InRadio's Featured Artists

Here are some of the groundbreaking artists you can expect to hear on InRadio's premiere issue. Though they're brilliant, don't hold your breath waiting to catch them on mainstream commercial radio. To hear these and other great artists, order now.

Corey Harris
"To me, the blues is the blueprint. You can go from that blueprint and build whatever house you want...." - Corey Harris

Corey Harris is a new generation roots artist with a raw, up-to-the-minute sound that remains unflinchingly true to the spirit of his sources. With a vision that weaves together blues from the American South, guitar figures from Mali and soukous rhythms from the Congo, Corey has found an authentic modern voice for the blues. Corey and his band, 5x5, take you on a journey to the spiritual heart of African-American roots music. "[By] trying to figure out what's inside of me musically and the heritage that I've got, I can better live with others." From the blueprint of the blues, Harris has made a world big enough for his own huge imagination, and also for all of us.
Rounder Records

Alix Olson
"Alix brought me to my feet. She is an ingenious poet, a brilliant performer, a funny person and a serious thinker. She is, quite simply, extraordinary." - Howard Zinn

Alix Olson was a member of the 1998 Nuyorican Poets Cafe National Championship Slam Team, as well as winner of the 1999 OutWrite National Slam. Since then, she has been a touring folk poet and spoken word artist, performing nationally and internationally at hundreds of colleges, clubs and festivals. InRadio is proud to bring listeners a hilarious yet hard-hitting selection from "Built Like That", Alix's debut CD.

Jim Roll
"Wouldn't it be nice to see writers and musicians getting along again as equals? Writers could finally have groupies, and rock stars could finally have intellectual credibility. The conversation would improve backstage, and the drugs would improve on the book tour." - Neal Pollack, from the "Inhabiting the Ball" liner notes.

With three tracks penned by Rick Moody (The Ice Storm) and five more written by Denis Johnson (Jesus' Son), Jim Roll's "Inhabiting the Ball" is an exciting step in the rediscovery of the relationship between musicians and creators of literature. Armed with a serious sense of humor, an occasional "funk accordion" and folk, rock and alt-country credentials, Jim Roll is a truly undervalued treasure.
Telegraph Records

Andrew Bird
"[A] lush and rollicking ride through the orchestral pop, sweaty rhythm and blues, Appalachian fiddle romp, searing soul, and bombastic garage-band ruckus of the rock and roll era." - Boston Phoenix

Though Andrew Bird's vintage mixture of pre-war jazz, sizzling ragtime and speakeasy blues has excited audiences around the country, his ambitions stray far to the left of the traditional swing chart. Underneath the surface his early recordings is a bubbling sense of high-reaching melody that has finally started to fully blossom. InRadio is excited to present listeners with a gorgeous piece from Andrew's newest work, Weather Systems, slated for a spring 2003 release.
Grimsey Records

Gregory Whitehead
Gregory Whitehead is a playwright and audio artist who crafts words and sounds in thoughtful and provocative ways. His work is funny, challenging and sometimes sheer genius. He has produced more than 100 radio features, plays, essay and live-to-air performances that have been broadcast on public radio, the BBC, Radio France, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and many others.

Apparat Organ Quartet
"This experimental sound is adding an invigorating sparkle to pop music that's been missing for far too long." - Marco Werman, PBS Frontline World

Apparat Organ Quartet is a vital component of an ongoing musical renaissance in Iceland. In an effort to bring electronic music out of the fringe and into everyday life, the band recently struck a deal with a local supermarket to play their music over the public address system while band members serve drinks and hand out questionnaires. Needless to say, the only known organ quartet, living or dead, pushes musical boundaries while maintaining a dry sense of humor.
Thule Musik

Torrez
"i didn't think anything good ever came out of new hampshire other than fireworks and no sales tax. then i heard torrez." - calamityproject.com

Seemingly out of nowhere (known as Portsmouth, New Hampshire to some) comes Torrez, a band that captures the desolation and majesty of the port towns with their darkened barns and lonesome by-ways. Without the security of an established music scene, they've managed to create something rare: a sensuous, somber record that manages to hover just above despair, drawing the listener deeper into its lovely and haunting world with every listen.
Kimchee Records

Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band
"Norway is the new France." - NME

Welcome to the city of Bergen, situated comfortably between the base of the mountains and the feet of the fjords on Norway's picturesque west coast. A traditional haven for tourists and fishing, and known in more recent times as Scandinavia's most exciting and underground musical Mecca. This is the home of Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band, artists directing the future of downtempo. No samples, just blissful breaks and odd beats performed with grandeur by one of the most inspired live acts around. InRadio is happy to bring listeners an advance track from the band's premiere full-length release, due out in late May.
Emperor Norton Records

Michael Toms
He is New Dimensions' Co-Founder and Co-President, Executive Producer, and Host. For almost three decades, Michael Toms has been engaging in dialogue with the worlds' leading-edge thinkers, social architects, creative artists, scientists and spiritual teachers. Called "the Socrates of radio," he is acknowledged by guests and listeners alike as one of the premier interviewers in media today.

Nyck Jeans
For three years Nyck and his family have been living in New York, moving from idyllic Byron Bay in NSW, Australia to the eye of the cyclone. Living though September 11th and the following changes in American domestic and foreign policy, Nyck has been observing and writing about US culture since he arrived, and in the last few months has developed the successful "Letter from New York" broadcast weekly to Australia.

Low
"The one thing we know for sure about the modern world is that everything keeps getting faster. Even the speed at which everything keeps getting faster keeps getting faster. And then there's Low." - Mark Edwards, The Sunday Times (UK)

Hailing from Duluth, Minnesota, on the southwest shore of Lake Superior, Low creates music stripped to its bare essentials: slow tempos, quiet voices, powerful lyrics, and minimal instrumentations. While subtlety is in short supply on commercial radio, Low favors tone, delivery, texture, and the relationship between sounds and silence over bombastic angst or capitulations of volume or rhythm. Low has developed a strong following with songs in which the spaces between notes are as important as the notes themselves.
Kranky Records

Scott Carrier
Scott Carrier has spent almost two decades working in sound. His work has appeared in "All things Considered" and "This American Life." In addition, "Carrier has been writing for Esquire since the late 1990s, from various far-flung locations referred to simply as 'really fucked-up places.' These and other pieces see him traveling to Cambodia before and after the fall of the Khmer Rouge; to war-torn Kashmir, shelled from either side daily by Pakistan and India; and from Salt Lake City to New York and back again, hitchhiking, in two days," wrote Christopher Kemp in Salon.com.

Lo'Jo
"[Lo'Jo's lyrics] dive into who we are, how we came to be and what we lost and found along the way. The big issues, ancestry, identity, brotherhood, nature and creation are just like birdsong on [Lo'Jo's] lips, full of colour and enchantment." - Writer Andy Morgan

Since 1982, more than 300 musicians, dancers, circus artists, street performers, painters and pyrotechnicians have contributed to French troubador "triban' Lo'Jo's distinct sound and growing international appeal. Although the band started with traditional Western instruments, the stew of international styles in their most recent release stand like signposts pointing toward Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, North African, West African, English, Gypsy, Caribbean and French influences.
World Village

Aaron Ximm
"The world makes its own music, but we rarely listen with naive ears," Aaron writes on his website www.quietamerican.org. He manipulates the sounds he hears and records. Currently he is working with material gathered during his nine-month honeymoon in Asia, from which he returned at the beginning August, 2001. During the trip he recorded in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Burma (Myanmar), Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, and Japan.

Mark Mallman
"Mark Mallman can craft heavily produced pop songs and blow you mind, or just sit down at a piano and craft sparse numbers that make you want to curl up next to a fire and have him sing to you, the ultimate comfort zone." - Alex Steinenger, In Music We Trust

"Minneapolis marathon man Mark Mallman once played a show for 26 straight hours, sacrificing his voice in the process for the ensuing three months. If the pure pop bliss that is showcased on his most recent releases is any indication of what that performance entailed, then it was perhaps one of the greatest days ever cycled through. His music speaks for every mood; from the revved-up cocaine holler of confidence to the misery of your broken heart in a broken car down on your broken luck." - Ben Schulman, Action Man Magazine

You can also read about the artists featured on other discs by going out our Past CDs page.