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EXCLUSIVE: Jake Schepps on New Quintet Album 'Entwined', Commissioning Gyan Riley and Marc Mellits, Béla Bartók vs. String Bands, Ship in the Clouds Tour, Brazilian Choro Music

Banjo player Jake Schepps sure is opening up the possibilities for his instrument: contemporary classical bluegrass? Yes, a thousand times so. In fact, his latest album, Entwined (Fine Mighty), is the perfect manifestation of a seemingly non-existent genre. Featuring new compositions from the likes of Marc Mellits, Gyan Riley, Matt McBane and Matt Flinner, Schepps' traditional, five-band string band sounds anything but trad here. Curious how Schepps & Co. got wise, Classicalite got on the horn with this Scruggs-slash-Stravinsky to talk process, commissioning and what's next for him, instrument and ensemble.
  • ALBUM REVIEW: Tristan Perich, "Parallels" from 'Compositions' (Physical Editions) - Performed by Meehan/Perkins Duo

    Composer and plastic artist Tristan Perich has created four separate, yet somehow still distinct landscapes here on Compositions (via his imprint Physical Editions). With release dates strung across this calendar year, each piece will explore what's surely become his one-man realm: 1-bit electro-acoustic brilliance. Perich's maiden installment, Parallels, was recorded at Octaven Studios and Shirk Studios, and is scored for tuned triangles, hi-hats and his patent 1-bit (albeit 4-channels) electronics--both commissioned and expertly performed here by Meehan/Perkins Duo.
  • EXCLUSIVE: Lisa Loeb Talks Off-Broadway Premiere of New Kids Musical ‘Camp Kappawanna,’ at Atlantic Theater Company (March 21-April 12)

    It's been more than two decades since we first heard from Lisa Loeb. And while I need not mention that certain song of hers by name, if you still see Mrs. Loeb as that impossibly twee twentysomething in those tortoiseshell frames pining at the center of Ethan Hawke's continuous shot, well, you're only hearing what you want to. Nine more stories later, Lisa Loeb's become a bona fide polymath. Singer, songwriter, child lit author, burgeoning eyewear magnate, two-time reality TV star (on two different networks, no less), as a mother of two, too, she's proof that you can indeed have it all. Latest case in newest point: Loeb's musical, 'Camp Kappawanna.'
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