The Ragbirds
2005
Yes Nearby
About This Album
Yes Nearby is the debut album by Ann Arbor Michigan's Ragbirds. Led by multi-instrumentalist songwriter and vocalist Erin Zindle, the Ragbirds have literally nothing in common with their city's long-standing garage rock or experimental traditions. Zindle is a boundless songwriter: she simply writes what she hears regardless of genre classification or what's happening on the "current" music scene. What is immediately striking about these proceedings is their consistency and wide-ranging creativity. Over 12 songs, Zindle and her Ragbirds -- as well as a host of other friends and collaborators -- search for the heart of the song and use everything at their disposal to give it a voice. Her violin caresses and careens; drums, hand percussion, and handclaps weave through the bottom ends of her songs to give them weight, depth, dimension, and heat. These tomes are created from trace elements of poetry, American and British Isles folk traditions, country, reggae, blues, jazz, pop and rock, without any conscious fusing of disparate elements. Fans of Bruce Cockburn's world music-oriented work from the late 1970s on; Over the Rhine at their most adventurous; Márta Sebestyén and Muzsikas, and the more melodic music of Lisa Germano will be drawn in, indeed mesmerized by this debut.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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