MP3 Ryan Lee Crosby b/w The Instances - Split Cassette

Ryan Lee Crosby : Acoustic singer/songwriter...
The Instances : Outsider bedroom symphonies

11 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Modern Folk, FOLK: Folk Pop



Details:
Ryan Lee Crosby b/w The Instances : "Split Cassette"
Copyright 2005 Sort Of Records

RYAN LEE CROSBY : 2005 was a busy year for a Boston based singer/songwriter named Ryan Lee Crosby. In those 12 months he wrote and recorded 2 full length albums and an EP while touring as both a solo artist and with his band, Ryan Lee & the Mindless.

His latest offering is one half of a split cassette b/w new music from The Instances, on the Pittsburgh based indie Sort Of Records. Ryan Lee Crosby's contribution to the split consists of 5 original electro folk songs that were recorded over the span of a single weekend, performed entirely by Crosby on electric and acoustic guitars, with live harmonica loops and drums.

Committed to tape primarily in the bathroom of Ryan Lee's apartment, the sound and content of these songs are of a highly personal nature, confronting issues of domestic abuse, alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, and suicide. Nevertheless, the feel of the music remains intensely loving and completely genuine, providing a closer look into a fractured psyche and revealing a darker side that exists within each one of us.

For more info : www.myspace.com/ryanleemusic


THE INSTANCES : Singer and guitarist Raymond Morin formed The Instances in the summer of 2005, after and unusually prolific year of songwriting and live performance. Morin began his recording career as a member of Thee Higher Burning Fire, an ambitious chamber pop band that heiled from Lawrence, Kansas. Raymond wrote and recorded two albums with the group : In Plain Song, released in 2000 by Second Nature Recordings, and 2002's Sing Tonight (finally seeing release this year on Sort Of Records.) The group garnered comparisons to classic bands like The Left Banke, The High Llamaa and Cardinal for its unusual arrangements, lush harmonies and classically tinged instrumentation. In 2002 and 2003, the group also acted as the backing band for Merge Records recording artist Matt Suggs, and helped him to write and record his critically acclaimed sophomore album Amigo Row.

Upon relocating to Boston, Morin took hiatus from the group and began performing and touring under his own name, as well as with the bands Pickax and The Bee Gentles (the former a romantic post-rock trio, the latter played Bee Gees songs from their early psych period.) After making a name for himself as a formidable fingerstyle guitarist and idiosyncratic songwriter, in 2004 Morin set about recording what had become a very extensive cannon of compositions and songs. It was during this period that the sound of The Instances developed.

The Instances' music runs the gamut from simple acoustic singer/songwriter reflection to a more sprawling and intense outsider-folk sound. The acoustic numbers show no small debt to the work of British folk revivalists like Bert Jansch and Davy Graham, while echoes of the early work of John Frusciante can be heard in the more densely arranged compositions. Lyrically angular and evasive, Morin's words call to mind the more poetic turns of early R.E.M. and Richard Davies.

Split Cassette, a joint effort with Boston singer/songwriter Ryan Lee Crosby, will be released on February 1st 2006 by Sort Of Records, the Pittsburgh-based label owned and operated by Morin. The album was recorded in the midst of Raymond's relocation from Boston to Pittsburgh, with sessions taking place in both places, as well as in New York City. Morin performed all of the guitar and vocal parts, while Seth Mehl (x Thee Higher Burning Fire and founder of the NYC based Non Aligned Movement collective) contributed erhu and Emily Davis (from the Boston band Mane) performed on flute.

For more info : www.raymin.com/theinstances
www.myspace.com/theinstances