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InRadio 6: kicks in the schoolyard To hear these and other great artists, order now. kranky records  clear horizon is the culmination of two years of tape trading across the Atlantic between Jessica Bailiff and David Pearce. Jessica Bailiff has released three albums on kranky, with the most recent self-titled album being her most confident, detailed and well-received yet. David Pearce is an accomplished and influential musician who lives in England. Suffused with folky textures and bleached white noise (often simultaneously), the clear horizon album collects the band's first formative recordings. Both Bailiff and Pearce contribute vocals and guitar, with piano, various effects and occasional percussive elements entering into the mix as well. Although the resulting nine songs do embody some of each member's trademark sounds; something strange, interesting and new seems to have developed in their fusion here as clear horizon. clear horizon is a continuing project, and the duo have already spent time together in England writing and recording music for their second album.Danny Barnes Terminus Records  Barnes' new solo record, Dirt on the Angel, is a sonic passport throughout the diverse ports of American music. It is an ambitious project that celebrates Barnes' ethic of adventure with dignity. The journey runs from dramatic turn-of-the-century instrumentals to a rhythmic Oscar Brown, Jr. inspired tribute to baseball outfielder Trinidad Hubbard to an improvisational jam on the Beck hit "Loser." Prior to moving to Port Hadlock, Washington, in the shadows of the Olympic National Forest, Barnes had lived in the Austin, Texas area for 35 years where he was a founding member of the Bad Livers (a highly acclaimed trio who combined elements of bluegrass, hard country and old time music with the energy of punk). He understands the power of separation that worked for Hemingway. "Where I live now, nobody has any interest in what I'm doing and nobody cares," he says. "And it's perfect that way. I live by the water. I got my (single-engine airplane) pilot's license three years ago. I have a small sailboat. I like to fish and shoot guns and things."The Bigger Lovers Yep Roc Records  After earning the respect of pop fans and press with the dead-on harmonies and unerring melodic sense displayed on their first two releases, The Bigger Lovers returned to Philly last year to record their third disc, This Affair Never Happened... and Here Are 11 Songs About It. These guys have an obvious reverence for the Ghosts of Pop Past, yet manage to inject their carefully crafted songs with enough crunch and grit to hold their own with the best of the contemporary pop underground. Not content to tread water, stylistically, the new cd features everything you've come to expect from The Bigger Lovers and then some: soaring vocals overlaid with tight harmonies, explosive power chords and choruses that make you reach for the "repeat" button on your CD player. Lyrically smart and musically exuberant, This Affair Never Happened... establishes The Bigger Lovers as one of the best purveyors of pop rock going.Now It's Overhead Saddle Creek Records  Now It's Overhead was born in Athens, GA. Sometime in the late nineties. Sometime in the middle of the night. Andy LeMaster spent two years of dark downtime at his studio (Chase Park Transduction) creating a sketchbook of songs that became the first Now It's Overhead record. To complete his sketches, Andy called on the help of drummer Clay Leverett and Azure Ray's Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor. The studio project became a full-time band. Their new release, "Fall Back Open", marks another two years of sleepless nights and another step forward. At once celebratory, frustrated, and heartbreaking, the new record is diverse without being stylistically inconsistent. From dark, beat-driven sensuality to bright, country-tinged melodies, the band's epic tones and distinctive vocals provide threads of unity that run throughout. The talents of the band are augmented by guest vocals from Michael Stipe and Conor Oberst. When Andy isn't crafting the dark, melodic pop of NIO, he's touring and recording with Bright Eyes, working at his studio in Athens with bands like Azure Ray and REM, or finding the occasional hour or two to sleep.Nina Nastasia Touch and Go Records  InRadio is proud to bring listeners a track from Run to Ruin, Nina Nastasia's latest release. Here's what one critic had to say about her most recent work:"When Nina Nastasia's latest record groans into view, it sets you up to expect the gloomiest entry in an already dark catalog: the mourning strings and her opening line "We never talk about the things we witnessed"-- suggest an album detailing the rural nightmare so many (urban) art-folk songwriters dwell in, where the men are monsters, the women are widows and the graveyards are above average...But just when the album's ready to fall prey to cliches, it turns into something far more intimate and complex-- moodier, yet more subtle than her previous outings...The strings grind and weave...while (drummer) Jim White of Dirty Three (InRadio 3)...intuitively balances timekeeping with colors that sputter like rain on soil...The emotions flare and subside, and so do the styles that Nastasia switches between...More than anything, she demonstrates a new expressiveness: her singing at an even keel, but around the edges you can hear her start to let go. Like an anti-diva, Nastasia inches through her feelings instead of flaunting them." -- Chris Dahlen Sekou Sundiata Righteous Babe Records  "Sekou's music comes from so many places it is impossible to name them all. But I wager that if we could trace their common origin, we'd arrive at the headwaters of the soul."-- Bill Moyers "Music is reference, source, resource, and inspiration to me as a writer and performer," says Sekou Sundiata. "In fact, it's damn near impossible to understand what contemporary black poets are doing without understanding what's going on with black music and its relationship to black speech and black literature. My work is grounded in African-American culture, necessarily including African-American music." Indeed, the Harlem-born poet's words reach their full power when spoken aloud, and his live concerts and albums are rich with the sounds of blues, funk, jazz, and African and Afro-Caribbean percussion. In the words of critic Greg Tate writing in The Village Voice, "This brother is the conduit through which the direct lineage of Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Gil-Scott Heron, and the Last Poets shall be maintained. Here is a writer with the bluesy poetic grasp, historical insight, and populist spirit to reach the bourgeois, seminar the politically correct, and still rock the boulevard." Long live rhythm n' news! Kris Delmhorst Signature Sounds  When Kris Delmhorst started picking out chords on a guitar just six years ago, no one could have known she was stumbling onto a path that would lead her to the top of a generation of young songwriters. Nominated for six Boston Music Awards and winner of the 2001 Telluride Troubadour Competition, Kris, enormous creative reach, transcendent lyrics, and the ability to truly connect with an audience have established her as an artist with everything she needs for a long and illustrious musical journey. A triple threat fiddler, songwriter, and guitarist, The Boston Globe deemed Kris "a significant new folk-pop voice who combines alluring, rootsy melodies with the intimacy of the urban songwriter."Dollar Store Bloodshot Records  "Dollar Store stir up a rootsy bar-band boogie that occasionally drifts into downtrodden common-man balladry; if the Jayhawks and Wilco stayed up real late getting ripped on cheap wine and bashing out Gram Parsons songs, it would sound something like this."-- Steve English Splendid-zine Plying the choppy sonic waves between the best aspects of the insurgent country ghetto and the vaunted Chicago noise guitar scene is Dollar Store's gritty, self-titled debut CD. Deano and the boys take bluegrass and country chord progressions and slathers them with textures, volume, and loose, angular noise to make them thick and greasy in the finest rock and roll tradition. The songs are full of characters staggering through a world that has let them down; they are pounded down by work, abandoned by the world of mainstream music, and robbed of dignity by the government, and they play them like the stage is on fire. P.S. Mueller  P.S. Mueller has been drawing and selling cartoons continuously since he was a teenager in the late sixties. He is very bald and has been so since he was in his middle twenties. His cartoons have appeared in dozens of alternative and mainstream publications including The New Yorker. Utne, The Chicago Reader, Barron's, the Wall Street Journal, and Field and Stream. In recent years Mueller has assumed a second identity as news anchor Doyle Redland and can be heard five days a week on various radio stations throughout the U.S. and Canada as he loudly pronounces the Onion Radio News. Though Mueller is not a political cartoonist per se, he does reserve the right to comment on the declining culture in which he lives. He hopes you like what you see and welcomes correspondence. InRadio is proud to bring listeners an exclusive recording from a new Mueller endeavor: a short story from "Your Belief System is Shot", out this October from Jones Books. The Rosebuds Merge Records  The Rosebuds are an energetic power-pop trio from Merge Records' backyard of Raleigh, North Carolina. Their embrace of classic pop formula (big, rousing choruses, twitchy keyboards and bouncing drums) makes them an addictive outfit. Nowhere will you find even the slightest indication of a disdain-soaked smirk beneath the hooks and grinning vocals. And while that earnestness might seem unbearable on paper, it is nothing short of engaging in action. Their aptly titled debut, Make Out, incites the same kind of giggly, brainless exhilaration that goes along with actually making out-- and appropriately, it's just thirty-five minutes long. The Rosebuds provide the title track for InRadio 6: kicks in the schoolyard. Bio Ritmo  "We're lactose intolerant", says Giustino Riccio, timbalero for Bio Ritmo. "We are very averse to cheesy salsa..." You know the monotonous formula: the matching silk shirt/suits (usually tacky), the same cover tunes (consisting mostly of the latest Latin pop hits, whatever they may be), and enough glitz and show to wow the most innocent bystander. "Turn on a Latin pop station and you hear the same kind of lyrics over and over: casual romance, inconsequential subject matter. Anything just to make a hit that won't make people think too hard," explains Bio Ritmo lead singer Rei Alvarez. And this is exactly what Bio Ritmo sets out not to produce on its new, self-titled, self-released CD. Instead, they strive to capture the general aesthetic concept of salsa clasica, but with a welcome, modern injection of soul and rock. "Ever since the salsa romantica of the '80's, the pop-ifying and watering down of the music has just gotten worse," continues Alvarez. "The Golden Age is gone. We're not pioneering a new music or anything amazing like that, but I think we're doing a nice job at writing new, original material in the classic style we love so much." Gwendolyn  "Magical in both voice and appearance, Gwendolyn plays her acoustic six- string like a magician's wand. Enchanting listeners with a voice as clear as glass and as soft as a feather pillow, she weaves tales that possess shimmering charm and timelessness."-- LA Weekly A captivating songsmith, Gwendolyn's music is playful, poignant yet oddly magical. On stage, her visual appearance is much the same. Adorning her hair with ribbons and draped in unusual and colorful vintage gowns, Gwendolyn is not your average indie rocker playing local rock clubs. The LA Weekly described her performance, "like a Renaissance Fair being held on Mars" and named her the "Best New Genre/ Uncatagorizable Artist of 2003" at the LA Music Awards. Whether she's performing solo or with her band, Gwendolyn delights in leading her audience through a musical experience they will remember and a world they'll want to revisit. Vienna Teng Virt Records  With her graceful melodies and evocative lyrics, pianist and singer/songwriter Vienna Teng has garnered critical acclaim and a rapidly growing legion of fans throughout the world. Needless to say, it has been an abrupt shift from her cubicle days as a computer programmer for Cisco Systems -- a job she left in 2002 to pursue her musical career full time. The evolution from hobby to full-time job happened gradually, as an appreciative audience began forming around the music she created while in college, where she graduated in 2000 with a degree in Computer Science. Her first "concerts" were impromptu events, consisting of curious students gathering around the dorm lounge piano as she played and sang. Bootleg tapes and MP3s of rough recordings circulated around campus. People started asking when the CD was coming out, which led Vienna to record her first record, Waking Hour, when she wasn't attending class or studying. InRadio brings listeners a track from Vienna's new release, Warm Strangers, a diverse collection of lush, melodic songs, fully integrating Vienna's classical background and folk sensibilities within a pop framework. Warsaw Village Band World Village Records  The sheep-herding mountaineers of Poland used a style of singing called "bialy glos" or "white voice;" a type of powerful, melodic screaming used to communicate across long distances. The Warsaw Village Band revives this musical style on their new CD, People's Spring. The band-which emerged in 1997-simultaneously conserves traditional music and experiments with modern instrumentation and subject matter. Rooted in punk music, yet traveling the countryside to document and preserve classic folk traditions, the Warsaw Village Band has created a new genre called "hardcore folk". Their youthful but mature take on Poland's roots music has allowed them to introduce this tradition to audiences at home and around the world, and has made new listeners take a fresh look at the once forgotten sound of Poland.Old Crow Medicine Show Nettwerk America  InRadio is proud to bring listeners a track from Old Crow Medicine Show, a band with an amazing story and an even better new record. After rambling town-to-town across Canada in a van, playing for food and shelter, they settled for a year in the mountains of North Carolina. It was there that their knowledge of old-time string band music blossomed and their loyalty to one another deepened. There as well, they enjoyed their most storied lightning strike of good fortune. While playing in front of a pharmacy in Boone, a woman approached and asked if they'd be there for awhile. She wanted to fetch her father to hear them. Dad turned out to be folk icon and flatpicking pioneer Doc Watson, who expressed his delight by inviting the band to play Merlefest, his four day congress of acoustic and roots music. It's been a whirlwind ever since, and after several self-released records, they've been picked up by a label and are poised to bring their music to the masses.The Junkman (Donald Knaack)  Donald Knaack (aka The Junkman) travels to the beat of a different drummer. As a conservatory-trained percussionist who has been a member of the Louisville Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic and a studio percussionist and drummer in the studios of Hollywood, he now exclusively composes-for and performs-on junk and recycled materials. Called Junk Music, it's impossible to categorize and worldwide audiences are recognizing it as eye-opening, provocative and entirely new. The Junkman also constructs Junk Music Playstations, which are sound sculptures made exclusively from junk and recycled materials and has mounted major projects for the Boston Millennium Project (through First Night Boston) as well as the White House Millennium Project in 2000. Throughout the summer of 2002 there is an interactive exhibition of The Junkman's Playstations at The Children's Museum in Boston, MA. InRadio brings listeners a track performed on wood dowels, 55 gal. plastic drum, metal plates, bass guitar strings strung onto a maple slat, thin metal thunder sheets, metal brake drums, mail box, stainless steel milk bucket, metal light fixture, heat sink, and more.You can also read about the artists featured on: |