Rachel Lipson

Rachel Lipson is a Brooklyn-based songwriter who performs her simple, honest songs on guitar (and sometimes ukulele and banjo). Born in Detroit, MI, she spent her childhood building forts with her brother and sister in the living room, contemplating the dangers of the dark and pizza deliverers, riding horses and playing with friends. Rachel first picked up a guitar at age 16 and a few years later, after having moved to New York, began crafting the songs that would make up her first album, This Way, which she self-released the next year.In 2003 Rachel released a 7" with Rough Trade recording artist Jeffrey Lewis, on Holland's Nowhere Fast record label and self-released her second album Some More Songs. She toured Europe for seven weeks with Lewis and Herman Düne in the summer, including the Mofo festival in Paris in July. In the fall, Rachel recorded a new album at Olive Juice Studios in New York for her latest release Pastures on Meccico Records, a UK label founded and run by members of Cornershop.In the last few years, Rachel has collaborated and performed extensively with Leah Hayes (of La Laque and Scary Mansion), Herman Düne and others and has played alongside Eugene Chadbourne, Kimya Dawson, Daniel Johnston, The Mountain Goats and Refrigerator, as well as twice performing live on WFMU in New Jersey and on WNYC, a division of NPR.Rachel Lipson's music combines a sort of radical simplicity and honesty with intricately woven narratives. The lyrics seem to have as much to do with William Faulkner as they do with Woody Guthrie. The music recalls the earliest folk traditions and yet speaks at the same time to a contemporary minimal aesthetic. While sometimes the approach is blindingly direct and at others masterfully oblique, the overall effect is irresistible, one of invitingly gentle beauty and clarity.