Pretty in Scarlet: the first album from Murder Ballads

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

After decades of playing solo and a few years as a duo, cluegirl and I, a.k.a. Murder Ballads, are on the verge of releasing our first CD, entitled Pretty in Scarlet. It's a good representation of what we do on stage: a mix of folk originals, bluesy reworkings of English traditional songs, a dash of humor, and covers that run the gamut from filk to '80 proto-Goth. Along the way we've been joined in the studio (ours and theirs) by such ridiculously talented friends as Pegasus Award winning singer-songwriters SJ Tucker and Heather Dale, guitarist Ben Deschamps, violinist Marnen Laibow-Koser of Blackmore's Night, and Matt Young of Traveller Song on bodhran, with producer/Controller of Chaos Joel Lord keeping it all together. "Fall-down giddy" doesn't even begin to describe our feelings on this project.

Primary recording at this point is done, but we still need to complete mixing and mastering and get physical CDs pressed, plus pick up some starter tour gear and merch so we can stop with the one-weekend-every-three-months bit and become an actual honest-to-gods Band. Sadly, the circles on the Venn diagram labeled "struggling folk musicians" and "people with money to burn" don't have a whole lot of overlap, so we've started a campaign on Indiegogo to help Pretty in Scarlet see the light of day. As of this writing we're at 15% of our goal, an amazing start but still leaving a ways to go. Give us a look and a listen, and if you're able to throw a few coins in the hopper you can get in on our bald-faced bribes incentives, including advance downloads of the final product, artwork, stickers, T-shirts, and (on the high end) the ability to force us to cover the song of your choice. (Yes, even that one, and don't pretend you weren't thinking it). Thanks for your time!