Tag: minneapolis

Humbird: From Dinner Table Singing to Dismantling White Supremacy

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Siri Undlin, better known as Humbird, is a talented singer-songwriter from the Twin Cities with deep roots in Minnesota music and the land that surrounds her. Growing up, she was a true cold-weather kid who loved hockey during winter, but also loved music and feeding her vivid imagination. Her interest in music was nurtured by her parents, religious music, church choir, and also her Aunt Joan, who taught Siri guitar at age 12. Hockey actually led her to her first band, Celtic Club, which would play at Irish Pubs, talent shows, and of course, at the local hockey rink. They introduced her to Celtic music and her first live performances.

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In this episode of Basic Folk, Undlin shares her rich experience studying folklore and fairy tales, which greatly influence her musical journey. She discusses her intensive research in Ireland and Nordic countries, exploring how music intertwines with storytelling traditions.

Throughout the episode, Undlin reflects on her upbringing, her time at an art school, and her evolving approach to songwriting, blending traditional folk music with indie music and experimental sounds. On her new album, Right On, Siri is acknowledging and addressing white supremacy in middle America, as highlighted in her song “Child of Violence.” She talks candidly about what writing and releasing the song taught her about white supremacy. Touring has provided Undlin with unexpected challenges and valuable insights, shaping her perspective as a musician and performer. We talk about the importance of being open to chaos and disciplined in one’s mindset while navigating the music industry and life on the road.

(Editor’s Note: Read our recent interview feature with Humbird here.)

Photo Credit: Juliet Farmer

LISTEN: Luke LeBlanc, “A Place”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Luke LeBlanc
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Song: “A Place”
Album: Places
Release Date: September 15, 2023 (single); October 27, 2023 (album)
Label: Real Phonic Records

In Their Words: “After I released my last album, Fugue State, in fall 2022, I could feel a switch in my mind toggle from ‘Logistics Mode’ to ‘Creative Mode.’ The logistical web of coordinating an album release, booking shows, and scheduling rehearsals was broken apart by a rush of melodies and lyrics that led to some eventual demo recording in my spare time. Two months later I nearly had enough songs for another album, and on a frigid Minneapolis afternoon in January, I texted Erik Koskinen (producer) to set up a time to chat. We eventually made a plan to track this new album live, with a mindset intent on capturing the energy, ebb and flow, and spontaneity that live performance provides.

“‘A Place,’ the lead song from this upcoming record, Places, revolves around a practice I’ve found to be essential for performing live: accepting the place you’re in and then living in it fully. In the studio, a song you demo’d at home, just how you like it, might not sound the same way once the actual band is there recording. You might hit one wrong note on the guitar during the best take of the song, leaving you to decide whether to wear everyone out by doing another take or accept the imperfection, sacrificing ‘perfect’ for that authentic ‘feel,’ realizing that the perfect take doesn’t exist, anyway. While challenging, learning to accept, embrace, and love when things don’t go to plan while recording live unlocks new ways for songs to live and breathe.

“Outside of recording processes, ‘A Place’ is a song that takes a stab at analyzing this search for the ‘perfect place’ of being, both emotionally and physically. The way we’re inundated with ads encouraging us to ‘work on ourselves,’ ‘feel healthier,’ and ‘live better’ are all well and good, but they make it easy to forget that it’s okay to pull up a chair in whatever place we’re in, whether it be good or bad, and feel it. After all, sometimes the easiest way to get through turbulent waters is to just ride the wave.” – Luke LeBlanc

Photo Credit: Sarah Bel Kloetzke

WATCH: Barbaro, “Gardens”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Barbaro
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Song: “Gardens”
Album: About the Winter
Release Date: October 20, 2023
Label: StorySound Records

In Their Words: “This tune is one of those that was written quite easily in one sitting, but took the band a while to finalize it. Looking back at voice memos, we started working on this one about three years ago. There was a clear vision for the composition, but took us a little to realize how each instrument can be used to accomplish it. The goal for the song was to be a long crescendo from start to finish. It starts with just guitar, then adds bass, then adds a simple counter melody on the banjo, then fiddle, etc. We like to think of it like building with Lego blocks, every six bars you add a new piece, a new color, until a nice little mosaic presents itself. It’s a really simple song, same three chords looping over and over again, the same melody plays following every verse. Because of this, the goal was to change the way these parts were played every go around, whether playing muted, more percussive, or playing each note with more sustain.” – Barbaro

Photo Credit: Wolfskull Creative

LISTEN: Turn Turn Turn, “Stranger in a Strange Land”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Turn Turn Turn
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Song: “Stranger in a Strange Land”
Album: New Rays From an Old Sun
Release Date: January 27, 2023
Label: Simon Recordings

In Their Words: “I think this song has more of everybody’s fingerprints on it than any other song on the album. It was written in my head during a five-mile walk around a lake — words, melody, everything. When I got home, I found the guitar chords that matched the melody in my head and sent it to Adam and Savannah for their feedback and help. We tweaked it for a long time before we settled on the final arrangement, and I couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out. I sent it to my mom when it was done. She cried when she listened to it because it was about losing my sisters during the pandemic, and she thought everyone had forgotten about them. I call it a happy little song about surviving loss, moving forward, and finding peace.” — Barbara Brystad (co-writer, bassist, vocalist)

“That was a fun one to write and record. Even though the subject matter is about grieving and loss, it’s got a playful, early ’70s soul pop feel with all those layered harmony vocals, fuzzy guitars and barreling bass riff, drums and percussion — it’s a banger.” — Adam Levy (co-writer, lead guitarist and vocalist)

“It’s always fascinating to see how much a song can grow and change from the demo to the finished single. ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ went through a total metamorphosis. Barb set up an amazing foundation, Adam had a vision and it ended in this beautiful, full sound that’s really unique to Turn Turn Turn.” — Savannah Smith (rhythm guitarist, vocalist)

Turn Turn Turn · Stranger in a Strange Land

Photo Credit: Shelly Mosman

The Show On The Road – Ondara

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we talk with Kenyan singer-songwriter Ondara, who came to Minneapolis in search of his voice as a young musician, and found a new creative persona which he now embodies called The Spanish Villager. He has since taken audiences by storm, garnering a Grammy-nomination and now returning with a stunning, politically-charged new LP.

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Spanish Villager No: 3 is produced by Ondara and Mike Viola (Jenny Lewis, Dan Wilson) with collaborations from Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes, Sebastian Steinberg, Tim Kuhl and Jeremy Stacey. While he would still call himself a folk singer like his Minneapolis hero Bob Dylan, Ondara (like Dylan) has gone a bit electric on the new offering, harnessing his massive vocal power with a full band around him.

Ondara’s immigrant journey is truly one for the storybooks, and while he has dutifully paid homage to American folk protest singers in his previous work, the newest Spanish Villager work shows him really finding his own sound, at once sharply modern and steeped in a dark history he can’t wait to mine.

Basic Folk – Ondara

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

When Ondara was a little boy growing up in Nairobi, Kenya, music was both everywhere and just out of reach. He walked around the market listening to vendors playing music from stereos, stopping to listen when he heard something that caught his attention. His family couldn’t afford musical instruments, and the household radio was constantly in demand so he would wait until everyone was asleep so that he could listen to music by himself. He began writing poems, and eventually a cappella songs. He figured that if Bob Dylan could create a legacy setting insightful poems to music, so could he.

 

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In 2013, Ondara won the green card lottery and moved to Minneapolis, because a) he had a family member there, and b) his hero Bob Dylan came from there. Ondara quickly discovered that Minnesota was a little different than he had dreamed. He was working temp jobs to buy his first guitar, writing dozens of songs that would eventually become his debut album, Tales of America, and getting his foot in the door in the Minneapolis open mic scene. But he found that it was difficult to put a band together, that the life of a songwriter was lonely, and that, in America, the color of his skin came with a whole set of expectations about how he should behave (and even about what kind of music he should create).

Ondara has worked to understand these expectations without bowing to them. He shared during our conversation that being Black in America means joining a tradition of art and resistance, and that helping The Cause matters to him. And his ability to contribute to the cause has grown exponentially, since Ondara hit the road in support of his hit debut album, and opening for artists like Neil Young, Lindsey Buckingham, and the Lumineers.

Since then, Ondara has looked outward for subject matter, releasing a pandemic-inspired album in 2020 based on his friends’ stories of quarantine dating and struggling to pay the rent. He has also undertaken a significant spiritual journey as he struggles to reconcile fame and the demands of capitalism with his desire to become a grounded, useful, wise, grown-up adult. His solution, for now, comes in the form of the Spanish Villager, the hyper-performative character at the center of his new album.

Editor’s Note: Basic Folk is currently running their annual fall fundraiser! Visit basicfolk.com/donate for a message from hosts Cindy Howes and Lizzie No, and to support this listener-funded podcast.

Photo Credit: Nate Ryan

LISTEN: Luke LeBlanc, “Now”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Luke LeBlanc
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Song: “Now”
Album: Fugue State
Release Date: October 28, 2022

In Their Words: “Lyrically, ‘Now’ revolves around the child-parent relationship, from the kid’s perspective. No matter who you are or how old you get, it’s always one of those complicated, ever-evolving things. Now that I’m in my mid-twenties, while I don’t know everything, I’m beginning to learn that even adults are still children at heart, trying their best to figure things out. Musically, I tuned my guitar to a drop-D tuning, the first time I’ve done so on a recording. In the background, Eric Heywood’s pedal steel oscillates between soothing notes to experimental, almost chaotic, low-end tones that reflect the spectrum of emotions the lyrics try to capture.” — Luke LeBlanc

Luke LeBlanc · Now

Photo Credit: Sarah Bel Kloetzke

Basic Folk – Mason Jennings

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Mason Jennings has the most interesting songwriting process I’ve come across. Since he was around 13 years old, the Minneapolis songwriter has had songs just come to him while randomly playing guitar and singing. He gets in touch with his subconscious and discovers his songs there very naturally. He also never writes the songs down. That’s right, he commits each song to memory and only writes them down for liner notes.

 

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Born in Honolulu and raised in Pittsburgh, he chose Minneapolis to settle into his music career. There, he found lots of success and managed to avoid the ever-tempting major label record contracts, which were being offered as high as $1 million. Wanting to remain in control of his creativity, he opted to stay independent until he signed with Glacial Pace, a subsidiary of Sony’s Epic Records headed by Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse. He released Boneclouds in 2006 and gained much acclaim. An album with Jack Johnson’s label and an appearance on the soundtrack to Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan film I’m Not There, solidified his presence in the folk mainstream.

Fast forward to his latest album (his 14th studio record), Real Heart, co-produced by Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, is an ode to the acoustic guitar and a love letter to songwriting. Lately, Mason’s been working on himself through therapy and self-reflection. In the last few years, he’s been working on conquering and controlling depression, agoraphobia and living a sober life. He’s also gotten married again to Josie Jennings and the couple just recently welcomed their son Western in March 2022. A lot of these themes appear on Real Heart. We dig into those as well as his painting, the lake he lives on and Painted Shield, his synth-based rock and roll band with Stone Gossard and Matt Chamberlain. Mason’s a very special person and I’m grateful for this conversation!

Photo Credit: Benson Ramsey

WATCH: Mark Joseph & The American Soul, “Early Riser”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Mark Joseph & The American Soul
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Song: “Early Riser”
Album: Vegas Motel
Release Date: November 19, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Early Riser’ is a really special song to me and writing it and recording it was truly a joy. It was a concept I came up with early one morning and developed into a beautiful vehicle for Ryan Young (Trampled by Turtles) to create his amazing melodic and harmonic fiddle soundscapes. In some ways I feel like I wrote this subconsciously for Ryan. When we started tracking it in the studio, (co-producer) JT Bates and I just looked at each other and knew we had something very special. It came together very naturally and showcases the genuine brothership and 20 years of history that Ryan and I share together. Enjoy! Thank you for listening!” — Mark Joseph

Photo Credit: Brent Snyder

WATCH: Mason Jennings, “Tomorrow”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Mason Jennings
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Song: “Tomorrow”
Album: Real Heart
Release Date: February 4, 2022
Label: Loosegroove

In Their Words: “‘Tomorrow’ is the first song on my new album Real Heart. During the pandemic I had my guitars tuned to different open tunings because I didn’t have to tune them regular for tour. I had an old 1952 Martin laying around that I would play in open C tuning for hours. This is a song that I’d play. I wrote it over a few months and kept working on it because it is basically a loop and can be played for as long as you want as it keeps repeating. Stone Gossard produced the album, and when I sent him the first batch of demos, this was the song he picked out first. It surprised me because it felt more like a guitar meditation but after thinking about it, it made sense that it was the first one he picked. It felt like the center of how I was writing during these times and a new chapter for me. So, a simple guitar meditation in a new tuning that I played during the pandemic to comfort myself became the first song on my new album and a reminder of hope in these troubled times.” — Mason Jennings

Photo Credit: Benson Ramsey