Robin Holcomb / Flutterbox

Show Description

“Ms. Holcomb has done something remarkable here: she has created a new American regionalism, spun from many threads- country rock, minimalism, Civil War songs, Baptist hymns, Appalachian folk tunes, even the polytonal music of Charles Ives.  The music that results is as elegantly simple as a Shaker quilt, and no less beautiful.” - The New York Times

“Achingly painful and suddenly tender, Robin Holcomb’s songs mirror a beguiling, bewildering world.” - Rolling Stone

“Satie goes to Appalachia, Morricone goes to the Knitting factory, and you, dear art-folk fan, die and go to heaven.” - Village Voice

Robin Holcomb was born in Savannah, Georgia, dropped out of college to sharecrop tobacco in North Carolina, lived in the Lower East Side in the 1980s and was a founder of the maverick performance venue Studio Henry and the New York Composers Orchestra. Moving to Seattle in 1989, she's continued to compose songs and music for solo piano, chamber ensembles, dance, theatre and film. Extended song cycles include Angels at the Four Corners, The Utopia Project and O, Say a Sunset. She performs as a soloist, with various groups of friends, and with her long-standing ensemble Larks, They Crazy.

In addition to her own recordings on the Nonesuch, Tzadik and Songlines labels, Robin can be heard on Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys (Anti), The Harry Smith Project: Anthology of American Folk Music Revisited (Shout Factory) and Bill Frisell’s Nashville (Nonesuch).

Her band includes Doug Wieselman (guitar, clarinet & saxophone) and Tony Scherr (bass & vocals)

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"Man, Flutterbox is GREAT.  A strange and beautiful world." - Bill Frisell 

"Comparisons evaporate." - Beth Orton 

 "You'd never forget this pair: A voice-bass duo banking on improvisation while trusting in the power of an unadorned melody... Something novel is in the air." - Jim Macnie, The Village Voice

Flutterbox plays nectar-drunken summer pop, octane-overdriven lunar rock, midnight pin-drop haiku jazz and candle-powered protest folk. Flutterbox is flower-core and road-trip-hop, avant-bard and emo-lark all in one aerodynamic duo: siren songstress Janine Nichols and bassist laureate Neill Cardinal Furio.