by ImperfectFifth | Jun 7, 2021 | perspective, snapshot
As much as we love covering music on an international scale, we see the value in (and need for) local artist spotlights. Since Imperfect Fifth is based in Kansas City, we have teamed up with the Kansas City Women’s Music Network to bring you artist highlights about twice per month.
About Alisa Jefferson:
Alisa has always been very passionate about music and the songs she delivers as a singer/songwriter. She grew up in the Kansas City area with influences from ’70s Motown to mostly ’80s and ’90s rock/pop. She played viola in orchestra before she received her first acoustic guitar at age 13 and she hasn’t looked back since.
Currently, Alisa is writing, recording, and planning to release a 10+ track LP this summer. She has released four singles from this new LP to most major music platforms.
Check her out on Apple Music, Facebook, and Instagram. Find out more at
alisajeffersonmusic.com. If you are interested in being featured in KCWMN’s next Member Spotlight, check out the website here.
by ImperfectFifth | Jun 3, 2021 | soundtrack, videos, wolf tracks
June has been a whirlwind of a month already. With new releases coming at us hot every day – there are over 600 music releases slated for Friday, and that’s just what we know of – we have hardly had time to blink. And that makes us happy, if you’re actually wondering. So here’s to the artists and their never-ending inspiration. And here’s to the people who make things happen. Check out some of our favorites released this month below and don’t forget… Happy PRIDE, everyone!
by Anthony Mulcahy | Jun 1, 2021 | performances, perspective
It’s happening, it’s actually happening. After a 15 month closure Rockwood Music Hall is finally reopening this weekend. It’s so exciting and such a relief to see the calendar filling up again. Kudos to Ken, Matt, and the team for pushing through this awful time and hopefully the room will pack out every night from here on out. Never take anything for granted!
On Saturday June 5th at 8pm, Irish man Niall Connolly performs with his band.
Rockwood Music Hall reopening gives me a real sense of hope. It feels like a good metaphor for the resilience of New York City. One of the most respected venues has survived this pandemic. In a time when so many people have lost so much, I am very grateful to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I am very grateful to have my health and to have an opportunity to play on one of my favorite stages. I am also so excited to play alongside the band again. I am not certain I won’t drown in a puddle of happy tears as soon as I hear them sing. We released two remotely recorded new singles during the pandemic. We have had a few socially distanced walks, countless Tuesday night zoom chats and so on, but I have really missed sharing the stage with them. It’s going to be emotional.
All of the shows at Rockwood Music Hall will require proof of vaccine (dated 2 weeks from your second shot). This includes the excelsior pass or your vaccine card. Anyone without proof will be turned away, no exceptions. There will be no mask or social distancing rules, and the venue will run at full capacity.
Get your tickets now!
by ImperfectFifth | May 24, 2021 | perspective, snapshot
As much as we love covering music on an international scale, we see the value in (and need for) local artist spotlights. Since Imperfect Fifth is based in Kansas City, we have teamed up with the Kansas City Women’s Music Network to bring you artist highlights about twice per month.
About Ro Myra:
“I grew up in a small, dried-up oil and farming town in the middle of nowhere Nebraska,” says Ro Myra. “I spent most of my life running away from it, and now I’m right back where I started.”
‘Nowhere, Nebraska,’ Myra’s extraordinary debut, is more than just a musical homecoming, though. Recorded in Denver, Nashville, and Austin, the self-produced collection is a complex reckoning with the past, a nuanced, literate reexamination of small-town life in the shadow of heartbreak, self-destruction, and second chances. While the arrangements here are broad and sweeping, Myra’s storytelling is sharply focused and firmly rooted. She writes with a novelist’s eye and sings with the kind of weathered grace that makes even hard truths go down easy, calling to mind everything from Kathleen Edwards to Lucinda Williams as she makes peace with the past in order to more fully inhabit the present.
Though her path seemed anything but obvious, Myra knew from an early age that her future lay beyond the endless cropland that surrounded her growing up. She taught herself piano as a child, studied classical composition in college, and spent her post-grad years working with international non-profits before returning to music at the urging of her mentor, renowned composer Dr. Eric Funk. The result is a captivating debut all about memory and forgiveness, a warm embrace of an album as raw and windswept as the landscape that inspired it.
Ro Myra may have left home, but home, it seems, never left her.
Find Ro Myra’s music on Spotify, Facebook, Kickstarter, and Instagram. If you are interested in being featured on the Member Spotlight check out the KCWMN website.
by Meredith Schneider | May 19, 2021 | premieres, singles, wolf tracks
Sometimes fate finds us crossing paths with someone who will ultimately become our partner. Partner in love, partner in business, partner in creative endeavors… We see this fateful crossing within the music of Gawain and the Green Knight, a folk duo that is comprised of one of the most artistic engaged couples we have encountered. As Brooklyn-based Alexia Antoniou and Mike O’Malley rev up to release their forthcoming EP A Sleeping Place, the release of their new track “Fingers” gives us insight into what’s to come.
Expands Alexia:
This is one of the only songs I’ve ever written just about myself. Usually, when writing songs, I’m a little shyer. I take an emotion I’m feeling but give it to someone else to sing, so to speak- a frustrated medieval woodworker’s apprentice, a jealous French king, a determined 19th-century dressmaker.
But I was on an airplane with Mike a few years back. We hadn’t been able to get seats together. I had been reading Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles and finished it mid-flight and was just completely emotionally devastated. I wasn’t just teary-eyed, I was outright weeping- so much so that the woman next to me took one look at me and started turning up the volume on her little headrest tv. I managed to make meaningful eye contact with Mike across the aisle, and with a few gestures of the head, he agreed to meet me near the airplane toilets so I could cry some more on him. “Fingers” was inspired by that whispered conversation that came out of reading Song of Achilles. It’s a love song for my bandmate and fiancé, simple as that.
One of the first things of note – aside from the inescapably beautiful melody – is how the lyrics and instrumentation rely just as heavily on the space between the notes. We are absolutely enthralled with an artist that knows how to utilize the space between the notes as well, inspired of course by Debussy’s famous quote. (“Music is the space between the notes.”) Mike further affirmed our goosebumps by talking about just that:
As for arrangements, I picture so much of this song occurring in the void of space? Or some equally airless oblivion. So sparseness and reverb seemed the order of things – a little Rhodes piano here, a little bowed bass there. I wanted to ride the line of all-the-way-in-love and all-the-way-scared. And I wanted Alexia to sound like she was alone in the dark with a torch.
If you’ve ever experienced love at any capacity, this song is for you. Short and sweet, it is a testament to simple acts of support leading to a lifetime of love.
Check out “Fingers” on your ideal streaming platform here. Keep up with Gawain and the Green Knight here.
by Meredith Schneider | May 12, 2021 | premieres, singles
On May 14th, folk/Americana artist Bradley Scott Malone will release his latest single, an absolutely enchanting audible ride called “California.” The artist’s eastern location is reflected in his soulful yet rough vocals that balance the rhythmic composition of the instrumentals. Such a fantastical collection of sounds.
“I want honesty and sincerity to come through in my music. These songs are reflections of my travels,” admits Malone. And, quite honestly, this is the best way to describe this track. Occurring at a clip befitting an expansive road trip, the song wreaks of summertime adventure. And we’re ready to dive in.
Enjoy your first listen below.
Keep up with Bradley Scott Malone here.
