Grammy-nominated duo The Milk Carton Kids – the two guitar/two voice singularity of Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale – have released their new album Monterey. It joins their two previous albums in receiving great early acclaim, building on the understated acoustic artistry and virtuosic harmonies that define The Milk Carton Kids. Those looking for Monterey to be the album where the duo expand their arrangements or soften the mood will find instead the duo fingering the rough edges of their sound, seeking to reproduce the raw directness of live performance by recording on stages across America.
“It definitely did not feel time for us creatively to say we had done everything we could do with two voices and two guitars,” Ryan says. “I think we felt that there were still ever smaller spaces to climb into, we were still finding more nooks and crannies within the framework.”
In addition, The Milk Carton Kids have released a haunting video for their song ‘Poison Tree’. The Mike Venezia directed clip, which premiers via the LA Times, pairs the melancholy defiance of the song’s everyman story to the time-shifting musings of an aging security guard as he wanders an empty mall after hours. The duo make their first ever appearance in a video in suitably dissonant fashion, performing to no one in front of an empty escalator.
In the two years since the release of their last album, the critical heralded The Ash & Clay, The Milk Carton Kids have earned a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album, won Duo/Group of the Year at the Americana Music Awards, were standout performers in T Bone Burnett & the Coen Brothers’ concert documentary, Another Day/Another Time, and reached their widest audience to date with a sold out 55-city North American tour.
This past year, The Milk Carton Kids were invited to pay tribute to Johnny Cash & Emmylou Harris — Cash on the Joe Henry-produced remake of ‘Bitter Tears’, and Harris with their standing ovation earning performance at the tribute concert The Life & Songs of Emmylou Harris, alongside luminaries including Kris Kristofferson, Mavis Staples, Alison Kraus, Iron & Wine, and Harris herself.
Artists’ website: www.themilkcartonkids.com
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