Bios
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Kim Richey: Long Way Back
“I started off that record scared to death,” Kim Richey recalls of making Glimmer with producer Hugh Padgham back in 1999 in New York and London. A disastrous haircut, unfamiliar musicians, and oversized budgets didn\’t help matters. “I think we spent the first couple of days getting sounds in the studio with all the musicians…
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Ordinary Elephant: Honest
“Keep kind all that rises from your chest to your tongue. Don’t ever let your words undo the work you’ve done,” sings Crystal Damore on “Worth the Weight,” a song that beats at the heart of Ordinary Elephant\’s potent new album, Honest. In the song, it\’s a two-line enjoinder from an adult to a kid.…
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Matthew Perryman Jones: The Waking Hours
\”One day I’ll know as I am known,” Matthew Perryman Jones sings in “Happy,” the opening track of his fantastic new album, The Waking Hours. The line is both a hopeful prayer and a knowing promise that tugs at the heartstrings of the song cycle: the idea of letting control go and giving ourselves over…
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Amy Ray
A lot of artists defy categorization. Some do so because they are tirelessly searching for the place they fit, while others are constantly chasing trends. Some, though, are genuinely exploring and expressing their myriad influences. Amy Ray belongs in the latter group. Pulling from every direction — Patty Griffin to Patti Smith, Big Star to…
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Kaia Kater: Grenades
“You know me. Ain’t you seen me before?” Kaia Kater asks in “The Heavenly Track,” off her new release, Grenades. She answers with, “I’m the comfort of the stranger in the writings on the stall.” The album is full of quietly explosive lines like that, details of life rendered with precision, purpose, and poetry. “I…
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Katie Herzig: Moment of Bliss
Katie Herzig’s new album, Moment of Bliss, starts with a simple question: “How do you talk about a feeling, when you don’t know where it lives inside?” With that satisfyingly simple dream-pop gem, Herzig invites you into a song cycle that asks you to feel something the whole way through. Fair warning: With this collection,…
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Will Dailey: Golden Walker
Songwriters, by their very nature, move through life not only from the inside out, but also from the outside in. They look and listen at the worlds within and around them, pulling it all in and pouring it all out in melody. The barriers between personal and political, fact and fiction, us and them do…
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Ben Glover: Shorebound
The opening cut of Ben Glover\’s Shorebound is unlike any others in his discography. With a steady acoustic strum keeping the song\’s pace, a sly slide guitar lays down a laid-back riff, and “What You Love Will Break Your Heart” casually swaggers on its way. That cut, and all that follow, are more multi-layered, so…
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Gretchen Peters: Dancing with the Beast
There\’s a bittersweet beauty to the passing of time — the changes it brings are just as often heartbreaking as they are heartwarming. The inevitable tension that arises from that sway is Gretchen Peters\’ most trusted muse. “The years go by like days. Sometimes the days go by like years. And I don\’t know which…
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The Orphan Brigade: Heart of the Cave
The opening strains of the Orphan Brigade\’s Heart of the Cave album feel ancient, sacred, and tribal. A drum beat. A shaker. A howling choir. Voices rise up in unison, chanting, \”We ain\’t leaving but a pile of bones. We ain\’t leaving no more.\” The story begins at the end because, no matter which road…