Albums : Sharon Van Etten : Are We There

Listen To Sharon Van Etten : Are We There


Who is Sharon Van Etten?
Van Etten was born in Clinton, New Jersey the daughter of a computer programmer father, Stephen Van Etten, and a history teacher mother, Janice Van Etten. Van Etten is the middle of five children, an older brother, two sisters Jessica and Laura, and a younger brother Pete.

Growing up her parents had a "big vinyl collection. We would always listen to it. We went to shows all the time of their favourite musicians and my brothers and sisters and I would pretend we were in a band together."

Van Etten grew up in Nutley, New Jersey, where she lived at the corner of Prospect and Vreeland Streets, attending Yantacaw Elementary School. She sang in choir and studied clarinet and violin and piano. Van Etten started singing in church choir. "My mom brought me to church every Sunday, and, I'm not a very religious person, but that was the one plus to going. I really liked the feeling of a lot of people singing together. The reverberations felt really amazing at a young age, and I didn't really understand it yet."

Her family later moved to Clinton, New Jersey, where she attended North Hunterdon High School. Van Etten said that although she sang in choir starting from 6th grade, she didn't begin to take it more seriously until high school. She taught herself how to play guitar: "I started writing songs, I guess, in high school when I was learning how to play guitar." Van Etten credits choir with teaching her how to sing harmonies. In 6th grade she was part of choir called The Mini Singers. Van Etten said that "it was a bunch of kids singing pop songs. I really, really liked that. It was the first time I learned how to sing harmonies." Van Etten was part of the high school choir group, The Magicals, who performed a lot of classical pieces. Van Etten credits this training with how she learned how to write harmony.

She moved to Tennessee to attend Middle Tennessee State University and studied recording, but dropped out of college after a year. Van Etten ending up working at the Red Rose, a coffee and record shop and music venue in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for about five years. Van Etten said she was writing songs then, but did not perform publicly. Van Etten said the boyfriend she was with at the time wasn't very supportive of her so she had to hide the fact that she wrote songs because he didn't think she was good enough to perform in front of people. After six years of being told that "her music was terrible," Van Etten left the abusive relationship in the middle of the night and moved back to New Jersey to live with her parents. With their support, she said, "they took me under their wing and let me get my act back together."


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Albums : Ray Lamontagne : Supernova

Listen To Ray Lamontagne : Supernova


Who Is Ray Lamontagne?
Raymond "Ray" Charles Jack LaMontagne (/lɑːmɒnˈteɪn/; born June 18, 1973) is an American singer-songwriter. LaMontagne has released five studio albums, Trouble, Till the Sun Turns Black, Gossip in the Grain, God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise and Supernova. He was born in New Hampshire and was inspired to create music after hearing an album by Stephen Stills. Critics have compared LaMontagne's music to that of Otis Redding, The Band, Van Morrison, Nick Drake and Tim Buckley.

LaMontagne was born in Nashua, New Hampshire in 1973, one of six children raised by his mother. In his early teens he lived in Morgan, Utah and was more interested in drawing images of Dungeons & Dragons than in his school work. After graduating from high school, LaMontagne moved to Lewiston, Maine and found work in a shoe factory.

LaMontagne was inspired to quit his job and begin a career as a singer-songwriter after listening to Stephen Stills' album Manassas. LaMontagne began performing in 1999, while maintaining a part time job as a tutor. In the summer of 1999, he recorded 10 songs for a demo album that was sent to various local music venues including Maine's Oddfellow Theater, where he was hired as an opening act for John Gorka and Jonathan Edwards.

A business executive introduced LaMontagne to Chrysalis Music Publishing and in 2004 LaMontagne recorded the album Trouble with producer Ethan Johns and sold it to RCA Records in the USA and Echo Records in the UK. The album featured performances by Sara Watkins and Jennifer Stills, daughter of musician Stephen Stills. The album sold over 250,000 copies in the USA and 500,000 worldwide. During a 2005 tour, LaMontagne performed at the music festival, Austin City Limits.

An EP of LaMontagne's performance at the Bonnaroo Music Festival was released in 2005 and his song "All the Wild Horses" was part of the soundtrack for the TV series Rescue Me and the 2009 film The Boys Are Back. His song "Trouble" appeared in the TV series Alias and his song "Jolene" was heard in the credits of the 2010 film The Town. His song "Hold You in My Arms" was featured in the 2006 movie, She's The Man.

In 2005, he performed at two charity events, a New York City fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and at the "Warren Haynes Christmas Jam".

LaMontagne's second album, Till the Sun Turns Black, was released in August 2006 and featured horn and string sections on several of the songs with Rachael Yamagata providing additional vocals on the song "Barfly". The album peaked at #28 on the Billboard 200 album chart, selling 28,000 copies in its first week of release. The album spawned the single "Three More Days". In 2006 LaMontagne performed on The Tonight Show.

The song "Till the Sun Turns Black" was featured on the television show ER, and the songs "Lesson Learned" and "Within You" appeared on the CW drama One Tree Hill. His song "Be Here Now" was heard on the trailer for the movie Away From Her, in the film 27 Dresses, on the TV shows Bones, Covert Affairs and Brothers & Sisters. LaMontagne performed at KYSR's Lounge for Life charity concert on 5 October 2006 at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, California. He also auctioned off one of his guitars on eBay for its charity auction. Funds raised from the concert and auction went to breast cancer research.

LaMontagne released his third studio album, Gossip in the Grain, on RCA Records in 2008; it debuted at #3 on the Billboard charts with 60,000 units sold. Working again with producer Ethan Johns, the album featured LaMontagne's touring band of Jennifer Condos on bass, Eric Heywood on guitar, and Ethan Johns on drums and guest vocals from singer/songwriter Leona Naess.

The song "You Are the Best Thing" was featured in the movie I Love You, Man and in the television series One Tree Hill. LaMontagne performed on Saturday Night Live in March 2009. The songs "Sarah" and "I Still Care For You" appeared on the television series House. His song "Let it be Me" was featured on the television series Parenthood and was included on the Parenthood soundtrack in 2010. It was also used in an episode entitled "JJ" from the sixth season of Criminal Minds.

LaMontagne's self-produced studio album, God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise (Ray Lamontagne and the Pariah Dogs), was released in August 2010. In December 2010, LaMontagne received Grammy nominations and won the award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

In August 2010, he performed at a Nashville, Tennessee charity event to raise money for victims of a local flood. The song, "Empty", appeared on an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent in 2010 and was heard during the film credits for the movie The Conspirator. It also appeared in Tony Kaye's film Detachment in 2011, released in the US in 2012. LaMontagne performed on the program Live from Abbey Road in October 2006. The New England native was featured on VH1 Storytellers in 2011.

In 2011 LaMontagne sang a duet with Irish singer Lisa Hannigan, "O Sleep", which was featured on her Choice Music Award-nominated album Passenger.

LaMontagne will release his fifth studio album, Supernova, on 6 May 2014 via RCA Records. The album was produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and recorded at Auerbach's Nashville studio. The title track was made available for download on ITunes and Google Play Music on 25 February 2014.

LaMontagne has a unique vocal style, which he says is created by singing through his gut instead of through his nose. He cites Stephen Stills, Richard Manuel, and Rick Danko as strong musical influences while critics have compared LaMontagne's music to that of The Band, Van Morrison, Nick Drake, and Tim Buckley.

For his debut album, LaMontagne won four awards, including three Boston Music Awards (Best Male Singer/Songwriter, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year) and an XM Nation Music Award for Acoustic Rock Artist of the Year. LaMontagne has received a nomination from the Pollstar Concert Industry Awards for Best New Touring Artist, the BRIT Awards for International Breakthrough Act, the MOJO Awards for Best New Act, and was given the title of Best Voice in 2006 by Esquire.

In December 2010, LaMontagne received two Grammy nominations and won the award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

LaMontagne lives in a farmhouse in western Massachusetts with his wife and two children. Sarah Sousa is a published poet via red mountain press and his sons are budding artists. He refers to himself as a "very private person" and rarely gives interviews.

Supernova Review
Ray LaMontagne spends most of his latest album California dreamin’.

One song finds him driving aimlessly down the Pacific Coast Highway in search of a respite. Another sees him rolling past Beverly Hills with a rough gang from East Los Angeles. A third has him staring at a drive-in movie screen in the Midwest, pining for the coolest rebels of Hollywood.

The music, too, moons over the West Coast. It’s a nonstop acid flashback to two summery sounds of the ’60s — either the riot of the Sunset Strip when the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield ruled, or the haze of Haight-Ashbury when the Airplane and Quicksilver fuzzed through a stoked amalgam of psychedelic folk.

Oddly, LaMontagne nailed those sounds in Nashville, at a studio owned by someone well known for restoring rock ’n’ roll antiques: the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. Lately, that Grammy-winning producer has helped artists from Dr. John to Bombino recreate the quirks and fuzz tones of vintage rock.

Auerbach doesn’t have an automatic connection to LaMontagne’s style. True, the previous five albums by this highly internalized singer-songwriter drew on a classic rocker’s notion of folk and country. And he has an old soul star’s rasp. But never before has LaMontagne so willingly risked the dreaded term “retro.”

On “Supernova,” he risks it big time — with some problematic results. LaMontagne let Auerbach blur and overlay his vocals until many of them lose the immediacy and depth of his timbre. The singer owns one of the most richly textured growls in modern music. It’s the central part of what has made his previous albums gripping. Here, its often lost in a wash of backup “ahs” or a blur of fuzzed-up guitars. It sounds like everyone took a deep toke before they tuned up.

The approach does have a few advantages. The music rocks harder than LaMontagne’s usual fare, which normally draws you in through its slow burn. Even his previous album — the first he cut with a full band — rarely picked up the pace or found the singer raising his voice.

The new style also lets LaMontagne drape the melodies with richer ornamentation. That lends them multiple ways to catch the ear. Unfortunately, they’re mainly ways we’ve heard before. Many recall Beck’s cheekiest conceits.

Due to the depth of LaMontagne’s talent, any recording by him has automatic conviction and appeal. But Auerbach’s sound proves too defining, making the star seem like he’s trying to squeeze into another man’s clothes.


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Albums : Annbjørg Lien : Waltz With Me

Listen To Annbjørg Lien : Waltz With Me

Who Is Annbjørg Lien?

Lien began playing Hardanger at age 6. Growing up in a musical family in the district of Sunmore on Norway's west coast, she developed an early love of traditional Norwegian music. "Both of my parents loved and played folk music, so I grew up listening to the traditional styles," she says, "My dad played the Hardanger himself, so he was my teacher in the first years. It seemed like a natural thing at home, but in the area there was no tradition. I had to travel to meet people who had the same interests and we did a lot of that." She studied classical violin along with Hardanger, but gave up the former when it became too restricting. "I wanted to dive deeper into the music," she says, "I felt the two styles were kind of closing doors for each other, both technique-wise and how I experienced it by playing, so I stopped the classical and just went on with folk one hundred percent. But I'm very happy today that I had the classical together with the folk, for the technique and for the beauty of the classical music." This classical technique has also enabled her to solo with Norway's major symphony orchestras.

Making music her life's work was a foregone conclusion. "I've been asked before when did I decide to do this for a living, when did I decide to be a musician, and I never decided that. It was just suddenly there and there was no return."

She is equally at home in folk, jazz, New Age, and stadium-rock idioms. On one of her earliest albums, Annbjørg, she heads a group of Norwegian jazz artists. Subsequent works found her delving more deeply into the folk tradition. Kjellstadslåtter, for example, is a collection of tunes from her home district and she has won numerous national championships in traditional music.

In 1987, she and Arve Moen Bergset, Steinar Ofsdal, and Bjorn Ole Rasch formed the group Bukkene Bruse (Billy Goats Gruff). The group has toured the world, receiving rave reviews wherever they've played. In 1994, they had the double honor of playing for the closing ceremonies of the Lillehammer Olympics and winning a Norwegian Grammy. That same year, her solo work was introduced to North America on Shanachie's Sweet Sunny North compilation.

One of the projects that Lien finds most rewarding is Bukkene Bruse's work with the Norwegian relief organization Redd Barna (Save the Children Foundation.) In 1998, the group was appointed ambassadors for the organization. They made a trip to Mozambique to find out about Redd Barna's work there and to collaborate with local musicians. "We worked with children and they were dancing and singing, so natural," she reminisces, "We [in the North] think too much. Everything is planned; everything is decided. We are trapped by all of the things we have. What's important to us is valueless. They have nothing and they are happy and are dancing from day to day. I think everybody should take a trip like that once a year as a reminder. In a musical way, I was inspired by the freshness." Some of the children's singing can be heard on Lien's latest release Baba Yaga.

Between working with Bukkene Bruse, she has released several solo efforts. Baba Yaga and the tour in support of it were both made possible by a prestigious Norwegian culture grant that she received in 1998. She has an appreciation of the Norwegian government's healthy support of the arts: "I'm able to do concerts and tours because of that. It opens up some doors and you're able to make a living." The grant she received was the first to go to a folk musician. "That was a big victory for folk music in Norway, because it's always gone to rock music or classical or jazz."

Waltz With Me Review

It's been quite a while since the world at large heard anything from Norwegian fiddler Annbjørg Lien. This international lineup documents the work she wrote for the Telemark Festival, a series of pieces, both instrumentals and songs. Lien herself sticks to the hardanger fiddle, and the music has a curious mix of her native country with American old-time, where the accents are provided by Bruce Molsky. His playing is wonderful, although his singing doesn't compare with guest Kirsten Bråten Berg. There are wonderful interactions between the instruments, and a lot of the music takes unusual turns, as on "Masques" and "The Old Car," but never more so than on "Dancing the Years All Away," with its slightly lurching rhythm where the melody and the vocal lines almost pull away from each other in a mesmerizing fashion. It's not as obviously forward-looking as some of Lien's other work, and here she becomes part of the ensemble, not the star, but in its own quieter way, it's just as adventurous and satisfying.

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