Kris Delmhorst blood test ❙ 13 MAY 2014

TRACK LIST

1 ❙ Blood Test 5 ❙ Bees 9 ❙ Temporary Sun 2 ❙ Homeless 6 ❙ We Deliver 10 ❙ Hushabye 3 ❙ 92nd St 7 ❙ Little Frame 11 ❙ My Ohio 4 ❙ Saw It All 8 ❙ Bright Green World 12 ❙ Lighthouse

On May 13, Signature Sounds will release Blood Test, “I was focused on paring things down to their elements the latest LP from acclaimed singer-songwriter Kris — less flesh, more bone,” Delmhorst says. “So it’s just Delmhorst — her first of original material since the four of us on Blood Test, with very few overdubs, 2008’s Shotgun Singer, which Performing Songwriter playing the songs and letting the imperfections be part described as “a tour de force of , writing and of the story. There’s a freshness and spirit of discovery production that gains in richness with each repetition,” in the tracks that I think shines through and gives them and the Herald called “a work of lo-fi beauty, and a lot of life.” evidence of an artist taking flight.” In 2011, the versatile As a native who for the past 20 years has called performer released Cars, an album of songs by the Massachusetts home, recording Blood Test in the middle seminal new wave/proto-punk band of the same name. of her old stomping grounds had a profound effect on Co-produced by Delmhorst and fellow songwriter Delmhorst. “I was getting coffee at the deli I used to go (Varnaline, Gob Iron, New Multitudes), to in high school, then walking to the studio,” she says. “It Blood Test was recorded in Brooklyn, NY along with was a kind of vertigo feeling to be working there, a little drummer Konrad Meissner (Brandi Carlile, The Silos) dizzying, but also really satisfying; it somehow completed and instrumentalist Mark Spencer (Blood Oranges, the circle.” And while her upbringing is on full Laura Cantrell, ). display on the album (see “92nd St” for an obvious example), so is her current life in the hills of western “We all experience the times when something comes Massachusetts with husband and fellow songwriter along to make us reassess the big picture; having a child and their young daughter. is just one version of it. You go along in your life and everything’s leading up to the next thing, but you can’t Blood Test describes a moment of reckoning and see how it all fits or what it’s all for. Then there’s some centering in the songwriter’s life, and in society as a big shift, and for a moment it’s like you’re seeing your whole. In her new collection, Delmhorst acknowledges life from an airplane, with enough distance to see the the weary work of an intentioned life — and the new patterns and the overall shape of what’s happening. American dream of presence and perspective in a These songs are like letters written from that fleeting, frenetic time. dizzying, revelatory moment before the clouds move back in and you’re back in the day to day.“

Kris Delmhorst released her debut album in 1998 and has since recorded and released multiple and EPs spanning a range of musical genres — both as a solo artist and as a band member and collaborator. She has recorded vocals, fiddle and cello on over 50 albums from artists such as , , and Lori McKenna. She also records and performs with Jeffrey Foucault and as Redbird.

WEBSITE CONTACTS

krisdelmhorst.com GENERAL INFORMATION [email protected] ONLINE MEDIA KIT ❙ PHOTO DOWNLOADS BOOKING krisdelmhorst.com/press Lori Peters Mad Mission Agency LISTEN, LYRICS & LINER NOTES [email protected] LABEL krisdelmhorst.com/bloodtest Jim Olsen Signature Sounds SOCIAL MEDIA [email protected] or 413-665-4036 instagram.com/krisdelmhorst PUBLICITY twitter.com/krisdelmhorst Chris Schimpf Sacks & Co facebook.com/krisdelmhorst [email protected] or 212-741-1000 RADIO Brad Hunt The WNS Group [email protected] or 845-358-3003 PUBLISHING Jeff Pachman Domino Publishing Co [email protected] UPC 701237206523 CATALOG SIG 2065 MARKETING & ALL OTHER INQUIRIES Michelle Conceison Market Monkeys [email protected] or 617-233-1893

For Immediate Release March 13, 2014 KRIS DELMHORST’S BLOOD TEST OUT MAY 13 ON SIGNATURE SOUNDS ACCLAIMED ARTIST’S FIRST COLLECTION OF ORIGINAL SONGS SINCE 2008

“…a gorgeous, tender, evocative voice and a textured and varied musical palette.” —Amazon.com “…warm and immediately accessible…a voice that breathes through the speakers.”—All Music “…[Delmhorst is] a talented song-crafter and interpreter; a woman who lets the music that moves her run freely through her and into us.”—No Depression On May 13, Signature Sounds will release Blood Test, the latest LP from acclaimed singer- songwriter Kris Delmhorst. The release marks Delmhorst’s first album of original material since 2008’s Shotgun Singer, which Performing Songwriter described as “a tour de force of singing, writing and production that gains in richness with each repetition,” and the Boston Herald called “a work of lo-fi beauty, and evidence of an artist taking flight.” In between, the versatile performer recorded and released Cars, a covers album of songs by the seminal new wave/proto-punk band of the same name, which PopMatters called a “victory” and noted, “Cars has the potential to bring a brilliant young songwriter to a wider audience.” continued

For more information, please contact Chris Schimpf, Krista Williams or Carla Sacks at Sacks & Co., 212.741.1000, [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected].

Co-produced by Delmhorst and fellow songwriter Anders Parker (Varnaline, Gob Iron, New Multitudes), Blood Test was recorded in Brooklyn, NY along with drummer Konrad Meissner (Brandi Carlile, The Silos) and multi-instrumentalist Mark Spencer (Blood Oranges, Lisa Loeb, Laura Cantrell, Son Volt). “I was focused on paring things down to their elements—less flesh, more bone,” Delmhorst says. “So it’s just the four of us on Blood Test, with very few overdubs, playing the songs and letting the imperfections be part of the story. There’s a freshness and spirit of discovery in the tracks that I think shines through and gives them a lot of life.” Please see complete track listing below; tour dates will be announced shortly. As a Brooklyn native who for the past 20 years has called Massachusetts home, recording Blood Test in the middle of her old stomping grounds had a profound effect on Delmhorst. “I was getting coffee at the deli I used to go to in high school, then walking to the studio,” she says. “It was a kind of vertigo feeling to be working there, a little dizzying, but also really satisfying; it somehow completed the circle.” And while her New York upbringing is on full display on the album (see “92nd St” for an obvious example), so is her current life in the hills of western Massachusetts with husband and fellow songwriter Jeffrey Foucault and their young daughter. The product of a musical family, Delmhorst released her debut album, Appetite, in 1998 and has since recorded and released multiple albums and EPs spanning a range of musical genres—both as a solo artist and as a band member/collaborator. She has recorded vocals, fiddle and cello on over 50 albums from artists such as Peter Wolf, Mary Gauthier, Chris Smither and Lori McKenna, and also records and performs with Jeffrey Foucault and Peter Mulvey as Redbird.

BLOOD TEST TRACKLIST 1. Blood Test 2. Homeless 3. 92nd St 4. Saw It All 5. Bees 6. We Deliver 7. Little Frame 8. Bright Green World 9. Temporary Sun 10. Hushabye 11. My Ohio 12. Lighthouse

www.krisdelmhorst.com/press

For more information, please contact Chris Schimpf, Krista Williams or Carla Sacks at Sacks & Co., 212.741.1000, [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]. D SACKS AN CO.

Kris Delmhorst Blood Test

On her first album of original material since 2008’s Shotgun Singer, acclaimed singer/songwriter Kris Delmhorst consciously strips things down. Recorded in Brooklyn with a band composed of guitarist/vocalist Anders Parker (who also co-produced), drummer Konrad Meissner and multi- instrumentalist Mark Spencer, Blood Test is a poetic record with a warm, live sound that complements a collection of songs speaking to presence, empathy, broadening perspective and striving for authentic experience in a frenetic time.

Recent years have seen the broadening of Delmhorst’s perspective as she and husband (fellow songwriter) Jeffrey Foucault welcomed a daughter in 2008. And while Blood Test is not explicitly about becoming a photo credit: Shervin Lainez parent (only a few songs even subtly reference it), it is unquestionably an Where did the songs on Blood Test originate? Is there a thematic through-line element of Delmhorst’s worldview that to the songs as a collection? shines in her newest songs. These songs are the first batch I’ve written after becoming a mother, and for much of the time leading up to the recording I thought I was making what a Blood Test joins Delmhorst’s catalog of friend of mine calls a “What’s-in-the-fridge?” record—just throwing together nine albums and EPs released since whatever unrelated songs happened to be at hand. It was only in the process 1998, spanning a range of band of recording them, and listening to them thousands of times, that I really configurations and musical genres. understood how linked they are. These songs all have something to do with She has also recorded vocals, cello taking stock of big-picture life questions: where am I, how did I get here, and fiddle on over 50 albums from where am I going, what have I lost, what have I gained, what parts of all this artists such as Peter Wolf, Mary really matter? Some songs are from an individual perspective and some from Gauthier, Chris Smither and Lori a collective one, but they all swirl around that central idea of a moment of McKenna, and she records and reckoning. performs with Jeffrey Foucault and Peter Mulvey as Redbird. What does your writing process generally look like? I tend to have a ton of progress at once, like a row of plants. I often start songs in the car or when I’m out and about, walking, running, working in the garden… I record quick snippets into my phone and dig through the piles later. Finishing them is the part that feels like heavy lifting and I usually need to leave home to focus on it. “92nd St” is the first one I wrote in its entirety after having my daughter and that made it a beautiful shining beacon of hope that I had come through to the other side of that event still able to write. That might seem obvious, but I think it’s a fear most artists have.

How would you describe the recording sessions? My last few records have been casts-of-thousands, kitchen-sink affairs. This time I was interested in paring things down to their elements—less flesh, more bone. So it’s just the four of us on this one: my friend Anders Parker and Konrad Meissner and Mark Spencer, who he introduced me to. I first met Konrad and Mark on the first day of recording—we just shook hands and got right to making music! We did the basic tracking in three days, with only a few overdubs, playing the songs and letting the imperfections be part of the story. We were new to each other as a band, and the songs were new to everyone, many of them even to me. So there’s a freshness and spirit of discovery in the tracks that I think shines through and gives them a lot of life. It’s a

423 west fourteenth street new york, ny 10014 t 212.741.1000 f 212.741.9777 www.sacksco.com D SACKS AN CO. situation that requires intense focus, listening, responsiveness if it’s going to work. Everyone involved from the players to the engineer brought these things and more.

You’ve lived in Massachusetts for the past 20 years, but were born and raised in Brooklyn, NY—which is also where you recorded Blood Test. What was it like recording the album back where you grew up? The great studio where we made the record, Brooklyn Recording, turned out to be right in my old stomping grounds. I was staying with friends in my old neighborhood, getting coffee at the deli I used to go to in high school, and then walking to the studio. It was a kind of vertigo feeling to be working there, a little dizzying, but also really satisfying; it somehow completed a circle. There are some songs on the record that refer way back to that time in my life—“92nd St” most directly—and it felt like time folding in on itself in a fascinating way.

What effect would you say your New York upbringing has had on your perspective as an artist? As an arty kid New York was an amazing place to grow up. I used to go on epic walks around the city—hours, miles, universes. There was incredible freedom and possibility in being an invisible, anonymous set of senses just roaming around and taking it all in. I think that the feeling of breadth, of limitless variation and possibility, were formative to who I am as a person, and maybe as a writer too. The way the city demonstrated to me that you actually can see or do or be anything, on any given day, and the way that so many incredibly disparate things are piled right up on top of each other. That created a feeling of richness and freedom and possibility that I still get high on when I spend time there. That kind of defines the tradition I come from—that vibrant collage.

Were you involved with the NYC music scene while you were living there? I was a pretty serious student of classical cello and piano. I didn’t play or write songs at all until my twenties. But starting in my early teens I absorbed a ton of different music. I would go to all the little clubs downtown, see the show and hang around afterwards to talk to the band. What I wanted was to be the band, but I didn’t realize it at the time. Looking back I can see the way I was drawn like a sleepwalker to all the artists and musicians I could find. I wanted to be near them, with them, of them. Those were my people, you know? But I didn’t know how to find my way in there yet.

It actually took leaving the city to find my own way into being a musician. I lived on a remote subsistence farm in Maine and learned traditional tunes on the fiddle, worked on a sailboat and learned old sea songs, picked up a guitar and started making up music to keep myself company on very long winter nights with no electricity and no other humans for miles. When I eventually got to Boston and started playing open mics, it was like the gates opened and I felt welcomed into my tribe for the first time—all the other people who spent their childhoods geeking out over the radio, learning songs, obsessing about lyrics. As a kid in NYC, it was amazing to have so many creative people around, and I could sort of fill up on that energy from the sidelines, and learn from it. But finally being a participant in a creative community… That’s where I was trying to get my whole life.

A lot has happened since you wrote and released an album of original material… For one thing, you and your husband, Jeffrey Foucault, have had a daughter. How has that affected your approach to your music? Well, I would say that it’s an inescapable ingredient of where I’m writing from. Becoming a parent affords a dramatically new view of yourself and your place—in your life, your family, as an artist, in the continuum of all life. I don’t know how that perspective could not inform any creative person’s work once they have it. But it’s not something I’ve written directly about much, at least not yet. The last song on the album, “Lighthouse,” is about the profound shift when suddenly there’s someone in the world you’re more worried about than you are about yourself. There are ways that being an artist and a parent is difficult, because both the child and the work are 24/7 concerns, and they’re often demanding contradictory things of you at the same time. But the flip side is the way that art and parenthood inform each other, and in the best moments I’m finding they each help the other situation feel deeper and more connected.

We all experience the times when something comes along to make us reassess the big picture; having a child is just one version of it. You go along in your life and everything’s leading up to the next thing, but you can’t see how it all fits or what it’s all for. Then there’s some big shift, and for a moment it’s like you’re seeing your life from an airplane, with enough distance to see the patterns and the overall shape of what’s happening. These songs are like letters written from that fleeting, dizzying, revelatory moment before the clouds move back in and you’re back in the day to day.

*** www.krisdelmhorst.com/press For more information, please contact Chris Schimpf, Krista Williams or Carla Sacks at Sacks & Co., 212.741.1000, [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected].

423 west fourteenth street new york, ny 10014 t 212.741.1000 f 212.741.9777 www.sacksco.com