Slow down, ease your anxiety, with the acoustic poetry of local folksinger Izzy Hiltai as he spins a rhythm & rhyme "outside this mental cage" with his song 'Portland'.
Berkshire favorites The Whiskey Treaty Roadshow is a collaborative band that brings together five Massachusetts singer-songwriters in the vein of Americana, rock and roots-folk music: Tory Hanna, Billy Keane, David Tanklefsky, Greg Smith and Chris Merenda. Here, the group performs six songs off their album, "Band Together," live at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA.
Williamstown-based Double Diamond has played FreshGrass at MASS MoCA, Dream Away Lodge, and many other venues. Their lyrical music engages and stirs hearts. Founding members Sarah McNair and Karl Mullen perform outdoors, six feet apart, for all of us.
Williamstown-based Double Diamond has played FreshGrass at MASS MoCA, Dream Away Lodge, and many other venues. Their lyrical music engages and stirs hearts. Founding members Sarah McNair and Karl Mullen perform outdoors, six feet apart, for all of us.
Bearthoven (Karl Larson, piano; Pat Swoboda, double bass; and Matt Evans, percussion) releases its second album, "American Dream", featuring the works of composer Scott Wollschleger, including his "Gas Station Canon Song", "American Dream", and "We See Things That Are Not There". Karl Larson describes American Dream as “a reflection of the contemporary American state of mind.” Rather than making a direct political statement, the works on the album reflect the paradoxical nature of the “American Dream” in our current socio-economic climate. Wollschleger says, “This music expresses the strongest sense of urgency I've experienced in my entire life, channeling feelings of doom, optimism, hopelessness, and the sublime. Much like a dream, these pieces weave an interconnected musical fabric of contradictory worlds.” Bearthoven (Karl Larson, piano; Pat Swoboda, double bass; and Matt Evans, percussion) releases its second album, "American Dream", featuring the works of composer Scott Wollschleger, including his "Gas Station Canon Song", "American Dream", and "We See Things That Are Not There". Karl Larson describes American Dream as “a reflection of the contemporary American state of mind.” Rather than making a direct political statement, the works on the album reflect the paradoxical nature of the “American Dream” in our current socio-economic climate. Wollschleger says, “This music expresses the strongest sense of urgency I've experienced in my entire life, channeling feelings of doom, optimism, hopelessness, and the sublime. Much like a dream, these pieces weave an interconnected musical fabric of contradictory worlds.” The title work on the album, Wollschleger’s American Dream, is a substantial trio for piano, double bass, pitch pipes, and a wide array of percussion instruments including vibraphone, water crotales, and vibrators. The piece consists of numerous “broken songs” dispensed throughout a fragmented time-field. This formal dissonance, often heightened by disruptively recurring drone-clusters, sets the tone for the entire album: the beautiful/hopeful is pervasive but constantly shadowed by the repugnant/forlorn. We See Things That Are Not There engages the vibraphone and piano in a constant repetitive dialogue with one another – both instruments recite the same phrase back and forth without an ultimate agreement. Gas Station Canon Song for solo piano is an unscrambled statement of one of the “broken songs” from American Dream. It was inspired by the synchronous existence of the beautiful and the grotesque encountered by Wollschleger in an I-80 gas station, a direct reference to a modern American paradox: how the majestic and the repellent always seem to coexist in a state of flux, no matter the medium. Released on Cantaloupe Music
