Tag: NPR Morning Edition

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Donivan Berubue at “Hear Here Presents”

Donivan Berube is an Arizona-based luthier, singer/songwriter, musician, touring cyclist and Contributing Music Editor at American Trails Magazine. Berube has led a rather fascinating life: a mother after his 17th birthday, Berube left his family and disassociated himself from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, saying goodbye to his family and friends — forever.

Berube took off to travel the hemisphere, living primarily out of a tent and working a variety of jobs — including an English teacher in Huaycán, Peru; a librarian in Big Sur, CA; a luthier in Arizona; a tour cyclist, who has taken solo, long-distance bicycle tours across the States and Iceland. During that same time, Berube wrote, recorded and released material through small labels like Blessed Feathers and others, which has received praise from NPR’s Morning Edition, Paste Magazine and Vinyl Me, Please. And he has had his writing appear in American Trails and 100 Albums You Need On Vinyl and Why.

Berube’s soon-to-be released album Truth In Constant Change For Now was written and recorded during pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions, amidst increasing sociopolitical and economic instability, racial injustice, growing inequality and other massive problems — while focusing over the fear of obscurity, persistence and strength, intimacy and isolation. Thematically, the album’s material has a central refrain: this is a mere moment in time, in which we are mere moments in time. This has always been reality but we’ve never quite seen it that way.

Recently, Bernube and his backing band performed three songs off his soon-to-be released album — “Wyoming/Dakota,” “Love Is a Dog From Hell,” and “Huaycán Song # 2” — at Milwaukee-based, live music video series Hear Here Presents.

“Wyoming/Dakota,” the first song of the session is one part anthemic 120 Minutes-era indie rock, infectious jangle pop and contemplative shoegaze, centered around shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, a propulsive rhythm section and Benube’s plaintive vocals. Lyrically. the song sounds — and feels — as though it comes from lived-in personal experience, with the song evoking driving under seemingly endless skies, feeling awe and confusion over the direction of your life.
“Love is a Dog From Hell,” the session’s second song is an enormous song centered around shimmering guitars, Benube’s plaintive vocals — and while starting with a slow-burning introduction, the song builds up in intensity, simultaneously capturing the passion, confusion, and ambivalence of love that sonically reminds me a bit of Pearl Jam.
“Huaycán Song #2” is a gentle reverie, centered featuring a narrator,’s nostalgia-fueled dreams of a former lover and of a simpler time; none of which he can ever get back because time is an endless river.

All of the material is gorgeous and just deeply thoughtful, and recorded in an intimate setting. Of course, it reminds me of how much I miss live music.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Born in rural Vermont and currently based in Atlanta, GA, Nick Takenobu Ogawa is a classically trained cellist and composer, who writes, records and performs under the moniker Takénobu. As the story goes, Ogawa was raised in an extremely small town with a population of about 1,000 residents — and as a result, the cellist and composer grew up playing in the woods, since he had no next-door neighbors and had no cable TV. His parents were professors at Middlebury College, and when Ogawa turned 6, they introduced him to cello, and he took private lessons and practiced religiously until he had turned 18. But after 12 years of study and orchestral playing, Ogawa began veering away from classical music and started focusing on a self-taught style of play that borrowed techniques from his guitar playing and composition based on a variety of roots and world music influences.

Ogawa moved to Kyoto, Japan, where he spent a year experimenting and cultivating his unique playing style and sound — until he had suffered a wrist injury from intense practice. He then wound up attending Haverford College in Philadelphia where he graduated with thoughts of entering law school; however, instead of studying for the LSAT’s and preparing applications, Ogawa moved to Vancouver, BC, where he recorded his full-length debut album. He then moved to Brooklyn and won the 2006 Williamsburg Live singer/songwriter competition and with the winnings he was able to release his 2007 debut effort, Introduction. The album was released to favorable reviews but didn’t gain much exposure.

Frustrated and despondent, Ogawa was close to giving up on pursuing music. But just before his own deadline, the Vermont-born, Atlanta, GA-based cellist and composer submitted his debut effort to Pandora. And ironically enough, just as he was about to give up was the exact moment that he started to see increasing press attention and commercial success; in fact, thanks to Pandora’s recommendation algorithm, in the four year period between 2007-2011, Introduction received enough streams and sales that Ogawa was able to focus on music full-time, releasing three more full-length album. Adding to a steadily growing national profile, Ogawa’s music has received airplay on NPR‘s Morning Edition, has opened for Kishi Bashi and performed and arranged cello on Dessa‘s “It’s Only Me.”  

Reversal, Ogawa’s fifth full-length effort is slated for a February 12, 2016 release and the album’s first single “Curtain Call” pairs a gorgeous and moody cello composition with Ogawa’s achingly plaintive vocals singing about a relationship that has come to an inevitable conclusion, and both sides have recognized that they have to part — perhaps forever. Sonically speaking the song employs the use of several different layers of cello to create a lush and yet spectral arrangement that emphasizes the melancholy sense of acceptance at the core of the song.