InRadio 3: A Year of Seconds

Here are the inspiring artists you will hear on InRadio's third disc. To hear these and other great artists, order now.

Portastatic
Portastatic is the solo project of Mac McCaughan, known for his work in Superchunk and as co-owner of Merge Records. Started in the early 90's as a lo-fi side project and musical foil to Superchunk, over the years, Portastatic has evolved into a credible artistic entity of its own. The last few Portastatic recordings have included an instrumental film score, a collection of Brazilian tropicalia covers, and a collaboration with two of the Chicago jazz-scene's most respected members, Ken Vandermark and Tim Mulvena. How's that for diversity and range? InRadio brings its listeners a stunning track from Portastatic's latest release (The Summer of the Shark), the latest in a long series of seminal recordings from one of the indie-rock underground's most distinguished and prolific songwriters.

Amy Rigby
Compared to everyone from Elvis Costello to Carole King, Amy Rigby "has no peer on the current pop scene," according to the Chicago Reader. Amy's new release (Til the Wheels Fall Off) is her fourth solo album and her first on the Signature Sounds label. It features songs of hope, humor, cynicism and survival, played with spirit and style by Rigby and a deep supporting cast of musicians.

Amy led cowpunk pioneers Last Roundup and folk pop trio The Shams before her first solo album got the attention of critics and music fans. Combining reality-based lyrics and transcendent melodies with a passionate music fan's collection of pop, rock and country influences, one listen will confirm that Amy Rigby continues to earn the praise and respect she's generated. http://signaturesounds.com

Bembeya Jazz
Colonialism, independence, diaspora, and economics. These ingredients have been brewing with tradition for decades in West African music. Just as a good stew tastes even better the next day, the best pioneering bands of Afropop have returned in recent years sounding more fresh than ever. Now comes Bembeya Jazz, formed in 1961 by the Guinean government, with their first recording in fourteen years. Originally created to propagate a newfound post-colonial African identity, a significant economic decline in Guinea in the 1980's sent band members looking outside the music scene to make a living. But now they're back and they're sure to stun audiences the world over. http://harmoniamundi.com

Jeremy Fisher
Jeremy Fisher is a folk singer, songwriter and touring cyclist who lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. His independent debut, Back Porch Spirituals, is a collection of freewheelin' travel songs that trace the cultural outline of North America along its winding back roads in the tradition of Woody Guthrie. In the past four years, Jeremy Fisher has peddled tens of thousands of miles, self-contained on his bicycle, between Seattle, WA and Halifax, NS, Canada playing his music at festivals, coffeehouses and pubs along the way. InRadio is pleased to bring listeners an unreleased track from Jeremy's upcoming sophomore release.

Enon
A three-piece from Brooklyn, NY, Enon takes influences and chops them up, adds a little spice, makes a fine puree, and serves it to you with a smile. Combining elements of Tom Tom Club, Love, early Cure, and a flash of Japanese pop and punk esthetic, Enon sticks them together like some kind of artful mixed tape a thoughtful friend would make you. Bridging gaps. Jumping genres. Blending styles. But let's not get too scientific about this. Enon is a pop band with a fully loaded clip and a cocked smirk. InRadio's listeners will have the chance to meet this cutting edge band before their new record hits the streets this September on InRadio 3's featured independent label: Touch and Go Records.

Gym Class Heroes
From the unlikely stomping grounds of upstate New York come the Gym Class Heroes. Together for nearly six years, GCH has brought different tastes and influences to the table, creating its own batch of hip-hop flavor. Coming from diverse musical backgrounds, (and having shared stages with Run DMC and Blackalicious) GCH prefer live instrumentation to canned goods. Characteristically, GCH music is a blend of crisp guitar rhythms, deep melodic bass lines, head cracking' beats and conscious lyrics.

The Standard
Formed in Portland in 1999, The Standard has earned a reputation as a dynamic live band. Behind fragile yet ferocious vocals, the band layers intricate guitar parts over keyboard lines that are alternately massive and delicate. Their sound has matured into moodier and more introspective territory, as evidenced on their 2002 Touch and Go Records debut, August, but still retains the aggression and emotion that marked their earlier efforts. They are currently working on new material for a record to be released in 2004. The Standard is one of three artists from this issue's featured independent label (Touch and Go Records) and contribute the title track to InRadio 3: A Year of Seconds.

Zykos
Here's what critics are saying about Austin, Texas up-and-comers Zykos:
"Zykos are clearly in their prime, and, they're not afraid to stretch a good tune into an emotionally powerful and expansive rocker. If this is how Zykos begins their career, momentum alone could carry them into a much bigger spotlight." (CMJ New Music)

" A solid if somewhat unlikely candidate for Austin Album of the Year, Zykos' debut Comedy Horn (Post-Parlo) reveals itself a little more with each listen. Four instrumentalists twist and shape jagged post-Joy Division rock into piano-lit abstractions of sad beauty, until singer Michael Booher's haunting voice wanders by and makes them all too concrete. Then everyone rocks out. Genius." (Austin Chronicle) http://postparlo.com

Xavier Rudd
Xavier Rudd's debut full-length release, To Let, which has been proclaimed as one of Australia's top independent recordings of the past year, kicks off with immediate evidence of his own unique sound. Led by a powerful solo didgeridoo, the first track brings you in with a low growl and up into what
can only be described as a didgie-house beat that smoothly transitions into one of the warmest Weissenborn guitar sounds out there today. Xavier's mastery of instruments, songwriting and sounds combined with a unique flavor on the didgeridoo brings forth an urgent sense of Xavier's talent.

Mamani Keita and Marc Minelli
This latest pairing of technophilic European producer and soaring African vocalist is nothing you'd expect. Marc Minelli, who's soaked up plenty of jazz, R&B, and rock from his Paris home, brings a swinging, soul-jazz sensibility to Mamani Keita's traditional songs and vocals. The freewheeling Afro-centric atmosphere brings to mind vintage Nina Simone or Randy Weston albums; although Keita's high, strident voice is nothing like Nina's. A backup singer with Salif Keita, she's kin to Oumou Sangare's school of feminist African divas. With each song more surprising than the last, Electro Bamako bodes well for such intercultural, intercontinental cooperation.

Pamela Means
Pamela Means is arguably the only Boston-based Out folkie whose punchy political songs have worn a hole in her guitar. Pamela's kamikaze guitar style, politically-charged lyrics and funky 'fro are all her own.

Fittingly, Means has made a habit of quoting one of her deepest inspirations, Audre Lorde: "I am myself - a Black woman warrior poet doing my work - come to ask you, are you doing yours?" InRadio listeners will hear a track from Single Bullet Theory, Pamela's newest release.

FemBots
Small Town Murder Scene (Paper Bag Records) is the second release from Toronto's FemBots. Founded in 1998 by Dave MacKinnon and Brian Poirier as a home recording experiment, FemBots quickly outgrew the studio to become a critical favorite of the Canadian independent music scene. This record finds the band moving beyond their innovative "budgetronica" to explore a darker, more roots-based sound. In the last year, FemBots have expanded into a larger ensemble featuring violinist Julie Penner and drummer Jason Tait. Look for FemBots on tour in North America as they continue to prove that some of the most exciting Americana is coming from outside the U.S.

Dirty Three
Dirty Three are an instrumental, violin-led trio, lauded by the music intelligentsia, but embodying the primitive appeal of rock'n'roll unlike any other band. Formed in 1993 in Melbourne as a "background music combo", they progressed rapidly and have since released six full-length albums and toured with such diverse acts as Nick Cave, Rickie Lee Jones, Beck, the Beastie Boys and Sonic Youth. Dirty Three's music has been called lyrical, passionate, original, inspiring and has earned them admiration and renown across the globe. Dirty Three provide InRadio 3's only instrumental track, and they are one of the three groups from this issue's featured independent label: Touch and Go Records.

Tim Bluhm
In a time when the ability of the music industry to fabricate "introspective singer-songwriters" is rivaled only by the enthusiasm to bleat about the "new Gram Parsons", any time a pedal-steel guitar weeps, Tim Bluhm gives us evidence that real songcraft still exists. Perhaps the only musician in the world with seven albums who lives in a van, Tim Bluhm has always balanced his music career with the life of a vagabond, drifting between the California coast and its mountain ranges in a Chevy van crowded with mountaineering gear and surfboards, and as he puts it in his characteristic understatement, "looking around". As a result, few artists are as inseparable from a place as Tim Bluhm is from California. InRadio 3 brings listeners a beautiful track from his latest release. http://californiarecordings.com

Rilo Kiley
Eclectic electric twang meets masterful songwriting on The Execution of All Things, Rilo Kiley's second full-length album. With Liz Phair narrative sensibility, Bettie Serveert (InRadio 2) compositional beauty, and Beachwood Sparks sunshine, Rilo Kiley's latest is a lyrically dense treasure that will have you searching for the story behind the evocative songs. It didn't take much for the burgeoning Omaha, NE, Saddle Creek music scene (home to talent like Bright Eyes, The Faint, and Cursive) to catch on to Rilo Kiley. As one of only a few bands from outside of Omaha to be signed to the label, they've been warmly welcomed. InRadio 3 provides listeners with a selection from Rilo Kiley's latest release that features many of their loving labelmates on the album.