David Dondero is a singer/songwriter whose music has been compared to such American folk music/troubadour greats as Woody Guthrie and Townes Van Zandt. He began in 1993 as a member of the band Sunbrain, and later played in This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb and The Flatwheelers. He is currently on the Team Love Records label and has toured with such acts as Bright Eyes, Tilly and the Wall, Spoon, and Willy Mason.
Ben Howard (born 24 May 1988) is an English singer-songwriter, born in London. He moved to Totnes, Devon, in his teens. Howard's musically-inclined parents exposed him at a young age to their favourite records from singer-songwriter artists such as Bob Dylan, Nina Simone and John Martyn. Howard began writing his own songs and after a short spell studying journalism, he decided in 2009 at the age of 21 to become a full-time musician.
Only Son is the solo project of former <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Moldy+Peaches" class="bbcode_artist">The Moldy Peaches</a> lead guitarist and <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Stipplicon" class="bbcode_artist">Stipplicon</a> frontman, <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Jack+Dishel" class="bbcode_artist">Jack Dishel</a>. Born Yevgeny Leonidovich Dishel in the former Soviet Union, Jack arrived in America as a three-year-old Russian refugee. A music fanatic from a young age, Jack got his first ramshackle drum set after seeing Tommy Lee spinning in midair above the crowd in Motley Crue's “Wildside” video. That spawned his "suburban metal head" phase which gave way to a lengthy “urban street kid" period which began at the age of 14 upon hearing "Fuck The Police" on a friend's stereo system in Queens.
The Cairo Gang is a musical declaration uniting the romanticists with the doomsayers for a round of high fives and hand shakes. The ballad _Mother Earth_ is acoustically organic, delivering the listener an early Neil Young feel with bewitching flutes and bongos. Over the course of recent years, The Cairo Gang has been a lingering passion for Emmett Kelly, a stimulated singer/songwriter with an impressive list of musicians in his rolodex.
The Boy Who Trapped The Sun, funnily enough, is not his real name. Colin MacLeod - for it is he- was discovered swinging round the rafters of an Aberdeen bar, dishing out Deep Purple covers and, he says, “generally acting like an arse.” Having smashed his guitar and knocked himself unconscious on stage, he set to cleaning up both the broken instrument and his act. Thus The Boy moved to London; to become a solo artist and an adult. And so emerged a record - due out this summer - full of strange, sometimes sinister stories: equally inspired by home, Hemingway, ghosts and ex-girlfriends.
Like most inspirational art Timber Timbre comes from a source of isolation, cabin fever specifically. Timber Timbre, primarily the work of Oshawa-born Toronto based Taylor Kirk, walks a precious line between harrowing blues and desperate death country. Recorded in a farm house near Bobcaygeon, Ontario, their debut Cedar Shakes was released in 2006, the moniker Timber Timbre an ode to the surroundings and the warm haunting sound of the album.
Noah and the Whale is an alternative/folk group formed in Twickenham, London, England in 2006. They consist of Charlie Fink (vocals, guitar), Tom Hobden (fiddle), Matt "Urby Whale" Owens (bass), Fred Abbott (keyboards) and Jack Hamson (drums). Doug Fink (drums) and Laura Marling (vocals, guitar) are former members of the band. According to Songfacts, the band's name is a marriage of the title of one of their favorite films, The Squid and the Whale and Noah Baumbach, who directed the movie.
In the past year 18 year old Newcastle based singer/songwriter Beth Jeans Houghton has garnered a reputation as an antidote to the current crop of acoustic songstresses. With her alternative blend of experimental folk, Beth has been hailed by the NME as "a Joni Mitchell for the anti-folk generation". With influences ranging from Frank Zappa, Vashti Bunyan, Fourtet and Love, Beth has cultivated a sound that is truly her own.
The EPs and the albums by Beirut are largely the work of Zach Condon, a young Santa Fe, New Mexico native. Condon has recorded before: when he was fifteen and under the name of Realpeople, he made an electronic record, fashioned after his love for The Magnetic Fields. Condon was a straight-A student until he dropped out at the age of 17 to travel Europe with his cousin in a drunken haze, cavorting and partying with the locals wherever he ended up.
There are two artists called Mountain Man: 1. Mountain Man is a group of three young women, based in Bennington, Vermont - Amelia Meath, Molly Sarle, and Alex Sauser-Monnig- who sing with or without Alex's guitar. There's a fragile balance between the three very different styles and personalities in these three young women. They are all songwriters, and having all three approaches with the same treatment on the same album is really satisfying.