Join us for a special, rare intimate evening as The Word Barn presents Darlingside at The Press Room with special guest Louisa Stancioff.
ABOUT DARLINGSIDE
If Darlingside’s first album, Birds Say (2015), focused on the past through nostalgia, and their second, Extralife (2018), contemplated uncertain futures, Fish Pond Fish stands firmly in the present, looking at what’s here, now. Dave Senft (bass), Don Mitchell (guitar, banjo), Auyon Mukharji (violin, mandolin), and Harris Paseltiner (cello, guitar) have created a natural history in song—taking us into gardens, almond groves, orchard rows, down to the ocean floor, and under stars.
The band has long been praised for their harmonies and intelligent songwriting, described by NPR as “exquisitely-arranged, literary-minded, baroque folk-pop,” and their dynamic presence (crowded tightly together onstage) have made them a live-performance favorite. But this album showcases their broader storytelling abilities: nature is a looking glass, the songs suggest. An experience of nature is an experience of self; an experience of self is one of natural change cut and complemented by stasis.
The band started studio recording Fish Pond Fish in late 2019, when they moved into Tarquin Studios — the residential studio of Grammy Award-winning producer Peter Katis (Interpol, The National). Living and working together brought them to their very early years under one roof in Hadley, Massachusetts, which had seeded the origins of their intimate collaboration. At Katis’s suggestion, many components of the initial demos were preserved as layers in the produced tracks to retain the spirit of the initial recordings, resulting in a collection of songs that is simultaneously the most bedroom-tracked and production-heavy full-length album that the band has yet released.
ABOUT LOUISA STANCIOFF
Louisa Stancioff, originally from Chesterville, ME now based in Camden, ME, has been playing and writing music since she was a kid. Her songs are of the folk genre, and often tell stories based in personal experience, embellished with fictional narrative and magical elements to more thoroughly convey reality.
Her electric guitar playing and dynamic arrangements with her band, Dave and Dan Kelly, exhibit a more contemporary version of “folk”. Dave and Dan are brothers from the Blue Hill Peninsula and have been playing in bands together since they were kids. They started accompanying Louisa in the fall of 2021 and have since toured with her all over New England. You can listen to Louisa's previous band, Dyado, anywhere, or her recently released solo EP Tape Recordings on Bandcamp.
Keep a watch out for her upcoming release of her self titled debut LP, recorded with producer Sam Kassirer.