Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
"To walk in your wake isn't easy to do," Avril McInnally sings on "Wake". She seems to be doing her part despite the difficulty, carrying the torch for all of the folk-rock legends that came before her. In the tradition of Gram Parsons, Fairport Convention and, yes, a myriad of modern acts, McInnally and her band play plugged-in electric folk that consistently (if only in volume) rises above whispered poetics and streetcorner protest. Her formidable voice couples Linda Thompson's earthiness with the naked emoting of Rainer Maria's Caithlin De Marrais, while Tim Gilbride's guitar either crackles with twang ("Jewelry of the World") or hits Richard Buckner-like emotional lows ("Perfume"). While "Walk Away" suffers from a slightly anonymous, vanilla quality, "Wake" counteracts with beautiful, slate grey guitars and recondite lyrics like "To sleep a deep sleep and awake in the dew / to feel your fish bones / moss and fingers and toes".
Uva Ursi have been playing together for about a decade, and Matter evidences all the subtlety and tight chemistry of a well-seasoned project.
-- Justin Stewart
- Splendid Magazine 11/16/04
Uva Ursi is a promising, fun to listen to local act that has a jangly sound and a singer, Avril McInally, with a voice like Natalie Merchant in her 10,000 Maniacs heyday. However, their sound is a little deeper. It's kind of dark at times, but uplifting at others. The drums have a swagger to them, and the guitars and bass roll along. The guitar has a little too much treble and reverb on most of the tracks, but otherwise the recording is pretty solid. Opening track "Walk Away" gets the album off to a good start and features a pretty cool breakdown section. I also liked the old school REM guitar infused sound of "Other World". Check these guys out. (Eddie Fleisher) - Utter Trash
"I’ve been spellbound by this CD since the first time I heard it. It’s a different form of transportation...maybe a full-moon ride in a small boat...charting its course by way of the constellations outlined by Richard Thompson, Gene Clark, Tom Verlaine, the Velvets, but the mood is its own, and it’s a mood you don’t really want to pin down...something like wonder. The songs are catchy and played with precision and restraint, so there’s room in them for you to look around. The most welcome new CD I’ve heard in a long time."
Mike DeCapite - cdbaby
Discography
An independently released cd named "Matter" is available for purchase and listening at:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/uvaursi
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
UVA URSI formed in Kent, Ohio, in the early 90's, around the bookreading duo of Avril McInally and Tim Gilbride, with bassist Jeff Curtis and drummer Mark Edwards (My Dad Is Dead).
They recorded an as-yet-unreleased 6-song mini-lp with the inscrutable Don Depew, and gigged sporadically.
The 6-song "Matter" cd was recorded oh-so-slowly by the ever-patient Mike McDonald and released in 2003 on Moonbase Records.
The band base moved to Cleveland after the departure of Curtis and Edwards, who were replaced by Rich Ellis on drums and Joe Milan, bass. This new line-up has gigged quite a bit less sporadically, attracting a rabid fanbase comprised entirely of North-East Ohio librarians.
Uva has partially recorded a new full-length record, "The Roadside Geology of Uva Ursi", which will see completion and release in mid-2007.
The band has scored music for a vintage 1920's cartoon, and an independent film project in California.
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