The Welcome Wagon - Esther - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

This debut unveils a ramshackle sing-along enterprise of a Presbyterian pastor and his wife who wrestle out the influences of Folk music, religion, Pop culture, and church tradition in a collection of soulful and good-humored songs. It consolidates InchsacredInch song traditions (old Testament psalms, 17th century Presbyterian psalters), iconoclastic '60s pop innovators (The Velvet Underground), '70s charismatic Catholics (Lenny Smith), and '80s melancholy lovelorn Pop (The Smiths). Recorded, produced, and arranged by Sufjan Stevens.

Ton Koopman - Solo Cantatas for Bass [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/10/2008

Esther, the latest effort from Brooklyn duo Welcome Wagon is as much about homecoming as it is about making peace with-and a home in-uncertainty. The project had it's beginnings in the summer of 2017, when the family took a two-month sabbatical to California. In reflecting upon that time, Pastor Vito Aiuto says InchIt felt like we had been changed, and so to go home was going to be alright.Inch Shortly after returning to Brooklyn, he found himself holding his guitar and allowing his fingers to play a few notes that just felt... right. Then the pandemic hit, and Vito's strumming, lyrics, and thoughts became the soundtrack of the family's lockdown lives. Though Monique had given up painting a decade prior, she felt an urge to go home as well, to reconnect not just with an artistic identity but with her midwestern family. She began using pieces from a collection of her late grandmother Esther's treasures to create large-scale collages, beautiful, evocative, and almost haunting in their pastiche of the past. InchUsing the music as a starting point, I wove together any object on hand that fit with the chords, the vision, the melody, the spirit of the songs,Inch says Monique, whose paintings provide the album art. Esther was born out of this wellspring of creativity and homecoming, exploring the profound knowing and equally profound mystery in both family and faith. In Esther, the questioning is the destination, and it is one where peace can be found and home-and art-can be made. There's a salve there. There is music. There are moments of grace, large and small. Welcome.