Tag: Rising Appalachia

Rising Appalachia’s new release: Live From New Orleans at Preservation Hall

Rising Appalachia taps into the spirit of their former hometown of New Orleans with new release out now. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

As world travelers for nearly two decades, Rising Appalachia has merged multiple global music influences with their own southern roots to create their inviting latest album, Leylines. Remarkably, the band built its legion of listeners independently—a self-made success story that has led to major festival appearances and sold-out shows at venues across the country. Leah and Chloe Smith are sisters who grew up in urban Atlanta, yet spent most weekends traveling to Appalachian fiddle camps with their parents. Their brand new release, Live From New Orleans at Preservation Hall, is available for download or streaming now. Fans take note: 10% of all streaming profits from this record will be donated to the Preservation Hall Foundation which exists to create greater awareness and appreciation for traditional New Orleans Jazz and the communities that support it. (Rising Appalachia, 2022)

Arriving in the Big Easy in 2007 to a city still reeling from Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, Leah and Chloe were not only struck by the music; the resolve of New Orleanians shone brightly on the pair. “We lived there for seven years, soaking in the jazz and brass, the spirit of its people,” remembers Chloe. “Naturally, those sounds seeped into our music, as well as into our identity as Southerners.”

During the development of Rising Appalachia as we know it today, Leah and Chloe cut their teeth busking in New Orleans’ French Quarter, just a few short blocks from the iconic Preservation Hall, a 19th-century Creole townhouse later transformed into a non-profit performance art space in 1961. Preservation Hall brought musical traditions under the same roof before they were legally allowed to perform together. Hosting intimate acoustic concerts 350 nights per year for over half a century, Preservation Hall is a quintessential pilgrimage in the birthplace of Black American music.

So in January 2021, with the pandemic in full swing and neither Rising Appalachia nor Preservation Hall staging events with live audiences, the band was invited to collaborate with the distinguished institution and produce a live-stream concert to bring Rising Appalachia’s signature sound and the spirit of New Orleans into people’s homes around the globe. The electric performance, brimming with full band dynamics and exploring the deeper annals of Rising Appalachia’s NOLA-centric songbook with the help of Aurora Nealand (clarinet, accordion) and Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s Branden Lewis (trumpet), was captured for all to enjoy in the form of Live From New Orleans at Preservation Hall.

Fans can download or stream Live From New Orleans at Preservation Hall today at this link, and be sure to stay tuned for more exclusive videos from Rising Appalachia’s 2021 performance.

A full list of tour dates can be found online. Throughout the past year, Rising Appalachia has also been dropping standalone singles for their rabid fanbase. Check out “Thank You Very Much” (which PopMatters dubbed “a meditation on the road traveled thus far”) and a haunting cover of James Blake’s “I Need A Forest Fire.”

Live From New Orleans at Preservation Hall track list:
Just a Closer Walk With Thee – Live
Indigo Dance – Live
Stand Like An Oak – Live
Catalyst – Live
Shed Your Grace – Live
Long Haul – Live
Find Your Way -Live
Silver – Live
River Mouth – Live
Downtown – Live
St. James Infirmary – Live
Resilient – Live

Rising Appalachia’s surprising new album release

Rising Appalachia channel rush of inspiration on surprise new release The Lost Mystique of Being in the Know. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

Sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith, known musically as Rising Appalachia, are stewards for their earth and its peoples as well as musicians. Framing their foundation of traditional American music with West African n’goni and Celtic-Irish fiddle, Rising Appalachia have landed on something that has the potential to grow its own roots, rather than leaning on one particular past—folk music from different corners of the world all working together as one, used as a sharpened tool for cultural and environmental preservation and education. Their most recent album, Leylines, has been a defining record for the sister-led band, garnering praise from a wide swath of critics and solidifying their place in the greater Americana musical movement. (Rising Appalachia, 2021)

BrooklynVegan called “Speak Out,” one of the album’s standout tunes featuring Ani DiFranco, “an appealing dose of fiddle-fueled folk and close harmonies.” NPR praised album closer, “Resilient,” as an “uplifting, original folk anthem” and Rolling Stone called their sound “protest music for the modern age bolstered by delicate, skillful musicianship and otherworldly vocal harmonies.” On May 21, Rising Appalachia surprised fans with the release of The Lost Mystique of Being in the Know, a full-length album of new music dreamt up and recorded simultaneously after having not seen each other in over 10 months. This new collection of nine songs is abstract; a concept album which the band calls “the most dynamic fun we have ever had in the studio.” Rising Appalachia—Leah Song, Chloe Smith, Biko Casini, Arouna Diara, Duncan Wickel, and David Brown—removed themselves from the outcome, let the songs lead, and were rewarded with a gorgeous snapshot of not just the music, but the time and circumstance that forged it. Fans can stream or purchase the entirety of The Lost Mystique of Being in the Know right now at this link.

The Lost Mystique of Being in the Know Track list:
Catalyst
Ngoni
Silver
Tempest
Lost Girl
Top Shelf
Clay
Keep Going
Depth

Rising Appalachia – Resilient