Rachel Harrington released her critically acclaimed debut record in 2007 called The Bootlegger’s Daughter. She’s now ready to follow that up with her sophomore effort – City Of Refuge. It features Tim O’Brien on fiddle and Holly O’Reilly and Pieta Brown on backing vocals. The song I have for you reminds me of the melancholy female characters in the AMC series Mad Men. In fact if there was any justice in the world this would be their theme song.
City of Refuge comes out on September 30 on Rachel’s own label, but you can pre-order an autographed copy now here.
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I got a refreshing email from an artist today; refreshing because it didn’t ask me to write about his music. Instead it just asked if I knew of any great places an indie folkish musician might play in and around Chicago. Besides all the obvious places (Schubas, Uncommon Ground, Hideout, Old Town School) I don’t have an easy answer. But despite not being asked to, I’m still going to tell you a little about the music of Mike Behrends.
Mike is an unsigned artist from Minneapolis now living in Madison. He plays a variety of stringed instruments, but it’s his lyricism and plaintive (often to the point of breaking) vocals that steal the show.
“Sally Gal” sounds like it was written eons ago; both the lyrics and the banjo playing. While “If I Grew Out My Beard” fits nicely within the burgeoning indie folk movement with it’s undrstated delivery and nice, closely-miced hand claps. These are both demos that should appear sometime on a record titled The Bicycle Corp Of America.