Music Review: Stephaniesid - Warm People

Stephaniesid started out five years ago as a somewhat dark and bittersweet piano bar duo. They were comprised of Stephanie Morgan on vocals and Chuck Lichtenberger on, yep, you guessed, piano.

Since those early days they have gone from strength to strength, fleshed out to a full band, moved to the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, won best Indie band for the area for three consecutive years, and released their third album, Warm People.

As much as the Internet seems to be completely dominating every waking moment of most people’s lives, sometimes in a negative way, it does have many great redeeming features. One of those is that here I am, sitting staring at my keyboard in France, with instant access to some excellent music.

Dare I say in days gone by I probably would never have heard of Stephaniesid and a host of other bands. Now they can pump out the sounds via the 'net far and wide. So here I am, hungrily listening to music from a band that lives up in those far away mountains.

Having grown into a full band, their sound has evolved to include not only Stephanie’s vocals and snyth, and Chuck’s keys, but also Tim Haney’s drums, and Michael Libramento’s guitar, bass, and Hammond.They also added the extra texture of Matthew Richmond’s vibraphone and the brass of Jar-e.

The result is a wave of dream-pop tracks — some hypnotic, some contagious — and most with a compelling and endearingly quirky slant. Having also heard their impressive previous album, Grus Americanus, it is clear this is a band with a fast developing style. Moving away from the atmospherics of the previous album, Warm People is how it sounds in the title.

At times the band sound joyfully immersed in the act of creation. There is a sense of immediacy, which is always a winner for me, as though there wasn’t a lot of polishing going on, allowing the band’s spirit to radiate out. The process of going into the studio clearly hasn’t dulled, and instead there is a youthful sense of wonder and awe at putting down some exciting sounds and getting them out into the big wide world.

On hearing it I can easily imagine that the Warm People title tells us something about the vibe surrounding the album. The splashes of colour created by the brass, hypnotic melodies and songwriting complete the picture. Warm People is warm music made by those very same warm people.

Article Author: Jeff Perkins

Jeff is a writer who lives in France. He writes CD/DVD box sets, music reviews and has had a book published about David Byron of Uriah Heep. He is 'busy' exploring the music of Europe with his wife Debbie and dog Dylan. It's Dylan that does the writing of course. …

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