Posts Tagged ‘The Espers’

MEG BAIRD – ” Counterfeiters “

Posted: May 16, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Track off of her album “Don’t Weigh Down The Light”,

Meg Baird is a solo artists as well as being the lead singer with Espers, the drummer and vocalist in Heron Oblivion, Meg has collaborated with Will Oldham, Kurt Vile,Sharon Van Etten and Steve Gunn, as well as previously touring with the legendary folk-musician, Bert Jansch prior to his death.

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Loosely speaking this a folk record. Meg has long admired the 1970’s legends of the UK folk scene from Sandy Denny to Jacqui McShee, and the base for her song-writing is firmly rooted in that tradition. That said, her latest effort Don’t Weight Down The Light is a far more expansive affair than that might imply; the guitar work is dense and beautiful, layers of finger picked acoustic, electric, 12-strings, and slide guitars provide rich textures of sound. This album also see’s Meg branch out from her precise guitar picking and include pianos, organs and even very occasionally percussion to add to the albums musical pallet.

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Meg has been a frequent fixture in the renaissance of the Philadelphia music scene, but has recently relocated West and ended up in San Francisco. The second most densely populated American city, San Francisco has long represented the hopes and dreams of those who want to live outside the societal norms, being synonymous with the rise of hippie culture, the Sexual Revolution and the gay rights movement. Musically it’s one of the great historical centres, being home to the San Francisco Sound in the 1960’s spearheaded by the likes of The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane

Whilst Espers started making music as long ago as 2002, Meg’s solo career began with 2007’s Dear Companion, a collection of folk standards, covers of more modern tracks and only a couple of original numbers. That albums follow up, 2011’s Seasons On Earth focused more clearly on Meg’s own writing, a trend that continues on her upcoming third album, Don’t Weight Down The Light, which comes out on Wichita Records 

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Well for starters the sheer craftsmanship of the thing, this an album created by an artist with a singular vision for the record she wants to create, there’s not a single nod to musical fashion or trends, and as such it has a timeless quality. It sits equally easily alongside Fairport Convention or Fleet Foxes, Pentangle or Bonnie “Prince” Billy, which we’ll sure many will agree is very good company to keep.

 

 

MEG BAIRD – ” Counterfeiters “

Posted: April 3, 2015 in MUSIC
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Track off of her forthcoming album “Don’t Weigh Down The Light”, out June 23rd Meg Baird is an American musician based in San Francisco, California, who, in addition to her solo career, is known as a founding member and the lead female vocalist of Philadelphia psychedelic folk rock band Espers. Most recently, she became a founding member, lead vocalist, and drummer for Heron Oblivion, along with members from Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound and Comets on Fire. Songs of memory and forgetting…within the architecture of shimmering guitars and melancholy light…razor sharp edge of her voice in your bones.

Originally from New Jersey, US, Baird’s family history is based in the folk tradition: Baird is the great-great niece of Isaac Garfield “I.G.” Greer, a historian and Appalachian folk singer born in 1881. His inclusion on one of the earliest albums issued by the Archive of Folk Culture in the Library of Congress helped expose Baird to folk music at a young age, while she was taking piano lessons, teaching herself guitar,