Live Concert Photography: Communion at Rockwood Music Hall 2/4/20 feat. Brother Moses with S.G. Goodman and Alice Kristiansen
Communion Music is an artist-led organization founded by Mumford and Sons‘ Ben Lovett, Bear’s Den’s Kevin Jones and producer Ian Grimble, back in 2006 at London’s Notting Hill Arts Club. Communion combines elements of live promotion, publishing and recording to create a hub for emerging artists to grow and develop an audience for them and their work. Over the year, Communion Records has released material by Ben Howard, Goyte, Michael Kiwanuka, Tennis, Nick Mulvey, Willy Mason, JOVM mainstays Rubblebucket, Matthew and the Atlas, Bad Suns, Deap Vally, Catfish and the Bottlemen, the aforementioned Bear’s Den, Daughter and a growing list of others,
Communion Presents is a monthly, carefully curated night of music hosted in small and intimate venues across the European Union and United Staes, featuring local, national and internationally known touring acts. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site throughout its exisence, Rockwood Music Hall has regularly hosted a monthly Communion Presents showcase that has featured the likes of JOVM mainstays Anna Rose and Blonde Maze, the aforementioned Michael Kiwanuka, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Carrie Ashley Hill, Dublin based experimental pop act Cloud Castle Lake, Canadian singer/songwriter Adrian Underhill and a growing list of others. Earlier this month Communion Presents returned to Rockwood Music Hall for a showcase that included the rapidly rising New York-based indie rock act Brother Moses; emerging Western Kentucky-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist S.G. Goodman; and New York-based singer/songwriter Alice Kristiansen. Check out photos from the show below.
Brother Moses is a rapidly rising New York-based indie act centered around founding trio — childhood friend and college roommates James Lockhart and Moses Gomez and fellow University of Arkansas classmate John-Lewis Anderson with the later addition of Corey Dill. Lockhart and Gomez wrote songs in their spare room and showed them to Anderson, who invited them to play at an annual Halloween house party he hosted.
Their first live show together, bonded the members of the band — and they set out to recreate the spirit of that first night together. The band’s Raymond Richards-produced, six song EP 2016’s Legends was a sun-soaked and blissed-out effort that helped the band expand from the house parties they started out playing to sold-out shows. Building upon a growing profile, the band’s full-length debut 2018’s Magnolia found the band staying true to the frenetic approach and razor sharp hooks that started to win them attention — but dialed down a bit, with a more focused and controlled center. The album eventually amassed over a million streams across the various steaming sites.
Soon after the release of Magnolia, the band relocated from Arkansas to New York. The band celebrated their move with the release of two tracks “Sam & Diane” and “Love Will Set You Free,” which revealed some ambitious songwriting as the material quickly shifted from ambient to cathartic within a phrase.
Throughout last year, the members of Brother Moses went on several US tours as an opener for the likes of Knox Hamilton, Michigander and others, as well as a headliner. In between tour dates, the band went to empty to record their forthcoming Calvin Luber-produced sophomore album Desperation Pop, which is slated for a March 2020 release.
Born and raised in a strict, church-going family of row crop farmers based in Western Kentucky, near the Mississippi River, S.G. Goodman is an emerging singer/songwriter and guitarist, who made her live NYC Metropolitan area debut at Communion earlier this month. Her forthcoming Jim James-produced solo debut Old Time Feeling will be released through Verve Forecast later this year. And from Goodman’s live set, the album’s material sonically draws from old-school country, Delta blues, rockabilly and plaintive ballads centered around the Western Kentucky-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist’s Patsy Cline-like vocals. Goodman aims to debunk rural stereotypes with deeply personal songs that tell tales of heartache, protest, estrangement and reconciliation while exploring living with OCD, her sexuality, and loving your family and community even though you might disagree with them. 
Alice Kristiansen is a New York-based singer/songwriter, who crafts beautiful and emotionally-charged music meant to create a genuine — and heartfelt — connection with the listener. Kristiansen first gained a dedicated following after Ashton Kutcher posted one of her covers on Facebook back in 2015. Since then, her following has grown organically to over 645,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel.
Building upon a growing profile, her singles “Lost My Mind” and “Lost in Translation” were featured on Spotify‘s New Music Friday and New Music Friday UK playlists — with Blackbook Magazine gushingly praising “Lost My Mind,” by comparing the rising singer/songwriter to Lana Del Rey.
For these photos and more, check out the Flickr set here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmLwBwD9
