At the age of 21, Heather Maloney began her musical career performing as a jazz singer alongside Grammy nominee Hui Cox in Manhattan. Her varied musical interests over the years (Joni Mitchell, Bobby McFerrin, Billy Holiday, The Beatles, Phillip Glass, Ravi Shankhar) began to shape a sound that would become distinctly her own. After studying classical operatic vocals, classical Indian and jazz, she booked it up to the woods of Massachusetts to focus on her growing interest in meditation. Heather has been living at a meditation retreat center for the past two years, where her current album, Cozy Razor's Edge, has slowly brewed in her solitude - a compilation of folk/indie/pop-rock songs directly affected by her experiences in meditation.
Featured Track: "Let It Ache"
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"I was sitting a week long silent meditation retreat and my heart was aching. For a couple of days I was coming up with a number of stories as to why it was aching. Then came a moment when I said to myself, 'Oh this is just heartache. I can be with this. I don't need to figure it out to make it go away.' This song serves as a reminder that suffering and pain is part of the human experience and it's OK. Not only is it OK, it's fertile ground to grow from." (Heather)
Josh Garrels has spent the past seven years moving around the country while recording his own albums in spare bedrooms, space heated garages and old attics. He experiments with a unique fusion of folk, breakbeats, and soul music by layering elements of electronic sampling and organic accompaniment. Lost Animals, Josh's latest album of B-sides, collaborations and singles, comes off the heels of 2008's critically acclaimed Jacaranda, which Paste Magazine chief editor Andy Whitman calls "quietly uplifting, sorrowful, real, and transcendently hopeful music."
Featured Track: "All Creatures"
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"'All Creatures' derives it's chorus from an old hymn written by St. Francis of Assisi. He had found a deep connection with nature in relation to God, as he would address 'brother sun, and sister moon' while communing with the birds and animals of fields. Much like St Francis, I've found serenity in worshipping the Creator of all things by delighting myself in his creation. Yet at the same time, when I see the perversion, destruction, and exploitation of his creatures, great and small, I find myself lifting up a cry for mercy, justice, and redemption of all things.' (Josh)
LIGHTS is the name of the "sparkling, otherworldly electro-pop" singer-songwriter who has been making a splash on the Warped Tour as well as with her debut full-length album, The Listening (Warner Brothers). She has been highlighted as buzz-worthy by Rolling Stone magazine, calling her a "retro new wave... keytar-rocking pixie."
Light's song "Saviour" caught RockOm's attention as a tune about calling out to something bigger than yourself.
Featured Track: "Saviour"
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"'Saviour' is a big example of taking one of those really dark emotional situations and turning it into something positive. I just happened to get hit with a really dark sad night. The melody started coming together and the words started pouring out. I was crying when I wrote the first line of the chorus and it actually sounds kind of like crying. It's a really, really powerful song for me." (Lights)
Haale (as in halle-lujah or jalepeno), is a Bronx-born woman of Iranian descent whose name means the 'halo around the moon.' Her "Psychedelic Sufi Trance Rock" songs are trance-inducing, rhythmically propulsive, and lyrically engaging tapestries that draws on both Persian mystical (including the works of Rumi) and American psychedelic musical traditions.
Haale's 2008 album No Ceiling got a slew of press and made the Boston Globe, Jambase, and Red Alert Top Album Lists of 2008. For more on Haale and to hear samples from her critically-acclaimed album be sure to visit her website and iTunes page.
Featured Track: "Off Duty Fortune Teller"
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Lyrics Excerpt: Off duty fortune teller sitting by the side of the river / She got no beads, no crystal ball, and no umbrella / 'Cause she needs nothing but what's inside / She sees nothing but what's in front of her eyes
Ayurveda is a five-member group based in Ithaca, New York. Music is a direct path to the Divine for Ayurdeda. Singer Tom Burchinal's lyrics, while not afraid of the darkness, explore a more positive, spiritual reality consistent with their namesake.
Tom says, "We make if fairly clear from the first note that our sound isn't going to be background music for a yoga class. Though our name is Ayurveda, we don't feel pigeon-holed at all. In fact I like to think we add another whole level of complexity to the name because it really is an all- encompassing way of being including what you eat, sleep and breathe. All the fundamentals of living are included in the fundamentals of Ayurveda."
Watch for an insightful interview with the band on this week's episode of the RockOm podcast, due out Thursday.
Featured Tracks:
"End Is Yours"
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"God Ain't"
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Connecting directly with fans through their web-based community is paramount to the band, therefore all of Ayurveda's music is available for free in high quality MP3 at their website.
Allen Thompson's new album 26 Years offers inviting melodies, lyrics charged by bracingly honest turns of phrase, and earthy acoustic arrangements evocative - but never derivative - of musical inspirations like The Band, Lucinda Williams, the Replacements and Jimmie Rodgers.
Allen Thompson: "I write from my heart about real people and events. Unfortunately, reality isn't often pretty, so you won't find a lot of sunshine and sugar in my songs."
Watch for an insightful interview with Allen on this week's episode of the RockOm podcast, due out Thursday.
Death Won't Send A Letter, Chisel's full-length debut for Black Seal Records is a dark and urgent rock and roll vision. The album takes a romantic albeit gutsy stance on the meaning of love and spirituality that begs the listener to consider the confines of what is morally acceptable and the pitfalls of blind devotion.
Watch for an interview with Cory on this week's episode of the RockOm podcast, due out Thursday.
Featured Track: "Born Again"
Cory Chisel: "'Born Again' is a recapturing of my own youth spent in the church. A lot of those images used in the video were really painful and in order to not reject that time completely I had to re-purpose them for my own use. But its also an exaltation of life, the kind of exaltation you sometimes only see in church."
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OR Right-click THIS LINK as "Save As..." for the free MP3
The term "Southern Gospel" conjures up thoughts of small ensembles singing songs about heaven in Baptist churches. In the case of South Carolina's Needtobreathe, the term could be used to describe the band's sound... though it might be better described as "Southern Rock + Gospel."
On their latest album, The Outsiders, Needtobreathe has truly come into their own, seamlessly blending ambient, arena-ready soundscapes with a decidedly Southern sensibility. "The 'Southern thing' is very scary to some people," [vocalist/guitarist] Bear Rinehart laughs. "But for us, it's not so much a sound than a feeling. It's just about having some soul in the words you write, the music that you play. And it's something that just comes naturally to us."
Featured Track: "Lay 'Em Down"
Lyric Excerpt: "Come down to the river / Come and let yourself in / Make good on a promise / To never hurt again / If you're lost and lonely / You're broken down / Bring all of your troubles come lay 'em down"
Bear Rinehart: "['Lay 'Em Down'] is really about [how] everybody has to leave their past behind and what makes them them. At some point they need to say, 'Ok, I don't care if I'm right or that other person is right.' Everybody has to come to God with that kind of spirit." (Source)
Passafire is a 4-piece band hailing from Savannah, GA whose brand of progressive reggae both embraces and challenges the genre's boundaries. Their outstanding new album, Everyone on Everynight, was released today and includes this week's Featured Track, "Here In Front of Me."
"Here In Front of Me"
Lyric Excerpt: "Sun shines down on the mountain side / Lonely cloud that blocks the light / Shadow cast on the face of the range / In the shape of a burning flame / If it's a sign please let me know..."
Ted Bowne [Vocals/Guitar]: "The lyrics were inspired by an experience I had while riding in the van somewhere in the Southwest. I saw a shadow of a cloud on the side of a mountain that resembled our logo and wanted to take a picture, but I didn't have any battery left in my camera and my phone was fucking up." (Source)
Adam Willis [Keyboards]: "We are a people who think about the signs and notice things. I feel like I'm destined to [be making music] and the signs are there." (from RockOm's interview with Passafire, out this Friday, 9/18)
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BONUS TRACK: "Prelectricity"
Lyric Excerpt: "Before the invention of the electric light / Stars were visible to everyone on every night / Without prevention, whether it's wrong or right / They disappeared in the night sky when the lights got bright..."
Adam Willis [Keyboards]: "The way we live now in cities we're so far removed from the natural world we kind of forget about it... To us as a band it's really important to reconnect."
Billy Jonas is a singer-songwriter, guitarist and an "industrial re-percussionist" whose primary instrument is the audience. A Billy Jonas performance is an explosion of energy. In singalongs, bangalongs, whisperalongs, as well as improvised songs, his primary instrument is the audience. Everyone becomes part of a performance that reaches out and (as the Fayetteville Morning News puts it) "...touches even the most hardened of hearts."
"God Is In"
"This has been a very powerful song. No matter where I play it, there is always a strong response. I remember when I was writing it, I didn't have a sense that it was a great song. Overtime it has revealed to me that it's way bigger than me. A wonderful example of music coming through me, as opposed to from me. And to think it all started with the microwave..." (Billy Jonas)
by Heather Maloney
by Josh Garrels
by Lights
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