Mark Rogers & Mary Byrne (USA)

14.09.2015
 Mark Rogers & Mary Byrne (USA)

“The album at times is like a kind of spell that tries successfully to haunt you. Mark’s masterful, delicate finger picking style of guitar and mandolin, redolent of Davy Graham or John Fahey, and Mary’s arching, echoing voice both take hold of you.” - AmericanaUK

“Their ability to stop and listen - to allow space within their compositional and recording process - generates music that is rich with emotion.” - Session and video premiere with Paul Gough, “The Inside Sleeve,” ABC Radio National (AU


“The live video is testament to the skill and the beautiful intimacy of this duo who display a great chemistry together.” - Video premiere, Folk Radio UK

“One of the greatest strengths of this year’s festival was the sheer quality of American bands performing at Southwell for the first time. … [including] the beautiful, intimate and melancholic songs of Mark Rogers and Mary Byrne from Brooklyn.” - Nottingham Post (UK)

“This is folk that’s full of mythology and that thing Phil Elverum calls lost wisdom.” (9/10 stars) - Norman Records (UK)

“One of those albums that leaves you breathless just because it’s so damn beautiful.” - Vinyl Diaries

“Resplendent release” - CMJ

“This is one of those albums that gets better and better the more you listen to it. And that’s saying something because it’s pretty significantly great at the outset.” - Rick Moody, TheRumpus

“This is a very personal conversation between a husband and wife. … When passions this austere are combined with a pair of musical voices this distinct, it’s simply alluring.” - Stereophile

“A brooding, plaintive and vividly lyrical folk noir masterpiece.” - New York Music Daily’s 50 Best Albums of 2014

“Starkly vivid, hypnotic, wounded” - New York Music Daily’s 100 Best Songs of 2014

“On first hearing … it can be difficult to discern just where to place one’s primary focus: Is it on her melodic yet plaintive, full-throated singing that leaves all stylistic affectation out? On the gorgeous poetry in the lyrics? His exceptional fingerstyle guitar playing? The crystalline, intimate sound? The answer is all of the above, since they work as one. … Hell of a debut album.” - Thom Jurek, Allmusic (★★★★)

“Out-of-this-world guitar and stellar vocals“ - Daytrotter

“Drives you to a thesaurus just to attempt to describe how and why this understated album is so effecting. … Beautiful almost beyond measure.” - Ink 19

“Sparkling debut” - Blurt Magazine

“An intimate debut that is deceptively dark beneath the acoustic lyricism. … Step out of your apartment and into the pine barrens at sunset, where beauty and danger dance ever so softly within the breeze.” - The Big Takeover

“This is truly a wonderful record; in a word, a keeper.” - Popdose

“The album Rogers and Byrne have just crafted as a duo, I Line My Days Along Your Weight, should establish the pair as one of the most vital acts in folk music right now. … A striking set of sparse, evocative tunes filled with rich instrumentation … that is unassuming even as it devastates. - Flagpole Magazine (Athens, Ga.)

“A masterpiece of folk noir, one of the best releases of 2014. … Play this with the lights out, late at night and discover two people who share your precarious world.” - New York Music Daily

“There enters an unnameable radiance shimmering out from [Rogers’] repeated chords and fingerpickings as well. I’d cite Jansch, Renbourne, and Martyn, but what Rogers is doing is beyond that. Then Green Gold Violet arose as an absolutely riveting example in the virtues of both participants a la a darker Bruce Cockburn perhaps at his moodiest.” - Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange

“Distinguished by Rogers’ deft, sharply sympathetic picking style being met by Byrne’s brimming accompaniment, the album strains luminously at its own restraints. … Acoustic album of the year? Why even ask.” - Stereo Embers Magazine

“Dabbles in the bluesy twang of older folk songs, with a fresh take that gives this album a timeless appeal.” - Slug Magazine

“Compelling to the end, the album’s noirish and autumnal tones quietly shift from sparse to a full-bodied plunge into spiritual unease and world-weariness.” - Creative Loafing

“There no big pay-offs, no dramatic crescendos, just a spare honesty and freshness. … Rogers’ guitar figures are nimble and unstrained, even when evidently difficult.” - Blurt

“Given the undeniable chemistry of the pair and warm and cozy sense of comfort that this album conveys it’s not too surprising to learn that Mark Rogers & Mary Byrne stood some mere inches apart as they recorded this humble and humane release.” - Heavy Metal Time Machine

“It is rare when two folk musicians can keep a room’s rapt attention and intimately engaged for the entirety of a performance. These Georgia-to-New York transplants, Mark Rogers and Mary Byrne, accomplished such a feat last Tuesday.” - DooBeeDooBeeDoo

“Coupled in life and in song, Mark Rogers and Mary Byrne create haunting and evocative Americana that is both archaic in instrumentation and utterly current in its concerns.” - Color Is Its Own Reward

“Debut on @imprec is quite entrancing, minimal folky wonder.” - Anti-Gravity Bunny
------------------------
https://www.facebook.com/markrogersandmarybyrne
http://www.markrogersandmarybyrne.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fTc81pAEKM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2MV6gI03oM