CRACKLIN MOTH

Cracklin Moth performed and recorded from 2002 to late 2007. Founded by songwriter Matt Ammerman, the group had 10 full-time members throughout it's life, eventually evolving from a quartet to a six-piece effort. They released the 'Redbird EP' in 2005 and their second EP, 'My Heart Is Leaking,' in 2007. Onstage, they played mostly to a Chicago home fanbase at Metro, Hideout, Schubas, Beat Kitchen, Subterranean, Double Door, and Martyr's alongside friends in such acts as Office, The Changes, The 1900s, Walter Meego, The Great Perhaps, Tom Schraeder & His Ego, Adam Fitz & The Part-Timers, Freer, and The Bon Savants. Since it's inception, the group was well-received by the media, appearing in local and national print/ internet publications, blog sites, college/public radio, and television. The following is a press release penned by Lizz Kannenberg during the release of 'My Heart Is Leaking':
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Cracklin Moth's Matt Ammerman is a glass-half-full kind of guy. He fills the Chicago quintet's inspired brand of art-country-turned-pop rock with the kind of hope found in personal tales that give the rest of us reason to think things are gonna be alright. Through the coasting valleys of a thousand emotions and a hundred ways to explain them, he tells the stories of his own life and weaves the foundation for listeners to discover parts of themselves in the songs' robust imagery. Pretty pop it is, simple it is not.

A determined collection of Chicago's finest players, Cracklin Moth is the culmination of six careers worth of work and the apex at which ability meets passion. Like the smooth stones at the bottom of an unbridled spring creek, the rhythm section of veteran drummer Shawn Rios and bassist Griffin Baron lend grounding to the vagabond melodies of pianists/ keyboardists Dan Moulder and Drew Lindsey and pedal steel/ guitar maestro Rocco Labriola. Together these four create a soft yet firm sonic featherbed for Ammerman's wistful tales of love found and life lived without regret.

Recorded everywhere including a century-old Michigan barn, My Heart Is Leaking seems to have absorbed an aged wisdom that lends time and texture to the complex song craft spanning the five-song EP. As the follow up to 2005's Redbird EP, Cracklin Moth is building up the perfect alt-country façade and then expertly demolishing it, rising in its place a castle built of challenging hooks and a latticework of Electric Light Orchestra and Beach Boys Pet Sounds-like melodies that somehow still wouldn't be out of place in the rolling Kentucky hills of Ammerman's youth.

Praise around the band's home base continues to build, with the band earning the seal of approval from media heavies WXRT radio and the hard-to-please Chicago Sun-Times' Jim DeRogatis. The next year sees the band recording their upcoming full-length record, and spots in the audience at their live shows become harder to snag as the band continues to weave the new material into their sets. It shouldn..t be long before the rest of America is raising their half-full beers and taking their places at Cracklin Moth's housewarming party.

Purchase Cracklin Moth music through Apple's iTunes here:

Purchase Cracklin Moth's latest release My Heart is Leaking EP! PayPal Also available here is the Redbird EP .