Supply And Demand Music

The Huntress And Holder Of Hands

Avalon

Supply And Demand Music

In 2015, MorganEve Swain was telling a reporter about her new identity she had recently accepted as her own: a widow. Two years later, she has channeled her lingering disbelief and recurring bouts of grief and redemption into The Huntress And Holder Of Hands, a potent reminder that even when life turns out differently than we expect, the human spirit is indomitable, our capacity to love and persevere immeasurable. For the past decade, Swain has been known for her work with Brown Bird, a chameleonic duo she fronted with her late husband, Dave Lamb. They charged out of Providence in the early 2000s, a heady hybrid of “Dark Americana,” blues, Eastern-European folk, and the far-flung influences of their upbringings. Just as the band was taking flight, with a handful of acclaimed albums, nonstop touring, and a star-making performance at the Newport Folk Festival, Lamb was diagnosed with leukemia. Though the year-long ordeal that followed was full of incredible support and unwavering hope, he succumbed in April 2014, gone far too soon at 36, leaving Swain to carry a torch for the duo’s brief but enduring legacy. This band took its name and the title Avalon from the last words that haunted the end of Brown Bird’s final album, 2015’s devastating Axis Mundi. In an intimate home recording he’d given her as a Christmas present, Lamb inadvertently laid out Swain’s artistic arc: “You’re a huntress and a healer and a holder of hands/ And your heart is the Avalon that I...

Last Good Tooth

And All Things On The Scales

Supply And Demand Music

*** Last Good Tooth constructed their new album "And All Things On The Scales" from the ground up. They staked their plot deep out in the woods surrounding Hudson NY in the winter of 2014, dressed in misshapen, unnameable clothing, recently escaped from the Americana ghetto and looking for shelter. For construction materials they brought a small army of volunteers: string and horn sections, a haunting, clouded female voice (Morgan Eve Swain of Brown Bird), field recordings of a wintertime orgy and the Twin Towers falling on 9/11, and – importantly – an entire genre’s worth of complex (and beautiful) melody lines. Somehow the band itself, crambled together out of Penn Sultan (lead guitar, vocals), Alex Spoto (violin), Kevin Sullivan (electric bass), and Arthur Kapp (drums) managed to orchestrate the chaos – to build a house and then hide the nails – giving their music a ramshackle but composed feel which is structured without being overly reverent, and ambient without being lazy.  "an incredible similarity to the great Lambchop, not only in the use of horns but especially when it comes to the crooning of guitarist Penn Sultan. Only with this band, they take the music into the darker corners of Americana." - PopMatters.com

Brown Bird

Axis Mundi

Supply And Demand Music

Brown Bird’s final album of original material, Axis Mundi, is a sixteen-song collection written by the beloved Rhode Island husband-and-wife duo of David Lamb and MorganEve Swain during Lamb’s year-long battle with leukemia. It was finished by Swain after Lamb’s passing last Spring. “Axis Mundi is the album that Dave and I wrote during the year of his battle with leukemia,” explains Swain. “Excluding ‘Tortured Boy,’ which I wrote for him in the first stage of our relationship, these songs were written in the months leading up to his diagnosis, and the months following his bone marrow transplant, when he was confined to our home. As long as he felt well enough to be working, he was. He would spend hours in our home studio, meticulously recording and rerecording his parts—full drums, guitar, vocals and percussion ideas... This album is different from our others in that it is, in many ways, the album we always wanted to make. It is fuller, louder and more rock-inspired than our previous efforts, while still holding tight to the Middle-Eastern and Eastern European influences we’d become known for. We’d intended to record at home during Dave’s recovery, and release and tour on it when he was well enough to get back on the road.” Lamb fell ill while touring behind the band’s 2013 release Fits of Reason. Following his diagnosis, an outpouring of fans and friends from across the globe came to the pair’s aid and offered enduring support. Brown Bird released five albums...

Dark Dark Dark

What I Needed EP

Supply And Demand Music

For those who simply canʼt get enough of the meandering piano lines and ethereal sounds of Dark Dark Darkʼs album Who Needs Who, Supply and Demand is proud to present three stunning tracks released especially for Record Store Day '13 in the UK. Each one a band favorite held back for a special occasion, these are songs from the Who Needs Who recording sessions deemed worthy of their own distinctive place. Each song remains as personal as the work youʼll hear on the Who Needs Who LP, but finds small departures to explore. On the single, ʻWhat I Neededʼ , Nona steps forward and sings in a way usually reserved for The Shangri-Las, her coy choir behind her, the band doing their version the 60′s. Sweeping romantic melody and chilling vocals still in tact, listeners are reminded of what makes the quintet so exceptional. Next weʼre treated to the wistful ʻLove Liesʼ. Heavenly and heartbreaking, it reflects a bittersweet realization that all things happen for a reason, coming over like an undiscovered Mazzy Star-Beth Orton collaboration, whilst ʻI Collect Thingsʼ drifts loosely in homage to friends.  “...perhaps Dark Dark Darkʼs true accomplishment here is how they mix sounds and influences so effortlessly. They comprise a tight, intuitive unit, especially when the instruments swirl together into an otherworldly eddy of sound.” – Pitchfork  “...like a statelier Mazzy Star, dark in all the right places.” – Uncut

Brown Bird

Fits Of Reason

Supply And Demand Music

Thomas Paine once said, “reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.” Fits of Reason, the new self-produced album by Brown Bird, raises its hat to Mr. Paine in a flurry of cerebral themes that surface in the album’s eleven songs. The band’s two members, David Lamb and MorganEve Swain, build their sound from the foundations of blues and American roots music, using the simple foot-percussion, violin, cello and upright bass for which they are known, while expanding Swain’s vocal presence and flaunting Lamb’s lyrical mastery. Recorded in their home-state of Rhode Island at Machines With Magnets, Fits of Reason is inspired by the writings of Omar Khayyam, Christopher Hitchens and Plato, among others, and grapples with the human condition in a smooth but unapologetic departure from the band’s previous release, Salt for Salt. With the introduction of electric guitar and electric bass, and a more prominent display of the band’s Middle Eastern, metal and psych-rock influences, Fits of Reason delves into heavier territory and invites the listener to hear with discerning ears. Brown Bird spent most of 2012 on the road, supporting Trampled by Turtles, The Devil Makes Three, Yonder Mountain String Band and Horse Feathers, and wowed the crowd at the Newport Folk Festival with their first main-stage appearance. The band will continue criss-crossing the US in 2013, with a full US tour planned in April and an appearance scheduled at the Sasquatch Festival.

Dark Dark Dark

Who Needs Who

Supply And Demand Music

Who Needs Who, the new album by Dark Dark Dark, is a rich, stirring body of songs that sees the band break ground and settle into the strengths of a quintet that has worked incredibly hard, both on the road and in their personal lives. Most of the material on Who Needs Who was written by vocalist / accordionist / key player Nona Marie Invie in Minneapolis, and arranged by the band on tour and in New Orleans, where acclaimed engineer Tom Herbers joined them to record. The first single, Tell Me, finds Dark Dark Dark setting a new tone for avant-garde pop. The beat is up, the drums and bass propel the song, and Invie’s voice soars between impassioned yearning and a resigned, empowered hope that reveals wisdom. The band’s commitment to their music has proven to be a double-edged sword. It’s no minor detail that Invie and Marshall LaCount, Dark Dark Dark’s co-founder and producer, were in a serious relationship that ended in early 2011, with a year solid of touring commitments ahead of them. On “Meet in the Dark,” Invie sings, “You want everything to stay the same, and then things change / But I’ll never get tired of singing these songs, no I’ll never get tired of singing these songs.” Ultimately, a five-month hiatus at the end of 2011 and early 2012 allowed the band to heal, reflect and refocus, and when the members reconvened in New Orleans for rehearsals, the initial awkwardness gave way to...

Brown Bird

Salt For Salt

Supply And Demand Music

***Recorded live to tape in Pawtucket, RI, Salt For Salt is the first album by BROWN BIRD to capture the intense energy of the duo's live show, surging in waves that often swell into high-spirited, foot-stomping madness. DAVID LAMB's lyrics are as well-written as they are emotionally intelligent, thankfully avoiding the pitfalls of the wish-wash known as "modern-folk" or "singer-songwriting". Lamb and his partner MORGANEVE SWAIN write simply, and the record is eerily sparse at times—a tambourine, a bass drum and the cello often the sole accompaniement to Lamb's cracked, wood-smoke voice. Brown Bird are also not afraid to write experimentally— "Ebb and Flow" and "Shiloh" (the latter a longer, entirely instrumental track) each boast melodies worthy of a dervish, the melodic structure reminiscent more of Turkish or Greek rebetika than old-time or bluegrass. Lamb's continual reference to ships clearly come from his years spent working at the shipyard in Warren, RI, just as their arrangements well only from a deep knowledge of the American folk tradition. A cantankerous and drafty two-man ship stationed in Providence, RI, Brown Bird plays original, traditional American music in the best sense possible. It is music that comes from a context but is not afraid of the context: a living root with a view towards the leaves. (STREET DATE - 10/18/2011)

Brown Bird

Sound Of Ghosts

Supply And Demand Music

Brown Bird has a tendency towards the dark side. Pulling from the influences of the blues, outlaw country, roots rock, early American folk, Gypsy and Eastern European music, they offer harmonized voices, haunting lyrics and diverse rhythm and instrumentation, which surges in waves that often swell into high-spirited, foot-stomping madness.  Brown Bird began in 2003, while singer/ songwriter David Lamb (guitar, banjo, percussion, vocals) was living in Seattle. Lamb has since toured across the country multiple times, and now resides in Rhode Island with his partner MorganEve Swain (vocals, fiddle, cello, upright bass).  Since the 2009 release of their fourth album, The Devil Dancing, Brown Bird has toured extensively in the US, and supported The Low Anthem on tour across Europe. The duo is currently working on their fifth full-length to be released this fall.

Dark Dark Dark

Wild Go

Supply And Demand Music

***Minneapolis based chamber-folk sextet DARK DARK DARK revel in the wonder that is always around us. On the new album, Wild Go, their dramatic sound sets NONA MARIE INVIE’s soaring, haunting voice against age-old instrumentation, a marriage that casts a lush eight-millimeter cinematic living portrait. Songwriters INVIE and MARSHALL LACOUNT bring together disparate influences—including minimalism, New Orleans jazz, Americana, Eastern European folk and pop—creating something altogether singular, with diversity as their greatest strength.

Dark Dark Dark

Bright Bright Bright

Supply And Demand Music

***On March 9th DARK DARK DARK will be releasing the precursor to their forthcoming sophomore full-length in the form of a stunning six-song 12-inch vinyl EP entitled Bright Bright Bright. Hailing from New Orleans, New York and Minneapolis (the latter where they lay their collective hat when not touring Europe or The States) the chamber-folk sextet have yielded a lush and intoxicating follow-up to their 2008 full-length debut The Snow Magic.  On the record, the band moves beyond past-tales of love, heartache and loneliness toward more rewarding and hopeful horizons. As Marshall LaCount explains, "These songs are about new beginnings, and usually have a little triumphant twist in them. The songs are often about a character finding a place or growing in the world in a positive way, and the little exciting and sometimes strange interactions that happen along the way."  Engineered and mixed by legendary Minneapolis producer Tom Herbers (WHY?, Low, Retribution Gospel Choir, The Jayhawks, Fog), Bright Bright Bright finds the band doing more with less. After a successful run opening for the band WHY? last fall, Dark Dark Dark recorded the EP at Sacred Heart Studios, a converted church overlooking Lake Superior.   The band took advantage of the chapel's natural reverb to amplify the power of their live performance.

Dark Dark Dark

Remix 7-inch

Supply And Demand Music

***To commemorate their October 2009 tour with WHY?, Minneapolis’ DARK DARK DARK deliver a 7-inch featuring remixes by ODD NOSDAM and DOSH. Odd Nosdam puts his signature spin on crowd favorite “Junk Bones,” filling the tune with dirty breakbeats and nasty bass, while Dosh’s remix of “All The Things” floats in and out, a simple loop growing and changing out of control. As a bonus each copy includes a download with an additional psych remix of “Colors” by Supply & Demand label chief TOM INHALER. (STREET DATE - 10/06/2009)

Royal Chord

Good Fight

Supply And Demand Music

***Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, TAMMY HAIDER and ELIZA HISCOX make the music of ROYAL CHORD. Starting out in 2001 playing dusty alt-country with a crew that at one point swelled up to eight members, Tammy and Eliza now play primarily as a duo, replacing guitars with keyboards and band members with chopped drum breaks and sequenced bass lines. Their new record, The Good Fight, sees them combine electronics with their neurotic and melancholic sensibility, delivering songs that range from summer pop to funereal folk.

Between The Pine

Friends, Foes, Kith And Kin

Supply And Demand Music

***The songs of BETWEEN THE PINE all "come from mistakes," according to the lyrics from the new album Friends, Foes, Kith and Kin. Listening to the variety in the instrumentation, found sounds and occasional interludes spread throughout the album proves it is the result of much experimentation, but the intricately choreographed arrangements seem to betray the idea that this wasn't planned. Working from his basement studio on the coast of Rhode Island, JAMES DIOTTE looks even deeper within for his second album as Between The Pine, writing about a small cast of characters spread out across a vast musical plane. After his self-released, self-titled debut in 2006, which blogger Sixeyes called his "Discovery of the Year," Jim kept busy, recording an EP with the band Number 1, I LOVE YOU, winning third place in an Asthmatic Kitty cover contest, and starting the band COME IN CADENCE. Jim kept writing songs for himself as well, some of which became the origins of Friends, Foes, Kith And Kin. (STREET DATE - 12/16/2008)

Dark Dark Dark

Snow Magic

Supply And Demand Music

***If you listen, the story of the band DARK DARK DARK is woven into the haunting songs of their debut album, The Snow Magic. It’s a story of love and heartache, death and loneliness, and the persistent sense of hope that keeps you living and moving. These familiar themes are tangled up with tales of ghosts, fermenting bodies, and magical dreams. Dark Dark Dark’s sound draws heavily on Americana and Eastern European influences, referencing a long tradition of wandering musicians and those who have lived deeply. Despite the references, it’s clear listening to The Snow Magic that this isn’t a band preoccupied with recreating the past. Rather, the band both celebrates the past and looks forward, with songs remembering lost friends, leaving lovers behind, and casting off the things that hold us back. With intricate song-craft and playful sensibilities, Dark Dark Dark uses their small array of age-old instruments to conjure a lush musical vision of the future. Dark Dark Dark’s journey continues in 2008, as the band collaborates with the artist Swoon and playwright Lisa D’Amour on Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea, a flotilla of rafts to be sailed down the Hudson River, culminating in a performance at Deitch Projects in New York City. It will also see the bands first European tour, and filming and scoring Flood, a project conceived and directed by bassist TODD CHANDLER. (STREET DATE - 10/28/2008)