Mission Statement:
"R.I.S.E. (formally Rising Appalachia) is a genre-bending force of sound that uses both lyrical prowess and diverse artistic collaborations to defy cultural cliches and ignite a musical revolution..."
Music is the tool with which we wield political prowess. Melody for the Roots...spreading song around the globe. (We are also joining political street theater events, collaborating with Alternate Roots members across the South, studying dance and yoga, getting new tattoos, working on recording collaborations, traveling to South America, Africa, India, and the moon, volunteering for international justice projects, writing poetry on the back of scrap napkins, doing a backlog of laundry, reorganizing dusty bookshelves, and learning new languages and new peoples...) Please see below for more info, and keep your ears open for lots of new musical carni-folk excursions...
Music is becoming our tool.not just for aural pleasure, not just for hobby-but now as a means to connect with something beyond ourselves, building cultural bridges and tacking social injustice through melody. It is taking its own personality, carrying us all along the journey down the damp and strange alley ways and cryptic coded pathways... to poetic observations, social change, lyrical nonsense, political rage, symphonic coercing, ferocious bantering, cycles and train tracks, primal will, fresh air intoxicants, harmony and alliteration, noise and something sweeter than I can ever touch. -post-apocalyptic folk fusion soul mending...perhaps?
ITS FINALLY DONE AND READY...Its rowdy, heavy on the drumming and banjo, and full of homemade sound journeys and lyricism from the long road behind us..and the deep journey ahead. Breathe it in and send us your thoughts...this is about the community in all of us...our international union. Take home a copy
Rising Appalachia Scale Down 2007 unwound records
13 track album. 6 barand new originals.
8 reworked traditionals. all delicious.
-Scale Down
-The Whiskey Blues
-When Its Golden
-The Blackest Crow
-Raleigh and Spencer
-Unraveled
-Sail Away Ladies
-From the Castle to the Barracks
"We like a good bit of hootanany and hoedowns that tickle the gizzards way down to their sultry inner depths...little bit of good boot stompin' fiddle banjo/tunes passed down along the way...what tunes we can carry on long journeys we do- and travel frequently in old dusty backpacks and vagabond hammocks, throwing out a hitch hickers thumb as often as possible..." -Leah.
Freak-Folk-Soul from the South...
Sisters Leah and Chloe Smith grew up from the hood to the hollar'. In the streets of urban Atlanta's musical revolution and in the bosom of the Southern Appalachian music renaissance. Born to a fiddlin’ mother and a folk-sculpting father, they were raised with old-time mountain melodies as their lullabies. But, having also grown up immersed in the underground hip hop and spoken word movements of the urban South, Rising Appalachia stays true to their deep love of lyricism, hip hop, jazz, blues, soul, funk, indie-folk, and roots music from around the world.
Rising Appalachia’s eerie banjo originals, gritty lyrics and effortless sister harmonies are compared to that of Ani Difranco, Jill Scott, and even Bjork. Touring again as a duo hear Rising Appalachia carnival folk approach to a beautiful old tradition...brining in outside collaborations from across the globe
For booking info on the 2008 tour and a Rising Appalachia press kit click on the link below:
To purchase our albums please visit the link below:
Scale Down
Leah and Chloe
www.cdbaby.com/rappalachia
To contact us please e-mail us at:
[email protected]