Music in the Mountains pt 2
EL LABERINTO
DEL COCO W/ CRUZ CONTRERAS
July 11, 2024
El Laberinto del Coco is a captivating Puerto Rican Bomba contemporary band that effortlessly blends the rich traditions of Bomba music with contemporary influences, creating a unique and vibrant musical experience. Their performances are a mesmerizing journey through the rhythmic heart of Puerto Rico, fusing the ancestral beats of Bomba with elements of jazz, funk, and world music. With their infectious energy and innovative sound, El Laberinto del Coco has carved a distinct niche in the music scene, captivating audiences worldwide and preserving the island’s cultural heritage while pushing its boundaries.
Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, and producer Cruz Contreras has roots in Tennessee and Michigan, but has impacted Americana music worldwide.
The frontman, founder, and driving force behind The Black Lillies’ raw and rootsy sound also co-founded Robinella and the CCstringband, and has collaborated with musicians ranging from John Oates and Jim Lauderdale to Langhorne Slim and The Turnpike Troubadours. His projects have topped both the Billboard and Americana radio charts, won Independent Music Awards, and been nominated for the Americana Music Association’s Emerging Artist of the Year award. After over a decade touring under the name The Black Lillies, Contreras wrapped up the band in 2019 and is performing under his own name. Contreras is currently at work on his debut solo album, ‘Cosmico’.
THE WOOD BROTHERS W/ BUFFALO BURROWS
July 18, 2024
The Wood Brothers have learned to trust their hearts. For the better part of two decades, they’ve cemented their reputation as freethinking songwriters, road warriors, and community builders, creating a catalog of diverse music and a loyal audience who’ve grown alongside them through the years.
That evolution continues with Heart is the Hero, the band’s eighth studio album. Recorded analog to 16-track tape, this latest effort finds its three creators embracing the chemistry of their acclaimed live shows by capturing their performances in real-time direct from the studio floor with nary a computer in sight. An acoustic-driven album that electrifies, Heart is the Hero is stocked with songs that target not only the heart, but the head and hips, too.
“We love records that come from the era of less tracks and more care,” explains co-founder Oliver Wood. “When you use a computer during the tracking process, you have an infinite number of tracks at your disposal, which implies that nothing is permanent, and everything can be fixed. Tape gives you limitations that force you to be creative and intentional. You don’t look at the music on a screen; you listen to it, and you learn to focus on the feeling of the performance.”
In the high reaches of southern Montana is where Buffalo Burrows makes his claim, with a beat up old guitar and a suitcase for a drum.
Many times bitten, and many times mad, Buffalo Burrows’ truth in storytelling and post-western music styling will ride with you wherever the trail may turn.
MIKAELA DAVIS W/ JACOB ROUNTREE AND THE SOMETHINGS
July 25, 2024
Five years since her debut album Delivery, Mikaela Davis has moved away from her hometown of Rochester, shared the stage with the likes of Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Christian McBride, Bon Iver, Lake Street Dive and Circles Around the Sun and entered a new decade. But it’s the ever-evolving relationships between her closest friends and bandmates that has propelled the Hudson Valley-based artist onto her new album And Southern Star—a truly collaborative effort that ruminates on the choices we make, and the people we always come back to.
Davis earned her degree in harp performance at the Crane School of Music, and has molded her classical music training to create an original and genre-bending catalog that weaves together 60s pop-soaked melodies, psychedelia and driving folk rock. She met her bandmates at pivotal moments in her life—drummer Alex Coté in childhood, guitarist Cian McCarthy and bassist Shane McCarthy in college, and steel guitarist Kurt Johnson in her early twenties. It’s the band’s collective step into adulthood that has informed much of And Southern Star’s thematic landscape.
Jacob Rountree & The Somethings are an Alternative Folk/ Indie Rock group offering a very dynamic sound. They have been best described as a soulful and relatable act that transport you to other dimensions with poetically introspective lyrics, a unique finger picking style, perfectly placed percussive hits, haunting melodies and dream-like effects.
CAROLYN WONDERLAND w/Emma & the Ledge
August 1, 2024
“The more guitar you play, the more you sing, the better you get,” says award-winning Texas guitar slinger, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Carolyn Wonderland. Since performing her first professional gig at age 15, she’s never stopped singing and making music. Her music includes a bold mix of timeless original songs and reinventions of some of her favorites, ranging from blistering electric blues to deep, heartfelt ballads to cosmic country to soulful Tex-Mex. Every song is fueled by Wonderland’s forceful yet melodic Texas-flavored guitar work and her full-throated, heart-on-her-sleeve vocals. She’s recorded ten previous albums under her own name, including four produced by famed musician Ray Benson, founder of multiple Grammy-winning band Asleep At The Wheel. Wonderland, who spent the last three years as lead guitarist in John Mayall’s Blues Breakers, now joins the Alligator Records family as the first female guitar hero in the label’s storied 50-year history. Her spine-chilling, soul-deep singing matches her guitar prowess note for note. And she has a knack for writing songs that sound like instant classics. Her Alligator Records debut, the Dave Alvin-produced Tempting Fate, is the next chapter in Wonderland’s remarkable story, one that is already overflowing with countless and colorful once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
Emma and The Ledge are a guitar slinging, blues singing, sister duo from the Gallatin Valley who were recently voted the 2024 Best Blues Band and Best New Local Band in the greater Bozeman area.
Inspired by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Beth Hart, and various alternative and rock greats from the 70’s to 90’s, the pair brings an eclectic set of originals and covers with a re-imagined twist.
Emma and The Ledge are rising musicians that bring a blues experience you won’t want to miss!