The Acorn's sophomore CD, "Glory Hope Road", has been generating considerable buzz in the blogs. The band played their first US show last month here in NYC to a sold-out crowd at Union Hall. CMJ was at the show and here is a link to their photos and a brief review.

The Acorn's press bio describes "Glory Hope Mountain" as "a touching homage to the life story of Gloria Montoya Esperanza(loosely translated as Glory "Montoya" Hope), as told by her son, Rolf Klausener...Glory Hope Mountain is part historical narrative and part surreal fairy tale." Rolf Klausener recently did an interview with My Old Kentucky Blog and he describes the background for Glory Hope Mountain as "[t]he themes and some of the stories were culled from about 9 hours of interviews I conducted with my mother in the Spring of 2006. Originally, I set out to record her stories so that I could add them to the Klausener family history that my Great Uncle George compiled in Switzerland in the 1950's. The book documents our family's history going back to early 1500's." (Here is a link to the complete interview)

Musically, The Acorn falls somewhere between world beat (as they incorporate Honduran instruments and rythms) and Appalachian folk. For the most part, this music is a soundscape that accompanies and complements Klausener's vocals but rarely overshadows the vocal narratives. The is also a brief vocal interlude from Gloria Montoya Esperanza on the track "Sister Margaret". Lyrically, the songs don't form an end-to-end story per-se but provide the basis for the re-telling of stories and events from Gloria's life.

This is an intimate and inviting record that should hold up well to repeated listenings.

Links:
The Acorn's MySpace page