Gregory Alan Isakov has been laying down tracks for his new album tentatively titled This Empty Northern Hemisphere, which is also the title of one of the dozen new songs that will appear on the disc. He's been recording in his home studio and getting some engineering help from Blue Light's Jamie Mefford. Isakov is hoping to have the album wrapped up by the end of January and release it April. Isakov is also looking for investors to help cover recording, mixing mastering, marketing and promotional costs. If interested, you can contact him through through his MySpace page.
In other Isakov news, Indigo Girls' Amy Ray gave the singer-songwriter some major props in a November 14 interview on the New Gay site:
"You
know, I've just heard this new folk artist that I really love. He's
really totally raw, and really folk. His name is Gregory Allen Isakov.
He's out of Boulder. Somebody just turned me onto him and I went and
downloaded all his records and was like, man, he is a really great
writer, and really raw. His voice is just putting it out there. There's
no affectation or pretension. It's like punk folk. I like that a lot.
Sometimes when I'm playing electric stuff for awhile I like to listen
to something really different from what I'm doing, just to get my ears
wrapped around something different."
Brandi Carlile is
also a fan of Isakov's gorgeous songs. The two hit it off last August
when Isakov opened for Carlile at the Chautaqua Auditorium, where the
two ended up doing a few duets together. Carlile also sat in with him a
few weeks ago at Seattle's Jewel Box Theater.
While not the best video quality, the audio is fairly decent on this clip of Isakov and Carlile singing "You Belong to Me" at Chautaqua Auditorium. --Jon Solomon
