Supporting Acts: Daphne Lee Martin Mount Moriah On October 2, Merge Records will release the self-titled debut album from North Carolina's Mount Moriah on limited-edition LP. Available for the first time on vinyl, Mount Moriah was described by NPR Music as "an infectious brew of gospel, folk, rock and country that asks questions of the establishment while looking at love from every angle." The band will follow up the vinyl release of its debut album with a brand-new full-length in early 2013. Mount Moriah will also perform as part of Merge's CMJ showcase on October 18 at Mercury Lounge in New York and join Mirah for east coast shows in November. As record store clerks in Chapel Hill, NC, Heather McEntire (of post-punk veterans Bellafea) and Jenks Miller (of heavy-psych/metal outfit Horseback) spent their evenings creating Mount Moriah as an outlet for their mutual interest in classic American folk and rock music. Born in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, McEntire weaves narratives into spectral tapestries imbued with the complex majesty of the South and its deep-seated spirituality. With nods to both classic folk-rock and their contemporaries, Mount Moriah challenges existing traditional folk music forms with arrangements born from Miller's interest in minimalism and sound texture. Blessed Feathers West Bend is a Southeast Wisconsin town where the Milwaukee River shifts directions, angling to suddenly head West. It’s also the home of Blessed Feathers, a duo that initiated when Donivan Berube’s life similarly altered course. Hailing from Lakeland Florida, FL, Berube was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, teaching himself guitar and recorded songs in his bedroom in an attempt to pursue his passion. The musician eventually left home at 17, disassociating himself from the church and driving 36 hours from the Florida sunshine into a Wisconsin blizzard. Berube found work in a restaurant in West Bend where he met Jacquelyn Beaupre, who is now his partner in both music and life. Blessed Feathers arose from Beaupre’s solo material, which Berube produced while living on a farm in Farmington, WI in 2009. Originally he was only interested in augmenting her songwriting, bolstering the organic, folk-inspired track with additional instrumentation and vocal harmonies, but slowly the duo began constructing songs together, each bringing their own stylistic tendencies to the table. “We didn’t really have a plan set in our minds,” Berube says of the music. “It’s just what happened.” The pair played their first show at a West Bend bookstore in April of 2010 at a meeting of the Fireside Books’ Poetry Club, building a reputation in the surrounding towns. Their stock of songs grew, all captured via a laptop and microphone in their bedroom. In mid-2012, however, Blessed Feathers selected their favorite five tracks to record with producer Kevin McMahon (Real Estate, Titus Andronicus, The Walkmen) at his studio in New Paltz, NY. The songs, which comprise the band’s debut EP, Peaceful Beasts in an Ocean of Weeds, encapsulate Berube and Beaupre’s collective experiences, aiming to capture both their emotional and geographic journeys. “I feel like these songs were birthed in Wisconsin so what we’re recording is how we feel about our home and focused on imagery from our home,” Beaupre says. “Donivan has a few songs from Florida, from before he came up to Wisconsin. But most of the songs are little bits and pieces of our life in Wisconsin. They’re all rooted in locale, all about places we’ve lived. We’re trying to pick out small pieces of our own history and enlighten people with that.” Berube adds, “This EP compiles our five best songs to date. We wanted to put our best foot forward, so to speak.” The pair contributed numerous instruments to the album, including banjo, flute, vibraphone and various percussion. But, ultimately, McMahon and the band focused on maintain the earthy, homespun sound that Blessed Feathers has cultivated over the past few years. The EP resonates with a woodsy vibe, urging the listener into an intimate, skillfully crafted sonic space—aided in many ways by McMahon’s recording style. “He has little tricks up his sleeve,” Beaupre notes. “Because we recorded it in a barn he took our vocals and recorded them through a microphone and then played them into the silo of the barn and record the natural echoes. That became the album recording. It’s a wonderful sound and we loved that idea. Things like that have helped shape the EP.” Berube and Beaupre still work in the same restaurant where they first met, spending their time, as Berube says, “cooking dinner for strangers.” They share a 10-year-old cell phone and can only access the Internet from their local library. They are interested in capturing all their experiences, not just the ones they’ve found in West Bend. Their music is optimistic, gleaming with a sense of appreciation for the things around them and the things within them. The pair likes to say that Beaupre plays everything and Berube plays everything else, but a better way to put it is that together they play everything. $8.00 - $10.00