NIGHTBLOOMS EP Release show with Libby Rodenbough
NIGHTBLOOMS EP Release with Libby Rodenbough!Nightblooms is the search for meaning, connection, and hope in the face of uncertainty. Driven by despair but buoyed by common cause, our breezy, melodic songs tackle climate change, social decline, anxiety, and the grief of living through end times. Reading our isolated lyrics might be a real bummer, but the music is pretty fun. Hopefully our equal parts honey-and-vinegar approach leaves you with a taste of optimism. This is happy music for sad times; dark tunes that shine brightly; love songs for the apocalypse. Libby Rodenbough is from Greensboro, North Carolina, and has played with the four-piece folk band Mipso for more than a decade. Her debut album as a solo artist, Spectacle of Love—an intimate, inventive chronicle of heartache and abjection—was released in 2020; she has also built up numerous collaborations in the tight-knit North Carolina music scene. Her second release, Between the Blades, is eight tracks long, but most songs clock in long, at around four minutes, lingering in observant, character-driven storytelling and slipping between diametrics—light and dark, cynicism and optimism, land and sea—as Between the Blades makes its way toward the aching chords of closer “Waking World.” In that last song, Rodenough imagines “reaching out” through the veil between dream states and touching a loved one’s hand. Listening, it is easy to feel that you are in the same room, a hand reaching out to yours as it wades through the muck of the world we’ve been given, even as we look toward the possibility of another world.
Coyote Island + Certainly So
Coyote Island, the musical vision of Mike O’Hehir, explores a fresh blend of folk, reggae and pop with world music influences creating a playful global sound around stories embracing the human journey. His first single “Here Before” co-produced with trip-hop duo Dazy Park, has garnered over 2 million streams across platforms globally. The follow up EP “Origin Stories” attracted Ineffable Records (Shwayze, Surfer Girl, Anthony B). Coyote Island’s highly anticipated debut full-length album “Holy Illusion” was released on June 16, 2023 with singles featuring Grammy-nominated artists Matisyahu and Blvk H3ro, as well as guest collabs with Surfer Girl, Mihali & Ghanaian singer & songwriter Abitemi dropping monthly in the lead up. Hailing from Birmingham, AL, childhood friends Tanner Gray and Colby Wilson have been writing music together for over ten years. The pair have drawn inspiration from many genres and eras — The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Grateful Dead, Vampire Weekend, John Mayer, and Her’s to name a few. The music that comes from Gray and Wilson has always boasted blood harmonies as well as thoughtful, invoking lyrics. Post high school, Gray and Wilson took different paths. Gray attended Mississippi State University, while Wilson stayed in Birmingham. While at MSU, Tanner became acquainted with Chase Porter (bass) and Zach Corder (drums). Porter, Corder, and Gray would form and play in multiple ensembles while in school; always focusing on creating original music and developing a unique sound. After graduating in 2015, Porter made his way to Nashville to begin a career in a city he loved while playing in a few bands and many songwriter rounds in his spare time. Gray and Corder made their post-graduate home in the panhandle of Florida, forming yet another group: The Graytones. They toured extensively in the region over the next two years. Wilson remained busy in Birmingham with his own original music group, Smoking With The Bandit. In the Spring of 2019, Gray and Wilson were finally reunited when Gray found himself back in Birmingham as part of a career in craft beer. Corder’s path took him to the Music City, catching up with Porter. Gray and Wilson picked up right where they left off in Alabama, and they soon felt a new project starting to take form. As the duo recorded acoustic demos, they realized they needed a fuller sound, and the two kids from Birmingham reached out to their Mississippi-born rhythm section. The demos were shared north to Nashville, and once Porter and Corder heard what Gray and Wilson were doing, there was never a chance they could say no. In September of 2019, Certainly So was formed. Several months later, in January 2020, the group was introduced to producer/engineer Toby Hulbert. Hulbert had spent the last 8 years at Abbey Road in his hometown of London, England, and was currently in Nashville working alongside hitmaker Dave Cobb. Upon hearing the ‘Certainly So’ demos, he felt a similar sentiment as Porter and Corder did- he must be involved. Hulbert joined the team as producer. Certainly So and Hulbert gained access to East Avalon Recording Studio in Muscle Shoals through RCA’s Colin Lott during April 2020. Over the next two months, Hulbert and Lott teamed up to produce and engineer four weekend sessions, recording what would be the band’s debut album Future Self Only Dreams.
(Flat Fest) Sleepy Cat Records Showcase
As a part of our yearly celebration we are happy to have a Sleepy Cat Records showcase on September 14th at 8pm!
When We’re Sober
SUSTO (solo)
A season of drastic change is what brought SUSTO frontman Justin Osborne to the band’s fifth full-length LP, My Entire Life [New West Records]. There was a divorce, difficulties re-building his band after the pandemic, and the pain and helplessness of witnessing family members struggle with addiction and mental illness. Despite these challenges, Justin ultimately found himself in a new landscape, with new love and a deeper perspective, all of which is masterfully projected into My Entire Life. While navigating some major life changes, Justin understandably experienced a surge of creative energy. He channeled this into writing and recording with the people closest to him, even as the tides of his personal life continued to shift. Primary collaborators included longtime producer Wolfgang “Wolfy” Zimmerman, SUSTO Co-founders, Johnny Delaware and Marshall Hudson, and his fiancé/co-writer Caroline Foyle. Much of the album was recorded at The Space, in Charleston, SC, but major sessions also took place at Echo Mountain Recording in Asheville, NC, and Chase Park Transduction in Athens, GA. Johnny had moved to Mexico shortly after work on the album began, so some tracking was done at his home studio in Mexico City. The band also took a “recording pilgrimage” to the Mexican town of Tepotzlán (mythical birthplace of mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl), where they turned an airbnb into a remote recording studio, with help from members of Mexican Institute of Sound. The combined result of these efforts is a compelling blend of rock, folk and psychedelia, with vivid country-esque storytelling. It’s as raw and real as anything the band has done so far and everything you’d hope for from a modern rock ‘n’ roll record. The album’s namesake and lead single, “My Entire Life” is melodically tearful, with an urgency “to keep living.”
Grey Oakes with White Toledo
Virginia Man
Virginia Man is an emotional folk-and-roll band comprised of Kristian Lietzan (singer/songwriter), Stephen Amoruso (bass/vocals), and Jamaal Farrow (drummer). With poetic lyrics bellowing over the sounds of middle Appalachia, these gentlemen champion the sound of Virginia: a strange suspension between the cardinal directions, musical genres, and the changing of seasons. With lots of new music arriving in 2023, the boys have been out on the road! The live show has become a favorite amongst members and audiences alike, like a sonic rollercoaster, akin to the plot of a great American classic, with gripping performances and storytelling, and celebratory beverages to follow.
When We’re Sober with Matty Sheets
When We’re Sober is an indie-rock band out of Greensboro, NC. Its two frontmen & co-songwriters Grey Hyatt and Erich McPhail blend their diverse musical backgrounds and tastes into a wide range of sounds and complex yet catchy melodies. A true throwback to the heyday of 90’s grunge, When We’re Sober’s sound is raw & gritty, yet refined enough that their elegant and often vulnerable lyricism can still shine through. This duality in their sound is crucial to the folk-grunge genre they pioneer.Hyatt & McPhail released their debut 5-song EP ‘The Bottle’ in the summer of 2022 under the moniker of When We’re Sober, but the band did not begin to truly take shape until early 2023. With its current five-man lineup solidified, the band finally began playing shows- packing out local venues and making a splash that’s hard to ignore.When We’re Sober is currently working on a batch of around 25 new songs, with a debut full-length album slated for release in late 2023.
MELTDOWN RODEO + BLUE CACTUS
Kym Register + Meltdown Rodeo (FKA LOAMLANDS) is a transgressive and distorted country music outfit based in North Carolina that places queer storytelling at the forefront. Their music intimately grapples with identity, retribution, reconciliation and queer existence in both modern-day and historical (inclusive of mostly all) southern culture. According to NOISEY, our music is “written to directly address North Carolina, the people in the Durham DIY scene, and the area’s long history with LGBT communities and police violence, the themes Register… wrestle[s] with throughout—queerness, police violence, bigotry and general intolerance to those who refuse to adhere to any kind of binary—are poignant no matter where you live.” “It’s a narrative-heavy — and proudly queer — record, channeling both the South’s folksy past and the crunchy protest music of the modern Merge roster, sporting a genre-defying sound as courageous as the issues breached: institutionalized bigotry, body dysmorphia, the agonies of love and loss. ” “Even if you don’t know Register’s backstory, you can still hear that Sweet High Rise is a compelling, beautiful, and starkly political record.” -Bitch Media “…a lush guitar pop sound that pulls from the late ’70s rock and country.” – Brooklyn Vegan Blue Cactus, the North Carolina duo of Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez, make Dream Country: a blend of grit, glitz, groove, and twang that evokes a celestial soundscape of mid-century heartbreak and harkens comparisons eclectic and iconic as Bobbie Gentry, Fleetwood Mac, and David Bowie. Their sophomore album, Stranger Again, released in 2021 on Sleepy Cat Records, nabbed enthusiastic attention from tastemakers including No Depression, American Songwriter, FLOOD Magazine, Talkhouse, and INDY Week among others. Following their critically acclaimed 2017 debut and a string of singles in 2020, Stranger Again saw the band taking their sound to an ambitious new plane, where country-rock and light psychedelia mingle, vocals soaring over twangy slide guitars and propulsive basslines. The North Carolina duo have performed at several beloved festivals including Nelsonville, Red Wing Roots, Rooster Walk, Muddy Roots and Hopscotch and shared the stage as support for an array of artists from The War & Treaty, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, and Lilly Hiatt to Town Mountain and Junior Brown among others. Between the comfort of classic country and the glamor of 70s rock, Blue Cactus resuscitate a fleeting style of honest-to-goodness country music considered valueless to a “new” country music where songwriting is officiated by financial analysts and teams of marketing plutocrats instead of woebegone troubadours. With a high lonesome twang, an Emmylou-like southern drawl, and blistering guitar techniques, Blue Cactus exercises the honky-tonk muscles to firmly bear the flag for a new generation of country music.
Skylar Gudasz with Riggings
With her luminous voice and captivating songcraft, Skylar Gudasz has won the admiration ofsome of the most distinguished artists in music. The Durham-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has shared stages with the likes of Ray Davies, Cat Power and Sharon VanEtten as part of the Big Star’s Third tribute concerts, opened for the likes of Television,Teenage Fanclub, and Mountain Goats, and appeared as a background vocalist on albums bySuperchunk and Hiss Golden Messenger, including a TV debut with the latter on Late Nightwith Seth Meyers.Gudasz released her full-length debut Oleander in 2016 at which point The Bitter Southernerdubbed her “the Joni Mitchell the South never had.” On the eve of pandemic lockdown in 2020,Gudasz delivered her sophomore album Cinema, recorded between famed April Base in EauClaire, Wisconsin and in the lush forests of the rich NC music scene. The release summonedpraise from the likes of Pitchfork, NPR’s All Songs Considered, and MOJO who described itmost concisely as "a career-making star turn.” Gudasz’s highly anticipated third album, recordedwith Ari Picker (Dante High, Lost in the Trees), is due later this year.In addition to her solo career, Gudasz is active in collaborations, including an “Ask Me Anything”tour with Kate Rhudy and Libby Rodenbough, an event at which the songwriters answeraudience questions about love and play songs in response. The trio was recently featured aspart of Southern Songbirds: The Power of Women in Country Music series at the NorthCarolina Museum of History, a collaboration with PBS and the Grammy Museum
