Credits:

Rachael & Vilray

Description:

It had been more than a decade since they were students when they decided to perform together. Rachel had spent much of the year touring as a member of Lake Street Dive, and Villey had begun as a solo artist with just vocals and guitar. After graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music, he had been working as a songwriter but had been away from the stage as a performer for some time, until he injured his finger at a part-time job and, at the urging of a friend, began playing at Bar Below Rye in Brooklyn. Then one night in 2015, Rachel joined him on stage. At that show, which she recalls as a very moving show, Villey was playing some good old-fashioned jazz numbers, and Rachel, who was obsessed with the big band era singers of the 1930s and 40s but had never sung anything from that era, was completely enthralled. and asked if she could sing with him the next time he took the stage.Then, at the next show, she sneaked one original song into her repertoire, and this project was born. Villey began consistently sending her his own material, and when she began mixing his songs with manic jazz numbers from the 1930s and 1940s, "It took a little while to get into the studio, but it was worth the wait," Rachel says. We were going to record some songs within the year, but then we realized we needed to do a lot of sonic exploration and really think about what the songs here should sound like. I thought it would be much better to do a couple of tours and play them in different styles and tempos and see how the crowds reacted.On stage, they played with just microphones and guitars, but in the studio they were joined by Bermiss on keyboards, Tony Scherr on bass, Jason Burger on drums, and Dan Knobler and Jacob Rex Zimmerman, producers and engineers of Lake Street Dive's "Free Yourself Up" album, who arranged a horn section that added a great deal to the sound. After a day of rehearsals, the members gathered at a small studio in Brooklyn called FIGURE8, After a day of rehearsals, the band members gathered at a small studio in Brooklyn, FIGURE8, and proceeded to record the album in a live studio format. The result is an album that captures the vibrant energy and chemistry that comes from the musical interplay between the musicians. Rachel and Vilray's self-titled album, "RACHEL & VILRAY," will add another page to the "American Songbook. A masterpiece full of potential future standard numbers is born. (2/2)