Private. 
Unlucky Atlas -mcd- (US,2006)****
Chicago based Unlucky Atlas is André Foisy : mandolin, guitar, fiddle ; Kelly Rix : cello ; Erica Burgner : vocals, autoharp ; Terence Hannum : vocals, 12-string guitar, 4-track. New member since CD is out : Andrew Huneycutt : synthesizers.
The group adds power by using three acoustic guitars at once, sing with emotional vocal harmonies or affected, as a mourning ritual in song, with cello and fiddle and some mandolin, adding even more emotional strength to it, often with some aggression to the music to convince as a statement.
Terence (from the 'redline distribution' interview) “One of our biggest references is the text Ruins or Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature by CF. Volney. It’s filled with scatological ideas of the inevitable downfall of an era. It was hugely influential on a group of painters, the Hudson River School, who painted lush, Romantic images of the American landscape in the 1800’s. A lot of this language and imagery is lamenting the end of the world. It’s a sad and inevitable Armageddon. The political Right also uses an apocalyptic language. Dick Cheney uses an apocalyptic language to talk about a moral decline to justify the present administration’s foreign wars and the limiting of civil liberties domestically, but he can’t use this language to investigate the right’s horrendous economic policies. Conservative use of an apocalyptic language is very close to a fundamentalist, extremist logic. They are too self righteous to see that their moral grandstanding is undercut by their destructive economic polices that will actually cause the downfall of the United States.” Erica : “All of our music is really about the use and power of language. We open the language to a wider interpretation. On one hand, the language is really sarcastic. We are not quoting the Air Force in earnest, but there is some similar sincerity of spirit. I’m influenced by a background in fundamentalist Christianity.”..“There’s a passion there, even if I now think that ideology is misguided, that I bring to the table. The lyrics are sarcastic, but they are still spiritual or evocative. I interpret them like sacred music. We hope people hear the spiritual, passionate side to the music.” Terence : “Our political agenda and the way we use independent means to distribute our music is meant in as much earnest as ways people worship.” “Essentially, the music has sadness about how misguided we are as a country.”
While the inner conflict of living in bare and raw forms of expression, the reaction of the band, almost in a post-post-punk attitude, now very differently to punk, add tons of expressive chamber-like spheres, restoring the underlying abused society-based spiritual character into something of a more developed culture and inner nature. There are slightly hypnotic parts, mostly it is all very controlled and tends to form fluid and vivid compositions, on “Jacobin Waltz” almost like a classical music inspiration with elements of a dance, the waltz, heading into a more improvised acidic folk presentation on “Forward Presence”. Very good !!
