Big Harp – Runs To Blue
Big Harp—the duo of Chris Senseney and Stefanie Drootin-Senseney—release their new album, Runs to Blue, via Saddle Creek.
Runs To Blue includes the previously releases singles “Runs To Blue”, “I Got An Itch”, and The Cure cover “Boys Don’t Cry.”
Fifteen years have passed since Big Harp’s debut album White Hat, and over a decade since the 2015 release of Waveless, the third—and, it seemed from the outside, final—Big Harp record. Their return as Big Harp was an inevitability waiting on the right life and creative circumstances, where the spark of inspiration dovetailed with a chance to set aside some studio time. Pierre de Reeder—the Rilo Kiley bassist who had recorded White Hat—hosted a loose backyard show. Senseney played a few songs de Reeder had never heard, and de Reeder wondered if the couple would like to come by his Highland Park studio, 64 Sound, and record them. Senseney had just lost his longtime job, so they could do it cheap and casual. There was no goal of making a record, but it steadily happened a few songs at a time, anyway. Drootin and Senseney put the songs down as a pair, her spry harmonies slipping beneath his oaken voice while their instruments curled around one another like a hug or a ripple of laughter.
Runs to Blue feels right on time, like visiting Drootin and Senseney at home one evening and hearing them laugh and cry their way through stories about their past and hopes for their future. Recorded totally live in the studio with only acoustic guitar, bass, and two voices who know one another like hand and glove, Runs to Blue is the simplest sounding Big Harp record. It is, however, the most emotionally complex, two lives long combined distilled into 10 frank and disarming songs.
Big Harp will celebrate the release of Runs to Blue with events around Los Angeles including a listening party and performance at Deadly Wax on Friday, April 3rd and a show at Sid the Cat Auditorium on Friday, April 10th with Maria Taylor and Charlie Hickey. Later in April, they’ll tour throughout California.
Big Harp Tour Dates:
Fri. April 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ Deadly Wax
Fri. April 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ Sid the Cat Auditorium (with Maria Taylor & Charlie Hickey)
Thu. April 30 – San Francisco, CA @ TBD
Fri. May 1 – Oakland, CA @ Wyldflwr Arts
Sat. May 2 – San Luis Obispo @ House Show
#bigharpband