Austin quintent  The Band of Heathens   will release their new album  Duende  on  January 13th. Today the group shared another track from the album, "All I'm Asking." Singer/guitarist Ed Jurdi remarks of the track, "the key ingredients that made this song come together are a monster backbeat with a primal groove, a lush Phil Spector-like sonic template, with multi-tracked voices, guitars, keyboards and percussion, and a real honest and earnest lyrical sentiment."
 
Listen: The Band of Heathens - "All I'm Asking"

Duende, the title of The Band of Heathens’ fifth studio album (and eighth overall), marks their tenth anniversary as a group. It's an apt name for a record whose themes explore the collective search for connection and communion in a technology-fueled world increasingly splintered, distracted and lonely.  As band co-founder Ed Jurdi, who first learned of the term, explains, “It’s the essence of the artist,” or as partner Gordy Quist says, “It’s a word we don’t have an equivalent for in English, artistically, that’s where we tried to set the bar, to do what this band does best.”
 
Duende   is currently available for pre-order via  iTunes  and  Amazon. 

The group's new EPK video provides an introduction to  Duende, as well as a snapshot of where the band currently finds themselves creatively. Watch it  HERE. 
 
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The Big Country EP, the upcoming release from independent label Dala Records on December 16th, is the first solo project from Brooklyn-based modern music man, Michael Harlen. Originally from Silver Springs, Maryland, Harlen grew up on the post-punk and hardcore DC scene. Picking up the guitar at age 13, he continued to play around the DC and Baltimore area until he moved to NYC to attend New York University to study music. While at NYU, he began playing with several NYC bands, such as EMEFE, The Rad Trads, and Christopher Paul Sterling. Listen to any number of records from these bands, or even the Dala Records catalog, and you will hear the tasteful contributions from Michael Harlen aka “Big Country.”

​Recorded and mixed on analog tape in a matter of days, Big Country showcases Harlen’s ability in the studio as he performs nearly every instrument on the record himself. Special guests include fellow Rad Trads members Patrick Sargent and Michael Fatum on horns, vocalist Melody Rabe, and trombonist Raymond James Mason (who has played with acts such as Mark Ronson and Taylor Swift.) The use of classic country and bluegrass instrumentation allows Harlen to introduce himself as a much needed voice in the Folk and Americana music scene.

Nashville, Tenn. (December 7, 2016 Press Release) — Legendary country group  Shenandoah  will hit the tour trail in 2017 to commemorate 30 years of their classic sound.  Next year marks three decades since the group first released their debut album in 1987.  Today, a handful of dates were announced for the  Shenandoah   "30th Anniversary Tour."    A second round of dates will be announced in January.
 
The tour kicks off on  January 22  in Annapolis, Maryland and will continue throughout the year with many additional live dates scheduled across the country.  Shenandoah will also perform two live concerts in Zürich, Switzerland, a first for the band.  ​

Nashville, TN (Press Release)- Critically acclaimed singer/songwriter Sunny Sweeney will release her fourth album Trophy   on March 10th via Thirty Tigers. Trophy, featuring the young troubadour’s most serious set of songs, offers a new side of Sunny Sweeney. Rootsy and real, Trophy  showcases Sweeney's maturation as a songwriter and as an artist growing into her own.  

Trophy  is the follow-up to  Provoked  (2014), which offered a glimpse into where Sweeney was headed.   NPR’s All Things Considered  said, “Sunny Sweeney has all the right stuff for country stardom - a Texas pedigree, a heart-melting voice, stunning looks and the ability to seem both tough and vulnerable”. On  Concrete, her 2011 major label release, Sweeney became the first female artist to reach the Top 10 on the country radio charts in over a decade. 

Sweeney has never been afraid to write about personal experiences, her unapologetic honesty and revealing vulnerability shows her as an artist who is equally as tough as she is tender. On Trophy it's clear that she's in a positive place, however the variety of songs on the album take listeners on an emotional rollercoaster. On the gorgeous “Grow Old With Me” and “Nothing Wrong With Texas”, Sweeney taps into the themes of love and sense of place. A highlight of the album, “Bottle By My Bed” is a heart-wrenching song expressing the sadness and frustration of not having a child. Though she didn’t set out to, Sweeney co-wrote the majority of Trophy with female writers, including four songs with Grammy Award-winning songwriter Lori McKenna. Her resulting songs capture the feminine experience with a combination of nuance, humor and accuracy only possible from the perspective of Sweeney and her collaborators. Trophy was produced by Grammy-nominated engineer/producer Dave Brainard (Brandy Clark's 12 Stories).  

Sunny Sweeney has straddled the line between country and Americana for years. Trophy  represents an artist confident in what she has to say and grateful to be able to say it. On Trophy, it’s official that Sunny Sweeney has found her voice. 

Trained as a jazz percussionist at Rochester’s Eastman School of Music,  Brooklyn singer-songwriter  John Fatum’s  self-titled album, due December 9th, weaves a legacy of story and sound in a timeless collection that is amplified by Dala Record's analog recording process. Recorded on an 8-track reel-to-reel tape machine in New York’s East Village, the album captures the beautiful imperfection of a live performance on songs influenced by Country Blues, Gospel, Americana, Jazz, and Gulf Coast.

This new project consists of ten tracks including the opening tune, "The Little Pie Blues" a slow, bluesy-burn gem that is accompanied by the crackly sounds of a tape machine and highlighted by  a warm, soothing trumpet solo from producer Billy Aukstik.

Fatum  explains the  story behind the song: 

"I  wrote the song in the Fall on my back porch in Brooklyn where I have a beautiful little window sill. I was sitting on the deck, playing my guitar when I got into the pulsating rhythm of that little guitar phrase. I was thinking about a girl, but I was also thinking about the metaphor of the porch, the mood and how pretty it was outside and I imagined mixing up the metaphors with a girl and a pie sitting on a window sill - and the song was born there.  

What was cool was that the song took on a whole new life when I got into the studio in Billy's apartment and we started playing the groove. I was playing the guitar riff on a nylon string guitar, which has a different kind of sound to it where it fills up the space with a very relaxed feel, and Billy was playing on a Maestro Rhythm King drum machine - an instrument we love that JJ Cale, Sly Stone, and other musicians have used. When we got that little dancing rhythm going, we set in with the metaphor of the sweet little girl and the pie; then we got into the bigger studio and had the slide guitar part happening with Mike Harlen and the song took on a whole new life. In the song, I talk about the clouds and then start listing pie flavors, which is an homage to 'A Prairie Home Companion,' a show I used to listen to growing up. They used to do a bit about "bebop a rebop rhubarb pie," so that was in my head as I started listing the flavors and just having fun with it. 

One of the most special moments on the track is Billy's trumpet solo. It's  one of my favorite parts of the song because after all of the other stuff, you all of a sudden hear a trumpet - so soft and vulnerable and precise - and it really opens the song up  and takes it in a different direction that I really love and enjoy."

Fun fact:  During recording, Fatum raided a cutlery drawer searching for the perfect utensil to rap on the tape machine. It turned out to be a butter knife which blends with Aukstik’s Maestro Rhythm King and Fatum’s thigh slaps. 

TDC is proud to premiere  "The Little Pie Blues" below. For more information visit his official website.