The Milk Carton Kids Release New Album Monterey
Grammy-nominated duo The Milk Carton Kids – the two guitar/two voice singularity of Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale – release their new album Monterey today.
Monterey joins their two previous albums in receiving great early acclaim, building on the understated acoustic artistry and virtuosic harmonies that define The Milk Carton Kids. Those looking for Monterey to be the album where the duo expand their arrangements or soften the mood will find instead the duo fingering the rough edges of their sound, seeking to reproduce the raw directness of live performance by recording on stages across America.
"It definitely did not feel time for us creatively to say we had done everything we could do with two voices and two guitars," Ryan says. "I think we felt that there were still ever smaller spaces to climb into, we were still finding more nooks and crannies within the framework.”
In addition, The Milk Carton Kids have released a haunting video for their song “Poison Tree.” The Mike Venezia directed clip, which premiers via the LA Times, pairs the melancholy defiance of the song’s everyman story to the time-shifting musings of an aging security guard as he wanders an empty mall after hours. The duo make their first ever appearance in a video in suitably dissonant fashion, performing to no one in front of an empty escalator.
Watch the video for "Poison Tree" here: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-milk-carton-kids-video-poison-tree-monterey-album-20150518-story.html
In the two years since the release of their last album, the critical heralded The Ash & Clay, The Milk Carton Kids have earned a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album, won Duo/Group of the Year at the Americana Music Awards, were standout performers in T Bone Burnett & the Coen Brothers' concert documentary, "Another Day/Another Time," and reached their widest audience to date with a sold out 55-city North American tour.
This past year, The Milk Carton Kids were invited to pay tribute to Johnny Cash & Emmylou Harris — Cash on the Joe Henry-produced remake of "Bitter Tears," and Harris with their standing ovation earning performance at the tribute concert "The Life & Songs of Emmylou Harris," alongside luminaries including Kris Kristofferson, Mavis Staples, Alison Kraus, Iron & Wine, and Harris herself.
The band has just announced a Fall headlining tour of North America in support of the new album. The duo will be performing in the largest and most prestigious venues of their career; from New York City’s Town Hall, to Los Angeles’s Theatre at Ace Hotel, to Atlanta’s Symphony Hall, the ideal settings have been chosen to enable the duo to replicate the nuances and dynamics of their stirring new album.
North American Fall Tour Dates:
9/7/15 Northampton, MA - Academy of Music Theatre
9/8/15 Boston, MA - Berklee Performance Center
9/9/15 Philadelphia, PA - Keswick Theatre
9/10/15 Washington, D.C. - Lisner Auditorium
9/11/15 New York, NY - Town Hall
9/12/15 Brevard, NC - Mountain Song Festival
9/13/15 Durham, NC - Carolina Theatre
9/15/15 Knoxville, TN - Bijou Theatre
9/17/15 Louisville, KY - Bomhard Theatre
9/18/15 Columbus, OH - Lincoln Theatre
9/30/15 Santa Barbara, CA - Lobero Theatre
10/1/15 Los Angeles, CA - The Theatre at Ace Hotel
10/4/15 Chico, CA - Laxson Auditorium
10/5/15 Portland, OR - Newmark Theatre
10/6/15 Seattle, WA - Moore Theatre
10/7/15 Vancouver, BC - Vogue Theatre
10/9/15 Edmonton, AB - Winspear Centre Concert Hall
10/10/15 Calgary, AB - Central United Church
10/28/15 Toronto, ON - Queen Elizabeth Theatre
10/29/15 Ann Arbor, MI - The Ark
10/30/15 Chicago, IL - Fourth Presbyterian Church
10/31/15 Grand Rapids, MI - Covenant Fine Arts Center
11/2/15 St. Paul, MN - Fitzgerald Theater
11/3/15 Madison, WI - Barrymore Theatre
11/4/15 St. Louis, MO - Sheldon Concert Hall
11/5/15 Nashville, TN - James K. Polk Theater
11/6/15 Atlanta, GA - Symphony Hall
11/9/15 Asheville, NC - Diana Wortham Theatre
11/10/15 Charleston, NC - Charleston Music Hall
12/1/15 San Francisco, CA - The Palace of Fine Arts
12/2/15 Napa, CA - Uptown Theatre
12/3/15 Arcata, CA - Van Duzer Theatre
12/5/15 San Diego, CA - Balboa Theatre
12/7/15 Mesa, AZ - Ikeda Theatre
12/8/15 Santa Fe, NM - The Lensic
12/9/15 Boulder, CO - Boulder Theater
12/11/15 Dallas, TX - Majestic Theater
12/13/15 Austin, TX - Paramount Theatre