OCTOBER 11, 2012: BRETT HARRIS, JPHONO1, AND ANNA ROSE BECK
“Finely honed.” “Richly layered.” “Moving and hypnotic.” So critics have described the pop sounds of the musicians featured in our second Music on the Porch of the semester: Brett Harris, Jphono1, and Anna Rose Beck. Where else can you hear “a banjo porch picnic seamlessly morph[ing] into an Indian tala”? Join us on the lawn on Thursday, October 11, from 5:30 – 7:30 pm, when we are pleased to have Alex Maiolo moderate another afternoon of great songs and conversation. Bring a chair, a blanket, and your kids, pets, or friends!
Brett Harris is a pop musician from Durham, NC. Emerging on the scene with a collection of songs honed on a hand-me-down tape recorder, Brett began playing shows throughout the Southeast, winning over fans with engaging performances and an unforgettable voice.
Following the release of two critically acclaimed EP’s in 2008 and a relentless touring schedule, Brett devoted most of 2009 to the making of his first full length album, Man of Few Words, released in the Spring of 2010. The album, recorded at Arbor Ridge Studios with producer/collaborator Jeff Crawford, is a sprawling collection of finely honed pop tunes that made several “best of lists” for 2010 in addition to being featured by Paste Magazine and NPR’s All Songs Considered/ Second Stage.
In addition to the success Brett has experienced with his own work, he also been involved in various local live and recorded projects, including live performances of Big Star’s Third in Chapel Hill, NC, NYC, SXSW 2012, The UK and the Primavera Festival in Spain. Brett is currently recording a collection of new songs at Arbor Ridge.
The image of an astronaut on a horse has about become synonymous with John Harrison, the songwriting force behind Chapel Hill’s band North Elementary and now also solo project Jphono1. It’s an image that really makes no sense, but then makes total sense when you get to know John Harrison as a songwriter. An astronaut loves space and has great confidence to explore unknown territory using technology and physics to guide. Cowboys are grounded, earthy, and gritty. Both revel in the exploration of something novel and their freedom to keep on for that next discovery, both like Harrison’s songwriting, journeying you to the far-reaches while keeping you firmly grounded in familiar ease.
This ain’t John Harrison’s first rodeo/space shuttle launch. He’s orbited a few times now, playing since the early 90’s, touring around the country and locally with his bands The Comas and currently with North Elementary. He has played with dozens of musicians, and is firmly established in the area as an experienced and gifted collaborator. Sometimes though, the cowboy-astronaut needs a more solitary journey.
Jphono1’s solo release “Living is Easy” is such a trip, a cohesive album of nine songs pulling together modern and traditional musical sounds of the world, integrating them together making something out of place feel familiar. The songs are anchored by acoustic guitar melodies with richly layered vocals and harmonies, and solid, relaxed rhythms. The magic is in the warbling organs, birds chirping, the layered wavers and bends, clocks ticking. A banjo porch picnic seamlessly morphs into an Indian tala. The pop melodies shift minor with a discordant and melancholic need to move on, but settle back into a gentle comfortable handhold. The cowboy’s banjo, guitar and harmonica are right at home alongside astronaut’s spacey techno-programmed beats, synthesized strings, and organs- all blending brilliantly.
Next time you see a man on a horse, naturally you will wonder why he’s not wearing an astronaut suit. (Written by Mimi McLaughlin.) One of North Carolina’s most promising up-and-coming young songwriters, Anna Rose Beck pens timeless ballads that would have felt as meaningful and mystical a century ago as they do today. The Austin, Texas, native draws heavily upon visual imagery in her songwriting, transporting listeners in time and place to ancient landscapes with magical underpinnings, carrying the weightiness of her storylines and cleverly worded lyrical wanderings with a voice that has been described as “both bold and understated, moving and hypnotic, brimming with passion but never overpowering,” inviting comparisons to Dar Williams and Natalie Merchant.
It’s hard to believe that a mere three years ago, Beck didn’t sing or play guitar. In fact, she first picked up the guitar one summer while in the course of completing a biomedical engineering degree at Duke and spent the subsequent school year juggling courses in circuitry and signal processing with a newfound addiction to singing alone in her bedroom into the wee hours of the morning. Completely transformed by her passion for music, she began performing at local dive bars shortly after graduating and soon garnered a local reputation for her hushy middle-soprano intensity, finger-picked guitar lines, and whimsical songwriting. A mere two years later, after gathering a modest recording budget with the popular fundraising website Kickstarter, Beck collaborated with Asheville-based producer Andrew Schatzberg to record her 7-song, full-band debut EP The Weathermaker, released in summer of 2011. Since then, she has won over audiences from Austin to Boston to Berkeley, CA, and is in the process of writing and recording the full-length follow-up, to be released in the spring of 2013.