life. I need it to regenerate. It helps me to write the songs that I write. It's necessary for me, to be reflective." And the muse of that reflection -- The Drifter EP -- is an exciting harbinger of things to come.