render tender/blunder sunder

OUT MAY 12TH, 2023 ON GAR HOLE RECORDS

Blending traditional sensibilities with contemporary concerns, render tender / blunder sunder arrives ready to propel listeners into the heart of songwriter Jude Brothers’ rich emotional experience – journeying through the underworld of doubt, longing, heart-break, and loss of identity, and arriving on the other side lighter, at a place of expansiveness and healing. 

Recorded over two days in a light-filled and scrub-jay surrounded room on a mesa in Lamy, New Mexico, the album is suffused Brothers’ extended search for space, clarity, and expression following profound grief and doubt in the bizarre and often-public end of a long and fruitful romantic and musical partnership. Listeners accompany Brothers as they move through the dismantling of both artistic and private dreams and identities, confronting the reality of separation, and reasserting their distinct creative voice. 

The nine track record, a stripped down and honest presentation of Brothers’ free-form compositions on tenor guitar and Celtic lever harp, displays their ease working within the framework of American Folk Music paradigms – gleaned from a musical childhood in Northwest Arkansas, steeped in its attendant regional influences – and enriched through their abiding and engaged love of various world folk traditions. Gliding atop delicately plucked harp-laden lullabies and adventurous freak-folk romps is Brothers’ effortless, playful, and expressive lyricism, propelled by a fearless and dynamic vocal range reminiscent of Karen Dalton, Joanna Newsom, and Joni Mitchell.

Living at the intersection of heartbreak and psycho-drama, the collected songs of render tender / blunder sunder fall beautifully within the tradition of music that interrogates life – in this case, the often-baffling distances that can exist between what is imagined and what is lived, what is remembered and what is still being learned.

 

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STILL FREAKING/FOLKING/FREAKFOLKING

 

Jude Brothers is an Arkansan folk derived singer-songwriter with a penchant for whimsy and tender heartedness. Brothers’ distinct writing style is marked by congenial contrasts: passionate & playful, calculated & relaxed, approachable & quirky. 

Their lyrics communicate a simultaneous existential dread and intoxicating thrill of living and loving, a practice in raw and shameless vulnerability shared through song. All of this is transmitted through nimble vocal frolicking- a shapeshifter voice crawling, leaping, pirouetting through a mystical landscape of their own creation.  

.....Let’s say you are in a forest, and you don’t know how you got there. A strong voice lilts from an autumnal quiet to a riveting loud stream to sing you the spell of their story. Is it a mockingbird? The spirit of an ash tree? A mischievous, but benevolent forest sprite?  

Nay! Tis but your new friend, Jud. Or Jude. Or Judith. With harp, guitar, and sometimes tenor banjo in tow, this freaky little Ozark bard comes bearing gifts- songs from somewhere between the real and the ethereal landscapes of their life.  

 

"There's something deeply captivating about Jude Brothers, something that brings all other surrounding noise or rush to an utter calm. Be it through their comforting lyrical storytelling, angelic melodic trills or whimsical performances, the Arkansas artist has a unique charm that's set to take off in 2023.  

If you can catch them live then don't miss the opportunity, trust us. Prep for tears and goosebumps, though - Jude Brothers speaks straight to the soul. " 

-Ciara Bains, Holler Country 

  

"Solo Arkansas singer-songwriter Jude Brothers delivered a mesmerizing set behind their harp. Their voice aches with a high Ozarks mystery, beautiful and haunting, while their songs wind like kudzu through long ballads and existential inquiry." 

-Doug Freeman, The Austin Chronicle 

  

“Alternating between banjo, harp, and guitar, Brothers’ emotive performance recalled the likes of Gillian Welch, Joanna Newsom and Karen Dalton.” 

-Jonny Leather, Mecca Lecca 

  

“-a powerful songwriting force conveying emotive lyricism, freak-folk stylings and sick-ass harp.” 

-Alex De Vore, Santa Fe Reporter

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