InRadio 4.6 Moments In Movement, March/April 2007

To hear these and other great artists, order now.

Laura Gibson
Hush Records
Small town Oregon native, Laura Gibson, daughter of a forest ranger and a kindergarten teacher has shown that it does not take a vast musical repertoire to create a fantastic record. If You Come To Greet Me, released on Portland's Hush Records last November, is one of the most beautiful records of 2006. Adam Seltzer and other members of Norfolk and Western offered their musical and production skill to help create a delicate album that calmly surrounds you for its 37 minutes. It is not all slow and fragile as can be seen in 'hands in pockets' and 'small town parade', the banjo picking and slide guitar on the latter adds a nice upbeat subtlety to the song. The album ends with 'the longest day' where she leaves the listener with, 'so when did I become the serious and solemn one? So when does life feel like the longest day, love tends to leave you tired when you go and feel every moment, so go on call out my bluff, pretend you never won me over.' It does not seem so much as sad but realistic, leaving the listener waiting to see what will happen next, when the winter ends and spring begins. I know that I at least will not think twice to buy her next album.

Land Of Talk
MapleMusic Recordings
On guitar, Elizabeth Powell fronts Montreal-based Land Of Talk with Bucky Wheaton on the drums and Chris McCarron playing the bass. Liz has been playing music since she was 14. She released her first EP Belle Époque before heading off to study music at Concordia University in Montreal. The Music program was too constricting for her and she left to play music on her own terms. Soon after she met Bucky and Land of Talk was born, Chris joined some time later to complete the threesome. Their debut EP Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss released in Canada last year on Maple Music, will be released in the US on March 20th via The Rebel Group. They have been getting lots of love from the music bloggers and this is what stereogum has to say about them, 'The three-piece is led by Lizzie Powell's piercing, pristine voice, sailing over fuzzy guitar riffs, suspended chordal tones and the band's chunky grooves...stripped of layered arrangements, blending immediately appealing vocals, bass-drum atmospherics, and chordal complexity. And the hooks! They won't leave you.'

Macromantics
Kill Rock Stars
That's right, you're listening to a hip-hop album from InRadio favorite Kill Rock Stars, the featured label for 4.6. Australian word weaver and rap artist Macromantics packs plentiful punches with her rap songs. Discovering hip-hop on a trip the US while backing Ben Lee's teen band Noise Addict when she was fifteen, Macro has been honing her MC skills for years. Moments In Movement, released in January, is the debut album from this Aussie rapper, and she and her DJ Amy will be traveling around the states in support of it this fall. The album is extremely eclectic, with two guest appearances from Australian punk rock band, Ground Components and US MC Sage Francis. Moments In Movement ambitiously weaves different beats and styles together quite nicely for a debut.

Matt & Kim
I Heart Comix
If you've heard about Matt & Kim you've heard how great their live show is. This is true, they genuinely love to play music together and for people and the energy and happiness that they exude makes it nearly impossible for people in the audience not to dance around and enjoy themselves too. The self-titled debut album from the Brooklyn housed duo is short, sweet, and simple. Matt plays the synthesizer, Kim plays the drum kit, that's it and it sounds good. They've been touring like crazy back and forth across the country and have been making fans for themselves everywhere they go, if they come through your city I highly recommend that you go.

Julie Doiron
Jagjaguwar Records
The Jagjaguwar website has summed this album up better than I could: We all are driven to doing certain things and making certain decisions in our lives for any number of reasons, be it ambition, fear, greed or love. The last purpose is perhaps the most identifiable to most of us, and so it is no great mystery that that which drives us can both reward us immensely and plummet us into the greatest depths of inconsolable sadness and regret. On Julie Doiron's first album of new material in over two years, she addresses in her signature intimate songwriting style both the heights and the fallout in a way that forces the listener to reexamine their own loves. One of the most important and greatest loves in Julie's life is that towards her family. The first half of Woke Myself Up details the joy and awe that her family has given her. The second half sees Julie making mistakes, blowing second chances, and coming to terms with the sad truth that one cannot live up to expectations set by herself or those she loves. Woke Myself Up finds Julie's old band mates from Eric's Trip making musical and studio contributions, facilitating the intensely vulnerable and emotionally raw tone of the album.

Roma Di Luna
Self-Released
Roma di Luna is an acoustic duo whose music recalls early 20th century folk and country set to modern times. As husband and wife, Alexei and Channy Moon Casselle co-write songs that are plaintive, sometimes dark yet 'hauntingly soothing' noted for 'simple instrumentation along with piercing, emotively beautiful vocals.' The songs are presented in a stark manner, keeping them true to the influence of Americana roots. Lyrics soaked with confessions and hard truths pay homage to the storytellers and spiritual revelations of the folk and gospel tradition. This short debut is a gem all the way through, Channy's violin playing coupled with Alexei's guitar work sounds lovely, and her singing drones on until you can feel it in the pit of your stomach.

Six Parts Seven
Suicide Squeeze
Six Parts Seven, Kent Ohio's six-piece band, has just released their sixth full-length album. Most of their music is instrumental and is built primarily by combining single-note melodic lines, rather than strummed chords. 'The thing about Six Parts Seven is we're fans of music rather than musicians first,' explains guitarist/bassist/arranger Allen Karpinski, who - alongside his drumming brother Jay Karpinski, guitarist Tim Gerak and bass guitarist Mike Tolan - makes up the musical core of 6P7. 'None of us are trained or anything like that; this band has always been a work in progress and over time we've just gotten better at assimilating all the things we love into the music.' Abstractly drawing from mid-90's Touch and Go Records roster, the band have thoroughly recontextualized their influences to create something wholly unique with Casually Smashed To Pieces.

Haley Bonar
Afternoon Records
Haley Bonar hails from Rapid City, South Dakota and currently resides in St. Paul, MN. Haley's music is versatile and subtle, swinging from melodic and full, to hushed and sublime. It is passionate, intimate and urgent. It is clear that she takes great care and pride in the precision and accuracy of her songwriting. She recorded her first album Haley Bryn Bonar in 2001 before moving to Duluth, Minn. to attend college. While there, Duluth native Alan Sparhawk (Low) heard her at a show and promptly added her to his US tours and released The Size of Planets on his indie label, Chairkicker's Union. Bonar will appear on Andrew Bird's upcoming record, slated for 2007 release. Her latest album, Lure The Fox, was the first released on Afternoon Records, and has earned her some acclaim throughout the music world. Helping her make the album was Chris Morrissey on bass and Dave King on the drums.

Chris Garneau
Absolutely Kosher
I was introduced to Chris Garneau at the Absolutely Kosher showcase during CMJ and it was one of the best sets I saw all week. Chris played the piano and was backed by an upright bass player, cello player, and a drummer, there were some other instruments involved but I can't remember them now. I had my fingers crossed that the album was going to be as good as his set was and I was not disappointed. Music For Tourists, the debut for the 24 year old is pretty solid the whole way through. It's quiet and honest and sad, but it also has hope or rather it does not leave you hopeless. This is exemplified by the last track on the album 'between the bars', a song by an artist that I will guess influenced Garneau. The Elliott Smith cover works because he makes it his own without straying too far, he gives the song optimism.

Women & Children
Narnack Records
Paralyzed Dance Tonight, Women & Children's new full length, bounces freely across the world. With 18 glorious tracks, it showcases a wide variety of folk-pop panorama. The cracked fable core of 'My Bad' is smoothed in slowed and syrupy breakfast rhythms while 'Virginia's Creepers' bares a hop up/hop down piano punch ala Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The bursts of fiddle-stringed backdrops in 'Ugly' give the record a balanced layer of crushed southern-velvet romp and the upbeat, situational rock of 'Born TP' throws an early winter flow of bracing spice spiked up a notch. The album definitely reminds the mind of The Velvet Underground's legendary sessions with Nico; vibes rich in park life and partly cloudy journal entries.

Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter
Barsuk Records
'My life is going by at an insane speed - as lives tend to do. I've been here just long enough to have almost forgotten where it is I really came from, or maybe it's that I've been here long enough to have learned how to let go of 'that' constant longing for where I came from. I've started to love people I once disliked or even thought I hated, and I have stopped loving some that I thought I could never be free of. All that said, there is still a long way to go and I am just so grateful to be here -- and grateful to be creating music with the people I hold dearest to my heart. The past has been magical, but all I've really been thinking about for the last year and a half is our latest record Like, Love, Lust & The Open Halls of the Soul. We were trying to capture some pretty ephemeral stuff on this album -- love and fragile human emotion, the 21st century's strange combination of swagger and vulnerability -- and the feeling of a tight knit group of friends coming together and sharing music. We are very much looking forward to spending the next year on the road and seeing the people and places that we've been missing, and hoping that, at least for some people out there, this new album is (or becomes) a companion of sorts, just like it's been for me and the band for the last several months.' Jesse Sykes

Nathan
Nettwerk
On their third album, Key Principles, Keri, Shelley, Devin, and Damon the foursome that make up Winnipeg based Nathan, demonstrate their evolving sound. For Key Principles Nathan wanted to uproot their rootsy sound a bit. To that end, they enlisted producer Howard Redekopp (New Pornographers, Tegan & Sara), who introduced an expansive sonic palette that helped the band navigate the line between their two-steppin' tendencies and their pure pop passion. The banjos are balanced with horns; the twang is tempered with a little theremin and the cantering rhythms are accented by handclaps. Key Principles will be out on March 20th on the artist friendly label Nettwerk Records.

Frida Hyvönen
Secretly Canadian
Until Death Comes is Frida's debut album, released in her native Sweden in 2005 by Licking Fingers and picked up by Secretly Canadian for an October 2006 U.S. release. She has also just released another album on Licking Fingers / Rough Trade entitled: Frida Hyvönen Gives You: Music From The Dance Performance PUDEL part one of a two part 'Frida Hyv&ouiml;nen gives you' series. The music on this album was originally written for the dance performance Pudel. Until Death Comes ranges quite a bit, at points she's yelling along with trumpets and at points she's whispering along with her piano. The heterogeneity of the album keeps the listener on their feet, forcing them to pay attention to her on every track, which isn't a bad thing.

Lee "Scratch" Perry
Narnack Records
InRadio is extremely honored to feature Lee Perry, a living legend in the world of reggae. Some call him a genius, others claim he's certifiably insane, a madman. Truth is, he's both, but more importantly, Lee Perry is a towering figure in reggae -- a producer, mixologist, and songwriter who, along with King Tubby, helped shape the sound of dub and made reggae music such a powerful part of the pop music world. Along with producing some of the most influential acts (Bob Marley & the Wailers and the Congos to name but two) in reggae history, Perry's approach to production and dub mixing was breathtakingly innovative and audacious -- no one else sounds like him -- and while many claim that King Tubby invented dub, there are just as many who would argue that no one experimented with it or took it further than did Lee Perry. Panic in Babylon is the latest from 70 year old Perry, it's filled with long songs, deep sounds, and catchy beats and we can all thank Narnack Records for bringing it to us.

Ouija Radio
Crustacean Records
The three-piece Minneapolis rock band made up of Christy, Chaz and Helz, has been provoking flashbacks from audience members across the country. Adam describes his Ouija Radio experience as, 'It seemed to me as if the Seattle based, 70's super group Heart had overdosed on brown acid and bad mescaline, slipped through a worm hole, plummeted face down towards the earth and landed square on a lance, 30 years into the future, only to crash through the roof of Pittsburgh's Bloomfield Bridge Tavern on a cool, October night in 2005, disrupting the calm of a post-industrial super state. They sent us home with silver streaks in our hair, on tip-toe, our tails wagging high and happy, every worry and concern bludgeoned by an audio assault so crippling we lost our keys and forgot our first names.' They've just released Oh no... Yes! Yes! on Crustacean Records where they power their way through an extensive range of sound and influences, from surf to punk to new wave to cabaret, with even a liberal amount of thick sludgy psychedelic rock dropped in for good measure.

Birds & Batteries
Self-Released
In the fall of 2005, Mike Sempert moved to San Francisco from Boston, immediately after completing an 18-song demo called, Nature vs. Nature. He took a job at the legendary Hotel Utah Saloon, doing live sound, seeing it as an opportunity to scout talent. That's where he met B&B drummer, Brian Michelson, who was playing there one night and B&B SF was born. The two started adapting the material from the demos to a live show, with laptop as a crucial tool for executing the synth programming and drum machines. Adding Neil Thompson of Low Red Land on pedal steel guitar, B&B found the right combination of sounds and textures that well-reflected Mike's recordings, but also took them to a new level in a live setting. Birds & Batteries has since become a well-soiled machine, with dozens of shows in the Bay Area, a west coast tour and a national tour under their belt. Before leaving on their first national tour (with friends, Low Red Land), B&B pressed a new version of their first recordings, called Selections From. . .Nature vs. Nature. Since their return from that tour, B&B has been working on a new album from sessions recorded at John Vanderslice's Tiny Telephone in SF. Tentatively titled, I'll Never Sleep Again, the new record is due in March and will include on vocals, Daniela from Snowblink.


The Submarines
Nettwerk
The Submarines, Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti, released their debut album Declare A New State earlier this year on Nettwerk Records. A parallel journey of two songwriters going through the same heart-braking experience, Declare A New State resulted from Hazard and Dragonetti's break-up. They wrote songs, each in their own place, about their dismay and unhappiness without the other. Their songs said things they hadn't said in person, and when they heard them together it all made sense. The album is about breaking up and the lyrics are sad, but its overall feeling is happy because in the end they got back together. More recently, acclaimed artists such as Imogen Heep's, Morgan Page, gave their tracks new sound on their newly completed, The Submarines Remix Project.

Hello Saferide
Razzia Records
Behind stage name Hello Saferide (inspired by an intelligent bus driver in a drug addicted small town) is songwriter Annika Norlin. She'd been writing songs for most of her life, never aspiring for anyone else to hear them, when she recorded the song 'Highschool Stalker', about a young girl stalking her crush. 'Highschool Stalker' was an instant Internet hit with all of your favorite twee elements: handclaps, a Shangri-Las ask-and-tell chorus, a scrunched-up trumpet, and a weak guitar. She released her debut album, Introducing...Hello Saferide, in late September 2005, to a massive critical acclaim. 'The strength of this album is that there are no weaknesses', wrote one reviewer, while others stated this was the debut of the year - or the diary of their lives. In 2006 she released, Would You Let Me Play This EP Ten Times A Day, an EP that has continued to garner her attention for its diary like honest lyrics.