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| Featured Artist Link REALLYMUSICRADIO presentseastmountainsouth
Their name is cryptic, suggesting a landscape that puzzled the mapmakers. In music's intangible geography, however, eastmountainsouth represents the confluence of high-lonesome heartbreak, modernist ingenuity and raw-veined Americana.
At its core, the group is Kat Maslich and Peter Adams. Both are vocalists, instrumentalists and writers imprinted with the undeniable regional character one might expect from children of the South. Their music, as exemplified by eastmountainsouth (due June 17, 2003, on DreamWorks Records), is an alloy of hill-country melodies, contemporary studio techniques and literary-minded lyrics that frequently trace the experience of loss. Mitchell Froom, producer of acclaimed albums by Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, Crowded House and many others, co-produced eastmountainsouth with Adams. He calls the group "Appalachian from both sides of the fence," elaborating: "Peter is a trained composer who, at times, brings an Aaron Copland-type harmonic influence into the mix. And Kat has deep personal and musical roots in rural Virginia, which flavors everything she writes and sings." As one might suspect, both come from families for whom music was part of the furniture. A native of Roanoke, Va., Kat Maslich also grew up on Clinch Mountain (home to bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley), where her grandparents lived. Peter Adams, was raised in Birmingham, Ala., in a family of "harmony junkies" - his mother sang multi-part grace at dinner with her five siblings and their spouses. Peter's maternal grandfather, once a professional clarinet player, was his first musical idol. "When he came to visit, he'd play the piano," Peter attests. "I have early memories of crawling under the piano as he played and putting my head up in the frame. I was amazed by the sound." Peter began piano lessons at age six. His facility at the keyboard led first to competitions, then advanced studies. He remembers: "I had a teacher from the Alabama School Of Fine Arts who wanted me to study there, but at that point I went off to boarding school, where I started playing other kinds of music and writing songs." It was at a music production house in Los Angeles, while auditioning singers for a TV spot in the spring of 1999, that Peter first met Kat. "She was among 50 or so vocalists who showed up to try out for the spot," he says. "She didn't get the job, but I remember liking her voice. At the time, though, we didn't know we shared musical interests." "By then I'd decided I had to do my own music," Peter continues. "Not long after that, one of my former partners at the music house went to one of Kat's shows. He knew my music and was shocked at the similarity of our songwriting styles. He told me I had to check her out. I was doing a demo of a song I was going to pitch in Nashville, so I just called Kat to sing on it. She came over and we sat and played our songs for each other. It was weird - I felt I could have written her songs, and she thought she could have written mine. "We had no intention of becoming a duo at that moment, but I was determined to perform in public. I began singing harmony when Kat played live. Then we started writing together. People immediately commented on our vocal blend." "This music could have been made 50 years ago and, just as easily, it could be what music will sound like 50 years from now,...it truly transcends time and place - it just goes straight to the heart." |
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