Sharon Van Etten

Sharon Van Etten’s Remind Me Tomorrow comes four years after Are We There, and reckons with the life that gets lived when you put off the small and inevitable maintenance in favor of something more present. Throughout Remind Me Tomorrow, Sharon Van Etten veers towards the driving, dark glimmer moods that have illuminated the edges of her music and pursues them full force. With curling low vocals and brave intimacy, Remind Me Tomorrow is an ambitious album that provokes our most sensitive impulses: reckless affections, spirited nurturing, and tender courage.”I wrote this record while going to school, pregnant, after taking the OA audition,” says Van Etten. “I met Katherine Dieckmann while I was in school and writing for her film. She’s a true New Yorker who has lived in her rent controlled west village apartment for over 30 years. Her husband lives across the hall. They raised two kids this way. When I expressed concern about raising a child as an artist in New York City, she said ‘you’re going to be fine. Your kids are going to be fucking fine. If you have the right partner, you’ll figure it out together.’” Van Etten goes on, “I want to be a mom, a singer, an actress, go to school, but yeah, I have a stain on my shirt, oatmeal in my hair and I feel like a mess, but I’m here. Doing it. This record is about pursuing your passions.” The reality is Remind Me Tomorrow was written in stolen time: in scraps of hours wedged between myriad endeavors — Van Etten guest-starred in The OA, and brought her music onstage in David Lynch’s revival of Twin Peaks. Off-screen, she wrote her first score for Katherine Dieckmann’s movie Strange Weather and the closing title song for Tig Notaro’s show Tig. She goes on, “The album title makes me giggle. It occurred to me one night when I, on autopilot, clicked ‘remind me tomorrow’ on the update window that pops up all the time on my computer. I hadn’t updated in months! And it’s the simplest of tasks!”The songs on Remind Me Tomorrow have been transported from Van Etten’s original demos through John Congleton’s arrangement. Congleton helped flip the signature Sharon Van Etten ratio, making the album more energetic-upbeat than minimal-meditative. “I was feeling overwhelmed. I couldn’t let go of my recordings – I needed to step back and work with a producer.” She continues, “I tracked two songs as a trial run with John [Jupiter 4 and Memorial Day]. I gave him Suicide, Portishead, and Nick Cave’s Skeleton Tree as references and he got excited. I knew we had to work together. It gave me the perspective I needed. It’s going to be challenging for people in a good way.” The songs are as resonating as ever, the themes are still an honest and subtle approach to love and longing, but Congleton has plucked out new idiosyncrasies from Van Etten’s sound.For Remind Me Tomorrow, Van Etten put down the guitar. When she was writing the score for Strange Weather her reference was Ry Cooder, so she was playing her guitar constantly and getting either bored or getting writer’s block. At the time, she was sharing a studio space with someone who had a synthesizer and an organ, and she wrote on piano at home, so she naturally gravitated to keys when not working on the score – to clear her mind. Remind Me Tomorrow shows this magnetism towards new instruments: piano keys that churn, deep drones, distinctive sharp drums.Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube

Del Amitri

Attention Patrons,Due to the increase of the Delta Variant and the danger it poses, we are writing to let you know that starting October 1st, 2021, in additional to masks, proof of vaccination will be required for all attendees of in-person performances at the ArtsCenter.This was a difficult decision to make, however given the risks that the new variant poses to the health of the community, we believe this organizational mandate is the most sensible measure for the safety of the community.Almost two decades on from their last album, Del Amitri easily remember the good old days, when a Glasgow indie band “who never really cut it as Orange Juice and Josef K copyists, which is kinda what we were” became, in effect, overnight successes.Suddenly, after a still-born first album (1985’s Del Amitri), with 1989’s Waking Hours, hit single ‘Nothing Ever Happens’ propelled them to sharing a Top of the Pops stage with Phil Collins, then in the imperial phase of his solo career, newcomer Sinead O’Connor singing ‘Nothing Compares 2 U,’ and the premier of Public Enemy’s ‘Welcome to the Terrordome’ video.Two years later, Del Amitri were still regulars on the nation’s favourite chart show. Promoting 1992 hit ‘Always The Last to Know,’ the band appeared on an episode alongside an En Vogue video (‘My Lovin’), Shakespears Sister (‘I Don’t Care’) and, performing smash US hit ‘Jump,’ adolescent rap duo Kriss Kross, they of the backwards-jeans.”I remember hearing their manager shouting at someone from the BBC,” says guitarist Iain Harvie, “complaining about the sound: ‘Even that fucking Scottish rock band sound better than my guys!'”Del Amitri also remember the other side of the good old days. That happens when being successful enough to bag a stadium support with one of the biggest bands in the world isn’t quite enough success to insulate you from the indignity of a breakfast TV outside-broadcast from Blackpool and being upstaged by a dancing omelette.”We did a gig with REM in Cardiff Arms Park, third on the bill with Belly and The Cranberries,” begins singer/guitarist Justin Currie. “And REM were mingling round the catering area after and invited us to their aftershow. We’re like: ‘Oh yes! We’re going to get to party with REM!'”Alas…”Oh no — we had to get on the bus at midnight, drive through the night to Blackpool, sit outside the beach on the tour bus, waiting on the 5.30am call-time, then got put in a Portakabin, ignored for three hours. What the fuck are we doing here? We could still be partying with REM!”Then at three minutes to nine, Danni Minogue comes in and yells at us to get onstage! So we get up there — as the credits are rolling — and it’s chaos. There’s a Nolan Sister, all these kids waving inflatable toys, us miming, in front of a dancing chicken and egg — I still don’t know who came on first — waving kitchen utensils. Then Frank Carson comes on just as we’re about to down tools. He spots how pissed off I was, so starts dancing behind me, occasionally leaning into my ear going: ‘You’re a wanker! You’re a wanker!'””It was a travesty,” Harvie laughs ruefully. “But at least our tour manager enjoyed it — he was at the side of the stage, pissing himself laughing.”Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube

Superchunk

Like every record Superchunk has made over the last thirty-some years, Wild Loneliness is unskippably excellent and infectious. It’s a blend of stripped-down and lush, electric and acoustic, highs and lows, and I love it all. On Wild Loneliness I hear echoes of Come Pick Me Up, Here’s to Shutting Up, and Majesty Shredding. After the (ahem, completely justifiable) anger of What a Time to Be Alive, this new record is less about what we’ve lost in these harrowing times and more about what we have to be thankful for. (I know something about gratitude. I’ve been a huge Superchunk fan since the 1990s, around the same time I first found my way to poetry, so the fact that I’m writing these words feels like a minor miracle.)On Wild Loneliness, it feels like the band is refocusing on possibility, and possibility is built into the songs themselves, in the sweet surprises tucked inside them. I say all the time that what makes a good poem—the “secret ingredient”—is surprise. Perhaps the same is true of songs. Like when the sax comes in on the title track, played by Wye Oak’s Andy Stack, adding a completely new texture to the song. Or when Owen Pallett’s strings come in on “This Night.” But my favorite surprise on Wild Loneliness is when the harmonies of Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley of Teenage Fanclub kick in on “Endless Summer.” It’s as perfect a pop song as you’ll ever hear—sweet, bright, flat-out gorgeous—and yet it grapples with the depressing reality of climate change: “Is this the year the leaves don’t lose their color / and hummingbirds, they don’t come back to hover / I don’t mean to be a giant bummer but / I’m not ready / for an endless summer, no / I’m not ready for an endless summer.” I love how the music acts as a kind of counterweight to the lyrics.Because of COVID, Mac, Laura, Jim, and Jon each recorded separately, but a silver lining is that this method made other long-distance contributions possible, from R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Sharon Van Etten, Franklin Bruno, and Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura, among others. Some of the songs for the record were written before the pandemic hit, but others, like “Wild Loneliness,” were written from and about isolation.I’ve been thinking of songs as memory machines. Every time we play a record, we remember when we heard it before, and where we were, and who we were. Music crystallizes memories so well: listening to “Detroit Has a Skyline,” suddenly I’m shout-singing along with it at a show in Detroit twenty years ago; listening to “Overflows,” I’m transported back to whisper- singing a slowed-down version of it to my young son, that year it was his most-requested lullaby.Wild Loneliness is becoming part of my life, part of my memories, too. And it will be part of yours. I can picture people in 20, 50, or 100 years listening to this record and marveling at what these artists created together—beauty, possibility, surprise—during this alarming (and alarmingly isolated) time. But why wait? Let’s marvel now.—Maggie SmithLinks: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Sierra Ferrell

With her spellbinding voice and time-bending sensibilities, Sierra Ferrell makes music that’s as fantastically vagabond as the artist herself. Growing up in small-town West Virginia, the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist left home in her early 20s to journey across the country with a troupe of nomadic musicians, playing everywhere from truck stops to alleyways to freight-train boxcars speeding down the railroad tracks. After years of living in her van and busking on the streets of New Orleans and Seattle, she moved to Nashville and soon landed a deal with Rounder Records on the strength of her magnetic live show. Now, on her highly anticipated label debut Long Time Coming, Ferrell shares a dozen songs beautifully unbound by genre or era, instantly transporting her audience to an infinitely more enchanted world.Co-produced by Stu Hibberd and 10-time Grammy Award-winner Gary Paczosa (Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, Gillian Welch), Long Time Coming embodies a delicate eclecticism fitting for a musician who utterly defies categorization. “I want my music to be like my mind is — all over the place,” says Ferrell, who recorded the album at Southern Ground and Minutia studios in Nashville. “I listen to everything from bluegrass to techno to goth metal, and it all inspires me in different ways that I try to incorporate into my songs and make people really feel something.” In sculpting the album’s chameleonic sound, Ferrell joined forces with a knockout lineup of guest musicians (including Jerry Douglas, Tim O’Brien, Chris Scruggs, Sarah Jarosz, Billy Strings, and Dennis Crouch), adding entirely new texture to each of her gracefully crafted and undeniably heartfelt songs.Sprung from her self-described “country heart but a jazz mind,” Long Time Coming opens on the unearthly reverie of “The Sea,” a haunting and hypnotic tale of scorned love. Its bewitching arrangement is adorned with sublime details like Ferrell’s tender toy-piano melodies and Scruggs’s woozy steel-guitar work. In a striking sonic shift emblematic of the whole album, Ferrell then veers into the galloping beat and classic bluegrass storytelling of “Jeremiah,” a heavy-hearted but sweetly hopeful romp featuring Jarosz on banjo and octave mandolin. Another impossibly charming bluegrass gem, “Bells of Every Chapel” sustains that wistful mood as Ferrell muses on the exquisite pain of “loving someone unconditionally with all your heart, but they don’t receive your love the way you want them to.” Graced with Strings’s nimble acoustic-guitar work and the heavenly harmonies of O’Brien and Julie Lee, “Bells of Every Chapel” reaches its breathtaking crescendo as Ferrell belts out the song’s closing lyrics, effectively twisting that heartache into something strangely glorious.One of the most enthralling moments on Long Time Coming, “Far Away Across the Sea” finds Ferrell serenading her tragically distant beloved, channeling the track’s ardent longing in wildly cascading guitar lines and the fiery trumpet work of Nadje Noordhuis. “Since I’m singing about the ocean in that song, I wanted it to have a calypso vibe — but then there’s also a bit of a tango feel to it, and some Spanish influence too,” Ferrell points out.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok

Secret Monkey Weekend CD Release Party

Secret Monkey Weekend – All the Time in the WorldFull disclosure: I play keyboards on All the Time in the World, and I have known the principals in this story since I moved back to North Carolina in 2006. If that disqualifies me, so be it. Read this anyway. – Peter Holsapple There are bands that start up, which are most of them. Friends from school, in a garage, in every city on the globe. Then there are bands that grow from beyond the realm of music–a job or maybe a family. Or maybe, as in the case of Secret Monkey Weekend, it’s a combination of the two, and the band’s organic development into unique recording artists is evident on their debut album All the Time in the World, released on Secret Monkey Records, March 18, 2022 and produced by Don Dixon (producer of R.E.M., Smithereens, etc.).Ella Brown Hart, Jefferson Hart and Lila Brown Hart are Secret Monkey Weekend.Jeff’s guitar and songwriting skill made starting a group with his adopted daughters Ella and Lila Brown a natural—he’s been a driving force in Americana music in North Carolina since the 1980s. When he married Laura in 2015, he also began giving her two young daughters instrument lessons, giving rise to a brand-new rock band, Secret Monkey Weekend. Lila follows in her late father Matt Brown’s path on drums and vocals, and Ella holds down the electric bass as her rhythm section partner.Live, they cut a confident profile, locked together musically like a jigsaw puzzle. They’ve played every gig they can, from school carnivals in North Carolina to pubs in England. Along the way, they’ve written some very cool tunes. Secret Monkey Weekend songs are smart, simple and summery, with great grooves like “Honey Num” that feel cozy and familiar, or maybe a tune like “Maybelle” that moves your feet before you know it.Guests like Jeffrey Dean Foster on guitar, Paul Messenger on harp and Tim Smith on Hammond and piano join in, but the star turns are by Lila, Ella and Jeff to be sure. Make no mistake: this is a BAND record. In seven years together, SMW’s focus has been to become ready to record an album, and so they’ve become tight, intense and proficient, and have created All the Time in the World, the solid and sterling debut album by Secret Monkey Weekend. — Peter Holsapple (The dB’s, Continental Drifters)Durham NC, November 2021Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

Knuckle Puck

Simon Dunson Quartet Album Release Show

Simon Dunson is one of the most interesting and versatile mandolinists of his generation. His virtuosity, unique lyrical style and compelling compositional voice all combine to create a new exciting sound that throws the mandolin into unknown territory.“Simon is the only mandolin player I’ve ever heard who sounds like he’s really playing Jazz. He’s one in a million!” – John McNeil“Simon is a thoughtful, listening, and aware mandolin player whose music includes the quality of searching for something deeper that connects the listener to the line as it unfolds.” – Bert Seager“Simon has absorbed the world of jazz phrasing and feel so deeply, and transmits that sound so satisfyingly on the mandolin, with more joy and ease than I previously knew was possible. He is as good an argument for the mandolin as a jazz instrument as there as yet been.” – Joe K. WalshA native to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Simon grew up immersed in bluegrass music playing with people like, Andrew Marlin, Emily Frantz, Jon Stickley, Bobby Britt, Hank Smith and Joseph Terrell. Looking to try something new, Simon auditioned and was the first mandolin major to be admitted into Interlochen Arts Academy where he studied classical mandolin repertoire and techniques. During this time, Simon discovered a great love and passion for jazz music and following his graduation Simon came to Boston to attend New England Conservatory as the first mandolin player admitted into their Jazz department. During his time at NEC Simon has been fortunate enough to be able to study with people like Jerry Bergonzi, John McNeil, Brad Shepik & Mark Zaleski. Simon is also a part of numerous musical projects including a progressive duo project Paper Waiter, which explores original music derived from genres such as jazz, western swing and indie rock. Simon exercises his compositional voice in more traditional jazz settings playing original music with his quartet and trio. His distinct compositional voice gained him acceptance into Banff’s Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music in the spring of 2020. Recording and production are also a huge passion of Simon’s and a recent collaboration with Roop Ghuman on Ghuman’s composition “Shaami Mildi” was featured in Rollingstone magazine. Simon also regularly freelances with various bluegrass bands and maintains an active role performing classical music including recent performances of George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children (featuring soprano, Laura Osgood Brown), Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet (NEC Philharmonia), and Carol Barnett’s, A Bluegrass Mass (NEC Concert Choir, The Salisbury Singers). Although Currently studying at NEC Simon frequently returns home to North Carolina where he spends his time teaching, volunteering and facilitating Pinecone run youth music camps and jams as well as serving as a band coach and mentor for the youth band, the Carolina Pinecones. In the fall of 2018 Simon placed 2nd in the National Mandolin Championship. Simon also is an active educator, teaching private lessons in person and over Skype.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

Yonder Mountain String Band

With its latest album, “Get Yourself Outside,” Colorado-based quintet Yonder Mountain String Band once again echoes out into the universe its place as not only a pioneering jam-grass act, but also one of the most innovative, intricate groups in the live music scene — something the groundbreaking ensemble has proudly held high for the better part of a quarter-century.“The whole thing has always been about the energy and the connection with all of us onstage and everyone out in the audience,” says guitarist Adam Aijala. “And with this third iteration of Yonder Mountain, we’re really tapping into that onstage connection once again.”This “third chapter” of YMSB is one of many facets. Aside from the obvious nature of the new album, it’s a complete restart for the live music industry — slowly reawakening itself after a year and a half of radio silence during the early stages of the pandemic. Internally, it’s also a fresh start for the group in welcoming its newest member, mandolinist Nick Piccininni.“Nick is an incredibly talented multi-instrumentalist. He’s also a great singer with a magnetic stage presence,” Aijala says. “And he’s in such a creative space right now, something that has brought a whole new vibe and dynamic to the band. But, at the same time, it’s such a natural fit, where he hits that sweet spot of the Yonder Mountain sound we’ve come to be known for.”Recorded during the shutdown at Cinder Sound Studio (Gunbarrel, Colorado) and co-produced with engineer John McVey, “Get Yourself Outside” (Frog Pad Records) is a musical odyssey of string instruments and sonic textures.“We want the listener to get outside of your own head, get outside the box or container that you’ve created around yourself — look outside and see what else is out there,” says bassist Ben Kaufmann.What started out as back-and-forth online interactions between the band members soon shifted into Yonder Mountain entering Cinder Sound after several months apart — this genuine, intrinsic urge within each musician to capture the unique chemistry and magic of playing live in the studio.“We knew we had to take greater advantage of our time off the road. So, we started to collaborate and realized we had all of these songs,” Kaufmann says. “It was kind of a trick to figure out how to get together and record safely. But, we’re glad that we did and what came from it.”“Some of the song ideas were older. But, a lot of the ideas happened during the pandemic,” Aijala adds. “It was interesting, because Nick had a bunch of ideas that emerged from the pandemic and he’s heavily featured on the record.”There’s the usual foot-stomping jingles and sorrowful ballads that reside at the core of the Yonder Mountain signature tone. But, there’s also a deep, honest sense of renewal and rejuvenation running through the heart of the record.“This album was a learning experience for the band, from bringing Nick in to navigating the shutdown as a nationally touring band to working on new material,” Kaufmann says. “There’s a blessing to this life to be able to play music for a living, and ‘Get Yourself Outside’ is a testament to that, which is why it’s been such a joy to finally play these songs live.”Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

49 Winchester

Alt-country soul from the heart of Appalachia in Russell County, VA. 49 Winchester delivers the poetically straightforward songs of singer/guitarist Isaac Gibson in a soulful electric live show. Rock & roll with roots planted firmly in the traditions of mountain music. Since making their start in the months after high school in late 2013, the band has made a name for themselves as warriors of the road, self releasing three studio albums and commanding audiences far & wide.“When you listen to Isaac Gibson’s evocative voice, it’s hard to imagine him in any other job. Not to say that he wouldn’t be a good actuary, but you realize that’s not where his real talent lies. His voice is filled with the ache that has fueled countless songs, and it was made to fill dark honky tonks where people want to dance. Beyond that, he has a way of telling a story that makes you pay attention to every word.” – Glide Magazine“In many ways, 49 Winchester, the nom de plume of singer/songwriter/guitarist Isaac Gibson, could be considered your stereotypical gruff and gritty homegrown troubadour. Over the course of the past six years, Gibson and his compatriots have made it a point to keep to the basics, be it a blazing combination of drive and defiance, or tears-in-their-beers balladry flush with seething emotion. That’s especially true on the band’s latest outing III, a confident collection that gives voice to the band’s pure, unfettered intents.”- American SongwriterBand members:Isaac Gibson – Vocals/GuitarBus Shelton – Lead GuitarChase Chafin – BassNoah Patrick – Steel GuitarDon Eanes – Piano/OrganDillon Cridlin – DrumsLinks: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify

MAN ON MAN

Two bodies dancing hot in the New York City winter before being pushed inside for the rest of 2020. Two hearts that, in the span of 6 months, faced the loss of both of their mothers, the matriarchs that bore them to this planet full of wonder. They held on tight to the beauty of living, together. With this shared language and the confines of quarantine they lost and loved even harder. Battling packed boxes and lost jobs, the two celebrated their tragic journey with broad shoulders forcing power chords and the harmonized chants of utter release. They huddled together for the future while leaking their hearts into pop melodies that collide effortlessly with both a shared melancholy and simultaneous hope.MAN ON MAN (also M.O.M.) is a new gay lover band made up of Joey Holman (HOLMAN) and Roddy Bottum (Faith No More, Imperial Teen, CRICKETS, Nastie Band). Their upcoming self-titled record, MAN ON MAN, is infused with indie-rock distortion and soaked in gay pop confidence while still maintaining the acerbic and pure sense of humor they both share. M.O.M.‘s music videos take their magical collaboration to another level with otherworldly cinematographic dimension, and of course, the subversive playfulness of two gay lovers unmistakably flirting with their audience and each other. Upon the release of their debut single, “Daddy”, their video (chock full of the pair dancing seductively in their white briefs) was removed from YouTube for violating their “sex and nudity policy.” At this moment, the band solidified their political visibility as queer artists who are not ok with being silenced or removed from history because of their age or size. Bottum told Rolling Stone, “There’s enough representation in the gay community of young, hairless pretty men.” Roddy and Joey’s love for each other and their own bodies, histories, and truths are what make this project so tender and lovable.MAN ON MAN’s music transcends both genre or decade, creating a timeless appeal for so many kinds of listening. The varied influences and textures of the record are a meditation on the myriad of emotions of lockdown, as well as this particular moment in their own lives, collectively and independently. The shoegaze whirlpools of “Stohner” transition into the square wave synths of “1983” with ease, while tracks like “It’s So Fun (To Be Gay)” open us up to a new type of queer anthem for the 2020s.It is hard not to be captivated with MAN ON MAN’s story, as they pass through pandemic lockdowns in a rented pickup truck. Through hotels, rest stops, mountaintops, desert mirages, back roads, beaches, and hospital rooms, the layering of space and time allows us to grasp onto each moment individually and together as a whole. When we fall into their world (which was self-produced with mix support by Grammy-award winning producer Carlos de la Garza [M83, Paramore, Jimmy Eat World] and Mike Vernon Davis [Foxing, Great Grandpa]), we witness MAN ON MAN’s deep intensity of falling in love while mourning, and the epic collaboration of two lovers that traverse the map of a COVID road trip.Links: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube

Genre: Miscellaneous