o’death with The Huntress and Holder of Hands and Pete Bernhard

As o’death wrapped up production on their third studio album Outside at the end of 2010, lead-singer/guitarist Greg Jamie relocated to Biddeford, Maine, to take over a local music and arts venue and turn it into The Oak and The Ax.  Since then, Maine and The Oak and The Ax have become a second home for o’death and eventually the location for the recording of their fourth full-length studio album. The band convened in South Portland, ME, to work with lo-fi recording guru, Caleb Mulkerin (Big Blood, Fire On Fire, Cerberus Shoal) and to take advantage of the homey space in Biddeford they had performed in many times since 2011.  On Out of Hands We Go, o’death return to a focus on live performances with Jamie’s voice and lyrics planted firmly in the center of the band’s dynamic arrangements, a stark departure from the multi-tracked and meticulously overdubbed Outside.

They’ll be joined by The Huntress and Holder of Hands, the new creative vessel of MorganEve Swain. A multi-instrumental string player, vocalist and songwriter, Swain is widely known as half of the music duo, Brown Bird, with her husband, Dave Lamb. The duo, who enjoyed national and international success, spent over six years performing and touring until Lamb’s untimely passing, at age 36, from leukemia in April 2014.  That summer, Swain launched The Huntress and Holder of Hands, which began as a creative vessel for exploring both her grief and her growth. Her original songs were home-recorded and solo-performed using multi-layer tracks of voice and strings. Live, The Huntress and Holder of Hands is a band of six women, playing cello, upright bass, electric bass (sometimes two), and drums, with Swain on five-string viola. Deeply rooted in Swain and Lamb’s shared experience, The Huntress and Holder of Hands pulls creative energy from the same emotional place as Brown Bird, building unique harmony, string and bass-driven pieces influenced by Eastern European, Americana and Middle Eastern music, among other genres, and offering an intense musical and lyrical experience that explores love, loss, power and strength. The Huntress and Holder of Hands self-released The Water Street Demos EP in November 2015. A full-length album will be released in the summer of 2016.

Pete Bernhard, frontman of alt-americana favorites, The Devil Makes Three, opens the evening.