Rio En Medio

Rio En Medio

Rio En Medio Radio

Womens Work

It has been said that no person can step into the same river twice. Rio en Medio’s Danielle Stech-Homsy delivers a similar experience with her new album of inspired folk music, some covers, some originals. Shifting waters graze the shore, mesmerizing ripples evoke a myriad of images and sentiments, depending on what time of day it is or season of the year. Language itself turns fluid, as Stech-Homsy sings in English, French, Welsh and so on. Stech-Homsy’s approach is organic, with spartan baritone ukulele, guitar, cosmic keyboards and harmonizing vocals forming the backbone of the songs. Here and there a friend drops in to play along—in this case, Terry Cox, original member of the 1960s folk-baroque band Pentangle (and contributing drummer for David Bowie, The Bee Gees) lends his nuanced approach on drums, while Dave Roe (Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three) chimes in merrily on bass to fill the speakers at just the right moments. Nathan Shineywater (Library of Sands, BrightBlack Morning Light) contributes lead guitar and percussion in highlighted places. Harmonica is played by George Flynn, a 90+ year-old veteran and former chauffeur for Hank Williams. With Rio en Medio Radio, Stech-Homsy explores connection between nature, literature, traditional folk music and pure flights of fancy. Delicate vocal lines and harmonies form an unusually strong thread, carrying the music along its watery way. The album convincingly weaves a path through time, picking up voices from the near and distant past and igniting meaning with subtle instrumentation. For the song...

Rio En Medio

Peace Sequence

Womens Work

Peace Sequence is the third full-length from songwriter Danielle Stech-Homsy under the Rio en Medio moniker. Recorded and produced by Stech-Homsy herself in the New Mexico and California deserts, the album offers nine reveries on a borrowed Martin guitar, several of which feature veteran koto master Shoko Hikage. Also guesting on organs on two songs is psychedelic multi-instrumentalist Nathan Shineywater. Rio en Medio’s debut album Bride of Dynamite was released on Gnomonsong in 2006, and she toured with Devendra Banhart across the US as main opening support, appearing at the Banhart-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties in England. Stech-Homsy has toured the USA and internationally with such bands as CocoRosie and Brightblack Morning Light, and shared the stage with Michael “Snock” Hurley, Grizzly Bear, Vetiver, Vashti Bunyan and Diane Cluck. She was requested to perform at ’60s folksier Linda Perhacs’s first public performance in decades. Los Angeles’s Manimal Vinyl label released the second Rio en Medio full-length, Frontier, in 2008.

Rio En Medio

Bride Of Dynamite

Gnomonsong

Rio En Medio's debut album, The Bride of Dynamite is an intricate collage of layered vocals, delicately plucked ukulele, ghostly samples and gritty, deconstructed electronics. It features texts lifted from sources as disparate as William Blake, Paul Eluard, John Ashbery and a 1920s Baghdad travelogue. The songwriting is rarely autobiographical, yet it maintains a very personal tone.  In the words of Danielle Stech Homsy (the artist behind Rio En Medio), it is "music that wants to listen as much as be heard." Special touches were contributed to some tunes by Andy Cabic (Vetiver), Sierra Casady (Coco Rosie), Tim Fite and David Coulter, among others.  Over the past year, Homsy has performed and recorded with a variety of prominent artists, among whom are Vashti Bunyan, Devendra Banhart, Tarantula A.D., Larry Yes and The Art of Flying, Fite, CocoRosie, and Vetiver. She performs regularly in New York, where she lives, and recently appeared at England's All Tomorrow's Parties festival. Now, armed with her baritone uke and a faithful team of instrumentalists, she is preparing to storm the globe.