Members of You, Me & Apollo. Photo courtesy of the band.

Bands like You Me & Apollo have been causing a creative heatwave across the state with a crop of Winter releases that have us reliving Summer sun. Today KRFC shares a track that has been helping our crew pump some much-needed heat to our popsickle toes since the band’s January 14th performance on KRFC’s Live@lunch.

Since relocating to Ft. Collins in 2010, Brent Cowles has built himself both a sturdy musical network and a loyal audience, deeply in love with his songs and his striking vocal performances given under his You Me & Apollo moniker. The 2011 album “Cards with Cheats” introduced Cowles’ soulful alt-country lament and a studio the kind of catchy instrumentation a live band would have to recreate to accompany him. Seasoned Colorado music writer, Eryc Eyl commented at the time,

Cowles’s lyrics and songwriting would be the envy of artists twice his age. There’s a deceptive simplicity to his old-timey themes and structures that suggests just another Americana act. Disguised beneath that veneer, however, is a man who is part romantic poet, part Dust Bowl troubadour and part ’60s soul singer. [read more at reverb]

Over the next 18 months Cowles and his closest collaborators translated You Me & Apollo’s songs into arrangements that bring out each musicians strengths and ultimately add layers that blur the boundaries of alt-country. Earlier this month, The Daily Sentinal’s David Goe listed You Me & Apollo on his list of five Colorado bands to watch.

While the songs, vocal performance and live band are all well represented on this new self-titled EP, nothing can match the experience of seeing Cowles and company feed off the enery of a crowd. Which is a good reason to point out the EP Release Concerts are Saturday, January 26th at the Ft. Collins Aggie Theatre and Saturday, February 2nd at the Denver Hi-Dive. These six tracks were recorded at Backbone Studio in Loveland, CO, and were engineered by Jason Larson (a Colorado music and recording arts treasure I am sad to hear may be heading for greener pastures this year).

The band offered this description of the songs, including three re-recorded versions of songs previously released on “Cards With Cheats:”

They are moonlight and they are bright lights. They’re in the woods and they’re on the strip. They are heartache and they are vengeance. They are swagger and stomp.

You Me & Apollo releases the self-titled EP in front of a live audience on Saturday January 26th at The Aggie Theatre in Ft. Collins with additional performances from Esme Patterson and Turn 4.

You Me & Apollo – The EP

Co-produced by You Me & Apollo and Omer Avni
Mixed and mastered by Chris Bloom
You Me & Apollo –  Brent Cowles, Morgan Travis, Jonathan Alonzo, Tyler Kellogg, Dave Cole

Take a listen:

Take a share:

Oh My Molly (right click to save to your computer)

If their plan is to keep me hungry to hear more, it’s working. While I’m celebrating six new tracks representing the full band sound on three new and three old favorite songs, I know that the band has written albums worth of unrecorded music they’re holding on to for future releases. Let hope we don’t have to wait much longer for their star to rise.

Please note that downloads offered via KRFC MusicShare are intended to introduce you to great talent in KRFC’s community, and are NOT CD-quality recordings. If you want those, please support the artists by buying their music and/or seeing them live. Get more from KRFC MusicShare >>

If you’re in a band or are a musician looking to share your music, email your tracks to Andrew [at] krfcfm [.] org for consideration.

Brent Cowles, Joe Sampson and Nathaniel Rateliff. Photo courtesy of Cindy at Angel Mountain Media.

Nathaniel Rateliff, Brent Cowles and Joe Sampson perform/interview on a special ” “Songwriter in the Round” session of KRFC 88.9FM Live@Lunch.

“While recording In Memory of Loss, Rateliff lived in Chicago, working with producer Brian Deck to craft the nuances: mournful harmonica on “You Should’ve Seen the Other Guy,” the ominous organ of “Longing and Losing,” propulsive bass drum on “Early Spring Till.” Rateliff’s Rounder debut is rooted in a bygone era. It’s both fresh and classic, imbued with a melancholy nostalgia, the rough candor of rock’n’roll’s past and the warmth and earnestness of folk storytellers. Rateliff has a personal connection to the sounds of the 60s and 70s. “It was more about songs, and not about an industry,” he says. “It was about a movement, not about making money. I think we’re moving back into that again. There’s still an importance in actually writing songs again. People are interested in hearing things that make sense.”

These thirteen tracks, with their soulful minimalism, certainly make sense. Hints of the music he grew up on – Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, the Beatles—shine through. (Album closer “Happy Just To Be,” with its pounding piano chords, is a close cousin to the Lennon-penned “Across the Universe.”) Yet Rateliff is also at home in what may be called, for lack of a better term, the neo-folk revival. His voice is so confident that you can occasionally imagine the music dropping out entirely, a song propelled solely by Rateliff’s a capella strengths—equal parts church spiritual and TV on the Radio riffing on the Pixies’ “Mr. Grieves.”

“The one thing that made me want to write and play music was trying to get the same feeling that it gave me when I listened to it,” Rateliff says. “Like having an anxiety attack—where you almost start to weep, at the same time feel a strange pressure in your chest.” This persistent troubadour has struggled and persevered to this point; now, the wider world is ready for Nathaniel Rateliff. “In Memory of Loss,” he says, “is for everyone who’s willing to listen.”

Andrew Schneider (host), Brent Cowles, Joe Sampson, Nathaniel Rateliff and Dane Pribbeno (sound) at KRFC. Photo courtesy of Cindy at Angel Mountain Media.

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