Show Some Leg

For five years, Joanie Mendenhall and Angela Correa have written songs together — a strange composition, considering Mendenhall is a classically trained pianist living in San Diego while Correa is a self-taught singer-songwriter living in L.A. “The type of music we do, none of that matters,” writes Mendenhall in a September 14 email. “It’s just an intuitive process, and I love the way we communicate musically.”

Since forming their jazzy acoustic-folk band the Low Standards in 2006, the pair have released one EP, Show Some Leg, which came out in early 2007. Correa and Mendenhall have decided to put the band on hiatus to focus on individual projects. “After a while it became really difficult to sustain a band together since we live in different cities,” Mendenhall says.

And while no longer playing as the Low Standards together, Mendenhall and Correa’s collaboration continues. They have appeared on each other’s solo records, traveled together to Austin for South by Southwest twice, and have played dozens of live shows in each other’s bands throughout Southern California. “We’ll often bounce new songs and recordings off each other very early in the process,” writes Mendenhall. “Recently, I played in her band for the release of her latest album, Spark. Burn. Fade. Next month, I’ll play keyboards in her band for her Monday-night residency at the Echo [in Los Angeles].”

For Mendenhall, it’s become a working musical consortium: “Our working together has lasted all these years for a lot of reasons,” she adds. “For one we are great friends, but I think we have a certain musical chemistry that keeps us coming back to the well.”