Kris Delmhorst's BLOOD TEST Out Today

By: May. 13, 2014
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Today, May 13, Signature Sounds will release Blood Test, the latest LP from acclaimed singer-songwriter Kris Delmhorst. The release marks Delmhorst's first album of original material since 2008's Shotgun Singer, which Performing Songwriter described as "a tour de force of singing, writing and production that gains in richness with each repetition," and the Boston Herald called "a work of lo-fi beauty, and evidence of an artist taking flight." In between, the versatile performer recorded and released Cars, a covers album of songs by the seminal new wave/proto-punk band of the same name, which PopMatters called a "victory" and noted, "Cars has the potential to bring a brilliant young songwriter to a wider audience."

Co-produced by Delmhorst and fellow songwriter Anders Parker (Varnaline, Gob Iron, New Multitudes), Blood Test was recorded in Brooklyn, NY along with drummer Konrad Meissner (Brandi Carlile, The Silos) and multi-instrumentalist Mark Spencer (Blood Oranges, Lisa Loeb, Laura Cantrell, Son Volt). "I was focused on paring things down to their elements-less flesh, more bone," Delmhorst says. "So it's just the four of us on Blood Test, with very few overdubs, playing the songs and letting the imperfections be part of the story. There's a freshness and spirit of discovery in the tracks that I think shines through and gives them a lot of life." Please see complete track listing below; tour dates will be announced shortly.

As a Brooklyn native who for the past 20 years has called Massachusetts home, recording Blood Test in the middle of her old stomping grounds had a profound effect on Delmhorst. "I was getting coffee at the deli I used to go to in high school, then walking to the studio," she says. "It was a kind of vertigo feeling to be working there, a little dizzying, but also really satisfying; it somehow completed the circle." And while her New York upbringing is on full display on the album (see "92nd St" for an obvious example), so is her current life in the hills of western Massachusetts with husband and fellow songwriter Jeffrey Foucault and their young daughter.

The product of a musical family, Delmhorst released her debut album, Appetite, in 1998 and has since recorded and released multiple albums and EPs spanning a range of musical genres-both as a solo artist and as a band member/collaborator. She has recorded vocals, fiddle and cello on over 50 albums from artists such as Peter Wolf, Mary Gauthier, Chris Smither and Lori McKenna, and also records and performs with Jeffrey Foucault and Peter Mulvey as Redbird.

BLOOD TEST TRACKLIST
1. Blood Test
2. Homeless
3. 92nd St
4. Saw It All
5. Bees
6. We Deliver
7. Little Frame
8. Bright Green World
9. Temporary Sun
10. Hushabye
11. My Ohio
12. Lighthouse



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