We are pleased to announce that Anna Tivel has won the Telluride Troubadour contest at the 43rd annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival! It is an incredible honor to be acknowledged among all of the other amazing musicians that made up this year’s finalists.
Congratulations to Anna, and a huge thank you to all of you who have supported Anna and continue to inspire her.
You can stream her latest record, Heroes Waking Up, here.
One listen to her world-weary yet somehow bouyant songs and it’s clear – Anna Tivel has spent her share of quality hours behind the wheel of a Dodge Caravan, repeating lines over and over until the words fall in time with the windshield wipers, or until the gas light comes on.
Heroes Waking Up, Anna Tivel’s third full-length album, was be released on May 20, 2016. It is the result of a year spent living and writing in a friend’s garage and on the road. The eleven song recording winds through a dusky darkness of hopeful strangers, shadowed struggle, quiet love, and flying dreams. Produced by guitar magician Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell, The Mountain Goats), Tivel’s faded-photographic songwriting swells above a soundscape meticulously crafted by Nevins on guitar, lap steel, banjo, and pump organ. He is joined by Sam Howard (Ruth Moody) on bass, Ian Krist (Blind Pilot) on vibraphone, Robin Macmillan on percussion, and Jeffrey Martin and Moorea Masa singing harmonies. Throw in some violin and octave violin from Anna herself and the final effect is a sweeping, dream-like exploration of Tivel’s raw imagery and powerful storytelling.
Give a listen to the record here, and then buy it.
Here’s what some folks are saying about it:
“There is not a single song on here that is easily forgettable, much less filler”. – No Depression
“Anna Tivel writes songs that demand the full attention of the listener, and it isn’t hard to give her that because her singing and writing seem to take power over you” – Glide Magazine
“Heroes Waking Up” is a kind of consecration of artistic identity – Music Won’t Save You
“Each song on this album seems to simultaneously sing of sorrow and celebration. That even in the direst of circumstances, life is a still a beautiful thing. The most accurate connection that I could draw to this album is the writing of John Steinbeck.” – Northwest Music Scene
On November 20, Nathaniel Talbot will release his fourth full-length album, Swamp Rose and Honeysuckle Vine, via Fluff and Gravy Records. To celebrate, we are offering the single “Before There Was Blue” as a FREE DOWNLOAD while we count down the days to the album’s official release.
Nathaniel discusses the inspiration for the song… “Over the course of several weeks, I came across a variety of different articles, news pieces, and podcasts all investigating the role of language in shaping our minds and the way we see the world around us. I became fascinated by how our words, a non-material, purely sonic medium, could physically change our brains, and wanted to explore it more in a song. Years ago, as a budding naturalist, i began to realize that by simply learning the names of certain birds and plants it became easier to spot them along the trail, as if those words helped pull the particular subject from the backdrop and into focus. The names, despite seeming rather arbitrary, helped me to categorize and make sense of an otherwise dizzyingly complex world around me. In this tune i play around with how our childlike, pre-word brain may have interpreted the world.”
If you like what you hear, you can order the cd or digital album here
On November 20, Nathaniel Talbot will release his fourth full-length album, Swamp Rose and Honeysuckle Vine, via Portland’s Fluff and Gravy Records. Nathaniel, who operates an organic vegetable farm on Whidbey Island, WA, works roughly 60 hours a week on the farm every year from March through October. As such, the songs on the album are intimately tied to the lush farmland and windswept vistas of Whidbey Island, deeply rooted in the earth and American traditionalism.
Swamp Rose & Honeysuckle Vine captures the raw, live energy of Talbot’s guitar playing, and has a more stripped-down approach than his previous albums – no drums, fewer string arrangements, and sparse vocal harmonies. Tracking guitar and vocals live and solo, usually in just one or two takes, Talbot then brought in his quartet of Portland all-stars, Anna Tivel (violin, vocals), Sam Howard (double bass) and Lincoln Crockett (mandolin) and Benji Nagel (dobro), whose auxiliary instrumentation is used intentionally and sparingly to great effect, filling in and conversing with the core of Talbot’s playing and singing. “Challenging what folk music is capable of,” says Seattle Weekly, “Talbot’s powerful, uplifting voice harnesses a country twang complemented by lush acoustic finger-picking and a violin that feels like it was birthed next to a babbling brook in the mountains.” Channeling the lyrical prowess and gritty charm of Anais Mitchell on tracks like “As the Way,” and the concrete characterization in the work of Elliott Smith on tracks like “Able Man,” Talbot stands on the shoulders of generations of folk musicians and Americana singer-songwriters before him. His approach to music feels like that of someone who treats it as a craft handed down and honed, like the tilling of soil or the carving of wood.
“It’s a wealth of lyrical vision, complex guitar playing, and expert musicianship; a work about people’s connection to one another through the earth, disguised as a folk album about farming.” – American Standard Time
“simple, pure, haunting” – Vortex Magazine
Listen to the record here!
Buy the cd or digital album here!