About:

ABOUT MARTHA WAINWRIGHT

With a hugely expressive voice and an arsenal of powerful songs, Martha is a beguiling performer and a refreshingly different force in music. The daughter of folk legends, Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, music was a pivotal part of her childhood and adolescence. As a child, she was often on stage with her parents and the entire McGarrigle family. She started singing with her brother, Rufus, as a duo in the early ‘90s and as his solo career took off, she continued singing with him live and on recordings all the while setting a strong foundation for her own recording and performing legacy.

Martha has put out a couple of well-noted EPs, and then took a major step in 1998, when her song, “Year of the Dragon” was included in ‘The McGarrigle Hour’, an album by her mother and aunt, Kate and Anna McGarrigle. In 2005, she released her first album, ‘Martha Wainwright’, to great critical and commercial acclaim. London’s Sunday Times included the song, ‘Bloody Mother Fu*king As*hole’ in their songs of the year and Rolling Stone called it “a blistering prelude to her debut album.”  In 2008, Martha followed with a second album, ‘I Know You’re Married but I Have Feelings Too’, which showed great musically maturity and talent as a songwriter. Last year she toured the world promoting her third album, ‘San Fusils, Ni Souliers A Paris:Martha Wainwright’s Piaf Album’. This extraordinary album, a homage to the great Edith Piaf, was received with glowing reviews, leaving audiences stunned by Martha’s incredible range and talent.

Martha also took a turn performing on film in Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Aviator’ starring Leonardo DiCaprio and contributed two songs to the soundtrack of independent film, ‘P.S.’ starring Laura Linney and directed by Dylan Kidd.

For the last two years, since the passing of her mother, Kate McGarrigle, Martha and her brother Rufus have raised thousands of dollars to fund research into a cure for sarcoma, the rare cancer that took her life.

Undoubtedly her own person, with her own sense of style, Martha creates her own music with an extraordinary versatile and compelling voice.

Martha’s new album is due out in the Fall of 2012.

ABOUT NICOLE ATKINS

It’s been a tumultuous three years since the release of Atkins’ acclaimed 2007 debut, Neptune City, but the wait has proved worth it. Mondo Amore is a courageous, provocative work, fraught with dramatic tension, sweeping emotions, and musical ambition. With Atkins’ remarkable voice commanding attention at the forefront, songs like “My Baby Don’t Lie” and the searing “This Is For Love” capture the raw ache and self-reflective disillusionment of a love gone bad. Daytrotter described Atkins’ recent session as “a pretty soundtrack to violent waters,” which the New Jersey-born singer/songwriter sees as a spot-on portrayal of the album itself.

Mondo Amore has its genesis in a time of extreme turbulence for Atkins, a period which saw her parting ways with her former (major) label while also dealing with the painful termination of “a relationship that should’ve ended two years before it actually did.” As if all that weren’t enough, her former backing band, The Sea, abandoned ship just a week into the January 2010 start of recording the new album.

As its all-encompassing title suggests, Mondo Amore is a big, bold collection, a grandly romantic song cycle fraught with all the passion, anger, tenderness, and devotion of Atkins’ own extraordinary heart.

“It’s so much love,” she agrees, “it’s borderline obsessive.”