Biography

NORTHWEST-BASED INDIE-FOLK/ROOTS AMERICANA DUO JENN RAWLING & BASHO PARKS SET TO RELEASE DEBUT ALBUM "TAKE THE AIR" (WATERBUG RECORDS)

"Boasting immaculate musicianship and clean, unobtrusive production, Rawling and Parks' Take the Air is a record that won't wear out its welcome anytime soon."
- The Portland Mercury

Pacific Northwest indie-folk duo Jenn Rawling & Basho Parks will celebrate the release of their debut full-length, Take The Air (Waterbug Records), before setting out on a West and Midwest States spring tour to promote the album's nationwide release.

Jenn Rawling, songwriter/guitarist and vintage American folk and old-time country singer, joins masterful string player & harmony singer Basho Parks in a partnership of formidable musical talent and palpable sympathy. Rawling's playful, poetic lyrics are enhanced by her sophisticated sense of phrasing and pace. Parks' violin and viola support her message with compelling musical figures that echo and elaborate the meaning of each song. The duo's debut CD, Take The Air , is an emotionally rich recording which unfolds more gifts with each listen. Recorded and co-produced with Skyler Norwood (Blind Pilot, Horse Feathers) at Miracle Lake Studios, Take The Air, features talented Portland musicians William Joersz and Mub Fractal on upright bass, Matt Berger on percussion (Laura Gibson), Skyler Norwood on Wurlitzer, Joel Ricci on horns(March Fourth Marching Band), and Brendan Phillips on banjo. Using both stripped down and lush instrumentation, Take The Air rejuvenates the listener with its delicate subtlety and glowing warmth.

The album's second pressing is being reissued for national distribution on Chicago's respected artists' cooperative folk label, Waterbug Records. Says Waterbug President Andrew Calhoun: "It's been ages since I heard a CD that I wanted to hear over and over and sort of live in. Been dancing in the kitchen to this. Great blend of familiar and surprise. Not sure how you get such a feel of epic story from so few words. It's great."

Jenn and Basho met in 2010 while contributing their talents to bands around Portland. Both were recovering from potentially career-ending wrist injuries, but had almost simultaneously decided to play music again. Basho broke both wrists in 2005 when hit by a car while riding his bicycle to work one morning, and Jenn's decade of ceramic-work had left her riddled by crippling tendonitis. Discovering common loves and tribulations propelled the folk-duo to become an inseparable team both on and offstage. "Ours is a story of triumph in the face of adversity. Real phoenix-rising kind of stuff," chuckles Parks.

Born to hippie idealists in an adobe hut seven miles shy of Colorado's Mt. Blanca, Basho Watson Parks comes from radical origins. From symphonies to punk bands, bluegrass barn storms to roma-gypsy trios, organic electronica chamber music to classic country, his twenty-six years of string-playing experience span a wide swath of musical genres. A session musician in the Portland area for the past three years, Basho recorded with On the Stairs, Fast Rattler, Sara Jackson Holman, and Jenn Rawling in 2011. Parks plays the violin, viola, mandolin, ukulele, and guitar.

Wisconsin-born Rawling spent many summers working atop a firetower in the Mt. Hood wilderness. Wrapped in that isolation, Jenn was able to give focused attention to songwriting. She is an artist governed by intuition, tapped into the poetry of human life, who bides her time painting, gardening, cooking and admiring salamanders. "I'm inspired by nature's seasons, and these are my love songs to the moon and stars, ballads to the birth of flowers, and human expressions of love and loss," she explains. Happy to call the Pacific Northwest home, the two revel in its natural scenery and draw much from the flora and fauna of this region.

"'Take The Air' is a Victorian-era colloquialism meaning 'to go for a stroll,' but it's got undertones of carpe diem too," says native Coloradoan Parks of the album title. "It feels very optimistic and hopeful and about action," Rawling asserts. "I think the name fits the songs with all the airy violin parts and also expresses our attitude about the newly formed duo, putting ourselves out there, taking the leap, starting a new project together. I've been on several walking pilgrimages in my life that have had major spiritual and political impact on me, plus Basho and I love being in nature, hiking and traveling. Basho and I are wonder twins in the studio," she continues, "It was a nice realization for us, since this was our first time recording as a team. We've got a lot of magic together recording and it brings out a lot of goodness in both of us, which is exciting. Throw Skyler Norwood into the mix and there was a great synergistic laughter that definitely went into the songs."


A rare songwriter whose varied and distinctive melodies carry the story, Rawling's tunes can trace the motions and calls of birds and, in "Gather it Up," the motion of honey bees, mirrored by Parks' layered violins:

"I see the light dancing on the green grasses green stems movements,
Slowly and fastly and slowly and fastly and slowly,
I gather myself into the center I go..."

A melodic section's end in "Whistle Bird" soars headlong into a new feeling; "Little Swallow" sashays in its groove like an old string band mainstay: Basho's fiddle and Brendan Phillips' banjo take us to a country barndance; "Leaving So Soon" captures the suddenness of a relationship loss by reaching the chorus so quickly we haven't got time to prepare for it. We are waiting for more of the verse, each time, but like the person who left the author, it's not there. And we feel it. "Lonely Owl," "Gather it Up" and "Tidal" are cousin to the ecstatic nature poetry of Mary Oliver. Jenn Rawling's songs don't connect the dots. They leap, and the intuitive connections she makes are so true that she takes us with her.

Recently asked to perform at the Tucson Folk Festival in Arizona as well as the Boats & Bluegrass Festival in Minnesota, the duo is taking it all on the road with ten-year old great dane Miles Zanzibar and the smallest RV they could find. Rawling & Parks have an impressive tour lined up for 2012, with dates nationwide, including major festivals over the coming year. Details can be found on their website www.jennrawling.com