We're proud to announce that we're working with three new stellar artists to promote their CDs via our VIP Mailing Campaign. Hit us up if you're a media contact (radio/print/online) and would like a copy of any or all of these CDs. And send this blog along to your friends so they can get a taste of this great music.

Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
2009. self-released.

There’s a brand new folk music movement afoot in Boston, Massachusetts, and fiddle prodigy Hanneke Cassel is at the forefront. This movement blends fiery fiddling from Celtic and American traditions with a rich knowledge of improvisation and an almost classical sensibility. In Hanneke, this new perspective on folk music has found an outgoing and charismatic spokesperson.

On her latest CD, For Reasons Unseen, Hanneke Cassel has invited an all-star cast of powerhouse folk musicians, most of whom are household names on the American folk scene: Alasdair Fraser, Natalie Haas, Casey Driessen, Crooked Still members/alumni Rushad Eggleston (cello), Brittany Haas (fiddle), and Corey Dimario (bass); The McKassons, guitarist Keith Murphy and ace fiddlers Lissa Schneckenburger, Laura Cortese and Kimber Ludicker. With a guest list like this, you can expect string arrangements as lush and promising as an acre of rainforest, but the real surprise of the album is how Hanneke’s fiddle soars over the canopy of all these guest musicians. It’s a distinctly American approach to Scottish traditions, but also a testament to a new generation of tradition-bearers who have grown up in a world of global possibility and international music-making.

LISTEN TO: "Leila's Birthday"

  

Leon Rosselson & Robb Johnson: The Liberty Tree
2010. Trade Root Music.

Eclectic and political British songwriters Leon Rosselson and Robb Johnson have teamed up on this project to examine the controversial writings of American patriot Thomas Paine in the light of today's world. Interweaving spoken word interpretations of Paine's writing with hard-biting songs inspired by Paine's ideas but taken from today's headlines, this double-CD casts a brand-new light on the American philosopher Teddy Roosevelt once called a "filthy little atheist".

Leon Rosselson has been at the forefront of songwriting in Britain for 50 years. His songs range from the lyrical to the satirical, from the personal to the political, from the humorous to the poignant. His song The World Turned Upside Down has been recorded & popularised by, amongst others, Dick Gaughan and Billy Bragg, and has been sung at demonstrations in Britain and the U.S.

Robb Johnson is now widely recognised as one of the finest songwriters working in the UK today. His songs feature in the repertoires of a wide variety of musicians, and he enjoys a similarly diverse spectrum of critical acclaim.

LISTEN TO "We All Said Stop the War"

Nils Olof Söderbäck & Peter Michaelsen: Kvarnresan
2010. Soulfelt Music.
 

Welcome to rural Sweden, around 150 years ago, where the tradition of twin fiddling entwined in intricate harmonies was still the predominant form of music, and the rhythms of the countryside propelled the fiddling.

Nils Olof Söderbäck and Peter Michaelsen learned this music from fiddlers steeped in these traditions. It was a different age, but it has things to say about our own age, and Olof and Peter deliberately emulate this old sound. As Olof says, “This is not University Music!” Olof and Peter like to preserve some of the rough character, the folkiness of their original models. The tunes on Kvarnresan were all recorded straight through, in Olof’s barn in rural Oregon.

Swedish fiddler Nils Olof Söderbäck is one of the Pacific Northwest's musical treasures. Born in 1954 in Flen, Södermanland, Olof grew up on the family farm, working with the dairy cows and forests that provided their income. At age 17 he gave himself over to the traditional folk music of Sweden. Now Olof lives in Talent, Oregon, where he teaches Swedish fiddling and explores his other musical interests: Balkan and Indian music. He's an eclectic musician, at home in a great number of different traditions, but when he settles into the groove of Swedish fiddling, his true mastery of this music is evident.
 

LISTEN TO "Kvarnresan"