Traditional Music Duo Anna & Elizabeth To Perform at (Le) Poisson Rouge on April 23
By: Tori Hartshorn Apr. 09, 2018
Inspired by their new album, The Invisible Comes to Us, traditional music duo Anna & Elizabeth will bring their stories and sparse, atmospheric arrangements to (Le) Poisson Rouge on April 23 in New York, NY.
Released on the significant Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label, the record is a spellbinding reconfiguration of ancient folk ballads that sees the duo's immersion in Appalachian music move to a place of boundless experimentation. Anna & Elizabeth reveal what they find buried between the lines of traditional songs. The result is an immersive, novelistic and groundbreaking exploration of old and nearly-forgotten songs.
Many of the ideas for the record were stitched together during artist residencies that Anna and Elizabeth undertook at the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, following a year of song collecting. The result is a record where the sounds themselves are integral to the retelling of these tales, alongside the sometimes cryptic and complex narratives of the sung and spoken words.
Inspired by the richness and tradition of the music, Anna & Elizabeth gather songs and stories from archives and visits with elders. They bring these songs to life in performance with sparse, atmospheric arrangements using guitar, banjo, fiddle, and the uncanny blend of their voices in close harmony. They accompany their songs with stories-of the lyrics, of the singer, of the quest to learn the song-and they illustrate them in mesmerizing fashion. The two revive the old scrolling picture show, dubbed "crankies"-intricate picture-scrolls illustrating the old songs they sing, which they create in tandem with papercuts, shadow puppets, prints, and embroidered fabric.
TOUR DATES
April 8 - Savannah, GA@ Charles H. Morris Center
April 9 - Atlanta, GA @ Grocery On Home
April 10 - Ashville, NC @ The Grey Eagle
April 11 - Nashville, TN @ City Winery
April 12 - Nelsonville, OH @ Stuart's Opera House
April 13 - Roanoke, VA @ The Spot On Kirk
April 14 - Chapel Hill, NC @ Nightlight Bar & Club
April 15 - Washington, DC @ Pearl Street Warehouse
April 16 - Baltimore, MD @ Creative Alliance
April 18 - Ashfield, MA @ Ashfield Community Hall
April 20 - Saratoga Spring, NY @ Caffe Lena
April 21 - Middlebury, VT @ Vermont Folklife Center Fundraiser
April 22 - Portland, ME @ One Longfellow Square
April 23 - New York, NY @ (le) poisson rouge
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