Photo of Esmé Patterson by Todd Roeth.

Last week we successfully predicted an enormous reception for You Me & Apollo‘s EP release show. A crowd of fans showed up at The Aggie Theatre on Saturday for the celebration that included Turn 4 and this week’s KRFC MusicShare artist, Esmé Patterson.

With appearances playing with various groups on “All Things Considered”, “The Late Show with David Letterman” and “The Tonight Show,” folk and roll songstress Esmé Patterson has just finished her first solo album of original songs this Winter via Illegal Pete, Virgil Dickerson and Erin Barnes’ record label, Greater Than Collective. Described by Patterson in an interview as “raw,” All Princes, I is greatly influenced by Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and Feists’s Metals.

American Songwriter called it “a warm, organic-sounding album that splits the difference between indie pop, folk-rock and coffeehouse jazz” in their full album premiere. Providing collaborations on the album are Nathaniel Rateliff, Roger Green (formerly of the Czars), Ben Desoto (Czars, Nathaniel Rateliff, Bare Bones), Genevieve Patterson and Sarah Anderson (Paper Bird), Carrie Beeder, Eric Moon, Mike Fitzmorris, Will Duncan, and many more.

You can sample the album below and buy it online from Greater Than Collective. Plus we’re sharing a free download of the first track, “My Young Man.”

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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