Esmé Patterson
Esmé Patterson is one of several young women — others include Frances Quinlan of Hop Along, Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield, and Julien Baker — making music that could be called synapse-rock. Their songs explore how self-awareness forms from the mind's own chatter in combination with the feedback hitting it from many sources: loved ones met, images absorbed, songs heard, books read, alternate lives considered and rejected. "Without feeling wrong, how can we know what feels right?" Patterson sings on "Feel Right," the first single from her upcoming third solo album, We Were Wild. The reconnaissance missions into desire and reconciliation that fill this album show Patterson examining the minutiae of her own responses; her melodies jump and scatter, her voice pulling at the meanings her verses put forth, as she hones in on those moments when the heart falls apart and reassembles itself. - Ann Powers, NPR
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Frankie Lee
With a soft, lightly rasped voice set to warm acoustic strums and tasteful, twangy embellishments touched by a polished sheen, Lee isn’t your everyday interpreter of heartland roots-rock: “High and Dry,” like much of his debut LP, American Dreamer, doesn’t just fall back on a cascade of guitars and hard denim, shouting his feelings to buck-the-man percussion. Instead, he channels his youth growing up in the small town struggle into songs where atmosphere is just as important as aggression, if not more so — it’s a gentler call to arms, which, with his lyrical power and a keen craftsmanship that doesn’t always rest on simple Americana tropes, is often far more effective. - Marissa R. Moss, The Bluegrass Situation