In the summer of 2008, MorganEve Swain, a pixie-ish, free-spirited fiddler and singer met David Lamb, a bearded, deeply feeling singer-songwriter, while touring on the East Coast. Just days later, Lamb asked Swain to join his eclectic folk ensemble Brown Bird. The pair fell in love, and over the course of six years — as Brown Bird whittled its lineup down to a duo — they would release four full-length albums, building a faithful following near their home in Warren, Rhode Island. Swaim and Lamb were married in August 2013. On April 5, 2014, Lamb died due to complications from leukemia.
[Read more...]IN THE MIDST OF TRAGEDY, CREATING AN ALBUM AS A FORM OF THERAPY
The New York Times, April 29 2015 • Jeff Oloizia
In the summer of 2008, MorganEve Swain, a pixie-ish, free-spirited fiddler and singer met David Lamb, a bearded, deeply feeling singer-songwriter, while touring on the East Coast. Just days later, Lamb asked Swain to join his eclectic folk ensemble Brown Bird. The pair fell in love, and over the course of six years — as Brown Bird whittled its lineup down to a duo — they would release four full-length albums, building a faithful following near their home in Warren, Rhode Island. Swaim and Lamb were married in August 2013. On April 5, 2014, Lamb died due to complications from leukemia.
[Read more...]
In the summer of 2008, MorganEve Swain, a pixie-ish, free-spirited fiddler and singer met David Lamb, a bearded, deeply feeling singer-songwriter, while touring on the East Coast. Just days later, Lamb asked Swain to join his eclectic folk ensemble Brown Bird. The pair fell in love, and over the course of six years — as Brown Bird whittled its lineup down to a duo — they would release four full-length albums, building a faithful following near their home in Warren, Rhode Island. Swaim and Lamb were married in August 2013. On April 5, 2014, Lamb died due to complications from leukemia.
[Read more...]
The story of Brown Bird is a love story, and it wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. They are, or were, a band, but Dave Lamb and MorganEveSwain were partners in every sense. Their six-year romance on and offstage caught fire and burned bright when they met in 2008. They moved in together within weeks.
"Axis Mundi is the album that Dave and I wrote during the year of his battle with leukemia. Excluding ‘Tortured Boy’ which I wrote for him in the first stage of our relationship, these songs were written in the months leading up to his diagnosis, and the months following his bone marrow transplant, when he was confined to our home. As long as he felt well enough to be working, he was. He would spend hours in our home studio, meticulously recording and rerecording his parts - full drums, guitar, vocals, percussion ideas...
Christmas songs mean different things to different people. Whether you love them or hate them, you cannot deny their power. They are joyous and melancholy. They help keep us warm in the coldest of winters. They remind us to love our friends and our family. They are about human connections and bonds that cannot be broken. At the heart of it all, they are about love.
In “Deeper,” a shadow is hunched in the woods. The bare winter branches visible through the person’s translucent torso appear as a tangle of uncertain arteries. The fading figure could be light playing a trick on the eye, and yet the feet have left two imprints in the freshly fallen snow.
