World Cafe: Next

World Cafe Next: Last Good Tooth

David Dye — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 21:07:00 +0000

Last Good Tooth shares a hometown — Providence, R.I. — with The Low Anthem, and the two bands have both shown a penchant for experimenting with fiddles and Appalachian music.

Led by songwriter Penn Sultan, the son of sculptor Donald Sultan, Last Good Tooth crafts free-wheeling songs, marked by delightful extended breaks and smart lyrics. The group recently relocated to New York City, and its new album (Not Without Work and Rest) is out now on Conor Oberst's Team Love Records.

Next: The Oh Hellos

David Dye — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 19:34:00 +0000

Tyler and Maggie Heath, siblings from San Marcos, Texas, self-released their independent album, Through the Deep, Dark Valley, in October of last year. It was the culmination of a collaboration that began a couple years ago, when they wrote their first song together — for their mom. She liked it, but more importantly, they liked the process.

The two value working as independents by choice — they produced Through the Deep, Dark Valley themselves — and, based on the sophisticated layering of their songs, I'm not sure how much an outside producer would improve things.

Next: Ace Reporter

David Dye — Mon, 27 May 2013 18:03:00 +0000

After a band breakup, musician Chris Snyder consoled himself with the challenge of what he called "the threesixfive project": a challenge to write a song every day for a year. This one-man band ended up with 10 songs that stuck, and those formed his debut album, Yearling.

The Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist eventually got a chance to revisit the recordings, which initially were little more than sketches, in an upstate New York studio. Listen to two songs from Yearling here.

Next: Hanni El Khatib

David Dye — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:12:00 +0000

Hanni El Khatib is a first-generation American who grew up with a Palestinian father and a Filipino mother in San Francisco.

Next: Laura Stevenson

David Dye — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:58:00 +0000

Laura Stevenson describes herself as an "unfunny Woody Allen," which is another way of saying that her work channels her obsessions with death and doubt. On her third album, Wheel, she finds a way to make it all sound downright jaunty.

Stevenson came to her more folk leanings from roots in punk, as well as a musical family; her grandfather, choral director Harry Simeone, was responsible for "Little Drummer Boy." Listen to two songs from Wheel on this page.