The Welcome Wagon - Sufjan-produced album, release show
DOWNLOAD: The Welcome Wagon – Sold! To the Nice Rich Man (MP3)
The debut album by The Welcome Wagon unveils a ramshackle sing-a-long enterprise of a Presbyterian pastor (the Rev. Vito Aiuto) and his wife (Monique) wrestling out the influences of folk music, religion, popular culture, and church tradition in a collection of songs that is as soulful as it is good-humored. This gorgeous brew is reflected in the group’s repertoire, which unflinchingly consolidates a vast history of “sacred” song traditions: from Old Testament psalms, to Presbyterian Psalters of the 17th century, to iconoclastic pop innovators of the 1960s (The Velvet Underground), to charismatic Catholics of the 1970s (Lenny Smith), and into the melancholy lovelorn pop of the 1980s (The Smiths). There are even a few originals. Armed with a particleboard parlor guitar and a plastic glockenspiel, pastor and wife stumble their way through an arresting catalog of hymns–hallowed and unholy–with the simple desire to know their Maker–and to know each other–more intimately. The result–due, in part, to producer/arranger Sufjan Stevens–is an awe-inspiring collection of hymns, pop covers, and originals that render soulful stunts from quiet skirmishes of home recordings. [Asthmatic Kitty]
Since we were already on the subject of Asthmatic Kitty releases that Sufjan is involved with that are coming out next week, I thought it was a good time to mention this one too. Welcome to the Welcome Wagon is out December 9th which is the same night of the release show at a church in Brooklyn…
Tuesday, December 9th
8 PM concert start time
St Paul’s Lutheran Church
334 S 5th St. Brooklyn, NY
$10 or $8 with canned / dry good donation to Southside Food pantry
The Welcome Wagon will be backed by a full band, and some of the choir singers who grace the album. Candy Stations who has worked with Sufjan, Lambchop, Wilco, Calexico etc will be doing visuals at the show. Andy Friedman and The Other Failures are also on the bill.
