photo by Dan Emery
Anti-Corporate Music has just launched a new singer/songwriter-themed series, The Magnolia Sessions. The maiden installment of this new sequence of releases comes by way of Carolina Appalachian folk soloist MATT HECKLER, who today releases his new The Magnolia Sessions album. New Noise Magazine is helping launch the series, hosting an exclusive stream of HECKLER’s “Old Rub Alcohol Blues.”
The Magnolia Sessions is a special new series which highlights bluegrass, dark country, and folk singer/songwriter acts in an intimate outdoor setting at the Anti-Corporate Music/Black Matter Mastering headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. Each installment features a different artist, some with additional guest musicians, who performs a live album of sorts, recorded outdoors by a large magnolia tree, as originally seen in Lost Dog Street Band’s “September Doves” video for GemsOnVHS several years ago. With several sessions already completed and on deck for release over the coming months, the series begins with MATT HECKLER’s contribution.
On a muggy August evening, in between light rain showers, Matt Heckler stood beneath the large magnolia tree and recorded some songs. This is from that session.
HECKLER offers, “I’ve been wanting to do a live recording for a while now. But I always prefer being able to focus more on my playing while recording. This Magnolia Session captured the best of both worlds. Live takes, completely raw, and also the solitude needed to focus in on the instrumentation. Many of these songs are old busking tunes that I don’t play out much so it may be your only chance to hear ’em.”
Label owner and engineer of the series Dan Emery reveals, “The idea behind this project is something I’ve been mulling over for some months in a few different embodiments. At first, I thought it would be really cool to record a song for one of Anti-Corp’s artists, performed live on the studio’s back porch. That developed into the idea of doing a full album, which morphed into the concept of a series of albums. A few years ago, we filmed the Lost Dog Street Band ‘September Doves’ video for GemsOnVHS under our magnolia tree, so that became the idea for the recording site as opposed to the back porch. It was actually Benjamin Tod (Lost Dog Street Band) who came up with the name The Magnolia Sessions. We decided to do the recording at night to capture the sound of all the insects and nighttime noises. I built a binaural microphone specifically for these sessions. Listen with headphones and you can actually hear the positioning of where all the sounds are coming from and faint gunshots in the distance at the end of ‘That Old Copper Ring’. I hope everyone enjoys this; we have a bunch of other sessions for some amazing artists coming up.”
Hear MATT HECKLER’s “Old Rub Alcohol Blues” Magnolia Sessions preview exclusively at New Noise Magazine at THIS LOCATION.
Purchase the full MATT HECKLER The Magnolia Sessions album digitally at Anti-Corporate Music RIGHT HERE.
MATT HECKLER – The Magnolia Sessions Track Listing:
1. Going Across The Sea
2. Waterbound
3. On His Way To Die
4. Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still
5. Wild Bill Jones
6. Morning Breaks
7. Ain’t No Ash Will Burn
8. Big Scioty
9. Old Rub Alcohol Blues
10. Look Down That Lonesome Road
11. That Old Copper Ring
MATT HECKLER is also working on his next studio album, the follow-up to his critically lauded After The Flood LP which saw him touring heavily across the United States and beyond, sharing the stage on tour with the Lost Dog Street Band, Casper Allen, and many others. Watch for new details on the album to see release in the coming months preceding a 2021 release.
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