Andrew Nolte

Andrew Nolte's Grand Visions Come to Life in his Orchestral Pop Songs

by Peter Blackstock
12/3/19

*“He went sailing in to deep space, at the zenith of the new age.”*

Andrew Nolte is reaching for the stars. It’s the final stanza of “Europa
Tide,” the first track on the first album this 38-year-old Austin
musician has ever released. A glorious maelstrom of instrumental chaos
has coalesced around him: Swirling strings and synths push against
complex percussion rhythms, driving Nolte’s voice into the atmosphere.
“He went sailing ...”

And then it all falls away. “He went sailing,” Nolte sings one more
time, but now there’s only a simple piano melody chasing his words, as
fading traces of the sonic journey echo into the cosmos for the song’s
final 20 seconds. It’s dazzling, brilliant, absolutely breathtaking.

And very few people in Austin even know who this guy is. Yet.

A native of Corpus Christi, Nolte — our Austin360 Artist of the Month
for December 2018 — moved to Austin around 15 years ago, seeking to
follow in the footsteps of several relatives who were accomplished
musicians. “Everybody in the family plays something,” he says, running
through a litany of brothers, aunts and uncles who are singers,
instrumentalists or composers. Music always breaks out at holiday
gatherings: “It’s like ‘La Bamba’ and ‘Pretty Woman’ in five-part
harmony with maracas and classical guitars,” he says with a chuckle.

After moving here, Nolte worked for many years as a waiter and bartender
at Chuy’s on North Lamar, picking up side gigs playing piano with
various local acts. When he and his wife became parents five years ago,
she moved up to a managerial position at her workplace, and Nolte stayed
home with their son. That left more time at night to play music; it’s
been his only job since then.

If you’ve gone to see local bands in Austin clubs over the past decade,
you may well have seen him. He was a fixture in Soul Track Mind for a
stretch, has gigged with Money Chicha and Foot Patrol, had early tenures
in Sweetmeat and Khali Haat, and plays regularly with Derrick Davis and two tribute bands: the Damn Torpedoes (Tom Petty)
and Super Creeps (David Bowie)
Another dozen or so acts dot his resume.

But it’s only recently that Nolte has begun to prioritize his own music.
“Tied to a String,” self-released this past summer, is an extraordinary debut. A dozen local musicians accompany Nolte, but
there’s no guitar at all, a remarkable distinction in a town where
guitarists are omnipresent.

Instead, Nolte relies largely upon orchestral instrumentation — strings,
horns, winds — to bring his melodies to life. The result is an album
that sounds nothing like what anyone in Austin is doing: It’s grandly
ambitious and uncommonly sophisticated, yet still somehow very humble
and approachable at its core. It’s as good as anything I’ve heard from
an Austin artist in the five years I’ve had this job.

*“It’s a beautiful day, to go the opposite way.”*

That line is the linchpin of “L.A. Can Wait,” an irresistibly buoyant
pop song inspired by a chapter in Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”
about a chance meeting at a bus stop that leads to a spur-of-the-moment,
destiny-changing decision. Kerouac’s tale was the inspiration, but Nolte
found a piece of himself, and all of us, in the lyrics he wrote.

“I think it’s infinitely relatable,” he explains. “If you’ve ever been
in love, you remember that moment of risk. For me, it was proposing to
my wife and being scared that she’s going to say no. Just that big
gamble and all that anxiety and fear — but it COULD be amazing.”

It’s not just the words and the spirit that make it work: The music
brings the vision to full bloom. Lively rhythms and floating vocal
harmonies accompany Nolte’s voice and piano, pushing the euphoria
forward as he and his paramour become “incandescent in the love that
we’ve found.” Trumpet and flugelhorn lift the song to a finale that
feels like just the beginning of the story.

Going the opposite way is a central part of Nolte’s artistic impulse. In
his younger days he played guitar, inspired by his grandfather. “He was
a guitarist who played in mariachi trio bands professionally; he did
weddings and things like that around Corpus,” Nolte says.

The piano suddenly drew him in at age 24 when a friend had one in her
apartment. “I realized that almost nobody plays keyboards in Austin,” he
says. “If you can play keyboards decently, you can get the gigs that a
virtuoso guitar player can get.”

He ended up with plenty of gigs, indeed. But promising bands always
seemed to splinter before anything big happened. When his son was born,
“that was when I finally decided, ‘Maybe I should start thinking about
writing songs again and start looking at what I want to do.’” He
mentions, too, that memories of his grandfather and his mother, who died
when Nolte was 14, helped drive him to create something of his own that
would last.

Enter Michael Ingber, a drummer Nolte had played with in Soul Track Mind
and other bands. Ingber had become co-owner of Studio 601, a small South
Austin recording facility. “We’ve been working together in so many bands
for so long now, I trust his opinion and he knows what I’m capable of,”
Nolte says of Ingber, who produced “Tied to a String.”

Part of Ingber’s role was to help Nolte bring focus to an overflow of
ideas. “Left to my own devices, I’ll just write a bunch of stuff,” he
says. “Some of it’s pop, some of it’s rock, some of it’s synthesizers,
and some of it’s drum-machine or guitar-driven. Mike went through and
found what made sense to put out as a cohesive record.”

*“You are tied to a string, that’s tied to my heart.”*

The album contains a handful of unabashed love songs, including the
title track. “I wrote it for my wife just after her father passed,”
Nolte says. “I started singing a folk song to her, just making stuff up
on the fly, trying to get her to smile.”

A string quartet draws out the song’s sentimentality. Its melodic
structure is more basic than what Nolte often writes. But its simplicity
resonated with friends, who consistently asked him to play it at parties
and social gatherings.

“I think the magic of that song is that it’s not really a song as much
as a conversation,” Nolte says. “I wasn’t trying to write a song; I
didn’t ever intend for it to see the light of day for anybody other than
her.”

Contrast that with “How Can I,” probably the most musically complex tune on the record. On his Bandcamp page he describes the song
as “my tribute to 1970s Stevie Wonder ballads,” and its unusual chord
changes and key shifts live up to that billing.

“I was so self-conscious about the things that make it beautiful,” he
confesses. “It changes key in the middle of a verse, and harmonically
it’s like a weird Jenga situation where it seems like it should fall
apart — but it’s got the right thread going up the middle of it that
holds everything together.”

Let’s go back to that self-consciousness about what makes the song
beautiful. “Every time I do something that turns out to be really cool,
I’m scared that it’s awful,” Nolte says. “I always know that I’m
teetering one way or the other. Either it’s just godawful bad or it’s
really, really interesting.” In my experience, that tightrope-walk is
almost essential to the creation of great art.

We mentioned, earlier, that Nolte used to work at Chuy’s. Something he noted in passing about his time at the restaurant sheds light on his
approach to music.

“I was one of those waiters who would do everything off-menu,” he said.
“I had a ton of regulars, and so I would say, ‘Ignore the menu, what do you feel like? All right, we can make that up. We’ll get creative.’ I’ve
never been comfortable with things just as-is. I tend to want to do it
my way.”

*“This world could be ours, if we want it to be.”*

That line comes from “Synecdoche,” the final song on the album. Inspired by director/screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s
2008 masterwork “Synecdoche, New York,” it’s a minimalist attempt to boil down the film’s epic scale to the fundamental concept wherein a part of something and its whole are interchangeable. In Nolte’s hands, it’s romantic — “you were part of me, synecdoche” — and deeply personal, even if its essence is elusive.

“There’s no chorus; there’s not a really straightforward form to it,” he
says. “It’s moody jazz chords and string arrangements; it’s balladesque,
but confusing and abstract. But at the same time, it’s the most honest and truthful that I really get on the record.”

If the parts and the whole are to be one, it’s worth acknowledging
others without whom “Tied to a String” would not shine like it does.
Beyond producer/drummer Ingber, foremost is Leila Henley, an exceptional
musician who plays flute and saxophone on the album and also contributes
backing vocals. “She’s my secret weapon,” Nolte says. “You tell her
where you want something, and then she does exactly what you need to do
without any direction at all. She just gets it.”

Also in Nolte’s corner is renowned composer and arranger Peter
Stopschinski whose boundless credits include work on Grupo Fantasma’s Grammy-winning “El Existential” album. Stopschinski did the string arrangements for “Tied to a String”; he’s also contributing both string and horn arrangements to a follow-up EP Nolte hopes to have out this spring.

I dropped by 601 Studio on a mid-November afternoon when a string
quartet added parts to four songs from the upcoming EP. At least two of them I’d heard before, when Nolte
played a record-release show for “Tied to a String” at the Saxon Pub in
September. The studio session
confirmed what I’d thought that night: As impressive as the album is,
Nolte’s newer material could exceed it.

“Our goal this time around is to try and make it even bigger,” Nolte
says of the songs he and Ingber have been tracking. It’s the approach
they took on “Europa Tide,” the attention-grabbing first track on “Tied
to a String.” So, they figured: “What if we just made everything as big
as ‘Europa Tide’? What if we get really intense here, and blow out
things way beyond our means?’”

*“Is the cost worth the prize, under the Europa Tide?”*

The subject-matter of “Europa Tide” is way out there, literally. One of
several moons that orbit Jupiter, Europa has been identified through
space probe observations and Hubble telescope images as a target for
extraterrestrial life research
“I’m thinking, ‘We’re actually going to go to Europa,’” says Nolte, an
avowed space nerd. “So I need to write the Europa song! Nobody’s written
this song — I could be that guy.”

Like Elton John’s “Rocket Man” and David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” Nolte’s
tune considers the personal gravitas of space travel, the psychological
effects of knowing you have “300 million miles and 600 days to go.”
That, in turn, pushes the music toward a more epic scale.

“The content of the song allows you to go out further,” he acknowledges,
underscoring that the presentation is all about “serving the song. If
you’re not doing that, then what are you doing?” Later, he adds,
importantly: “I believe in this concept of parts with a purpose. If
there’s something on the record, there’s a reason it’s there, or you
shouldn’t put it there.”

Such careful consideration is part of what makes Nolte’s art so
magnificent in the end. “I always kind of look at it as this big
intertwined thing, where I’m trying to paint a bigger visual story or
scene with the music,” he says. He likens the motivation to Don
Quixote’s “Impossible Dream.”

“It’s the romance of doing something for its own reward,” he concludes.
“If you keep true to why you’re doing something, then hopefully things
will work out. And if nothing else, you can be proud of it at the end of
the day. Even if you’re the only person who sees it, it’ll still be
beautiful.” - Austin360.com

Andy Nolte’s debut solo album is chock full of the goods. Nolte is a professional touring keyboardist, guitarist, bassist, singer, and songwriter residing in Austin, TX. Hailing from Corpus Christi TX, he is a self-taught player born into a family full of musicians. His eclectic tastes span many genres as do his musical influences. Nolte started performing in bands in C.C. TX when he was just a teenager, and he’s worked in rock, jazz, folk, cabaret, R&B, soul, country, cumbia, afrobeat, and pop projects on the stage and in the studio since 1997. The music on – Tied To A String, is nothing short of brilliant.
What you hear as the-end result of this record is mostly in the jazz, folk and rock categories, in that order. But there are some other influences and textures to spice it up just a little on what is otherwise a slow grooving and very storytelling album in which the songs do the talking in proper order. “Europa Tide” leads the ebbs and flows with a time capsule of a song. This is a fantastic number by which most can be measured in today’s musical landscape. It has everything and that’s likely the reason it was chosen to start the album off, but if you listen very closely it’s also one of the most intricate songs on the release.
The rest of the songs are like gravy on the top of such a starkly arranged song, and that is putting it mildly. It just flows so delicately from one end to the other it’s hard to believe it’s only Nolte’s first solo album because it sounds like he’s been doing it all his life but to be honest he’s been at music since he was a teenager. It shows beginning with the excellent “Kiss Me” with all the aforementioned-bells and whistles. Nolte gets downright romantic and descriptive on this song, but then it never stops, as you will hear. This track goes down as one of several favorites on the album.
“L.A. Can Wait” is one of the more energized tracks with a fun atmosphere to it, and it just bubbles along nicely into the next track. The epic “Tied To A String” gets the spotlight as another favorite and it tends to speak for itself in its place on the album. And the jazzy undertones cannot be dismissed as they dominate with a shadow presence on every song, but you get an instant ring of it on “How Can I” with its obvious jazz leanings. But Nolte tells a story that draws you in like no other, and it’s written all over this one as much as the others and is where things get undeniably awesome.
Every turn has something mellow and smooth to enjoy, and “Take A Trip” and “These Days” go together like wine and cheese. Nolte mentions high stakes and volcanic isles on the latter which is one of the more creative lyrical moments. It’s easy to fall for everything on this, so taking the time is most recommended, as you’ll also agree on “Safe In My Dreams” and the closing greatness of “Synecdoche” which proceeds to assault the senses in the best of ways.
-Sebastian Cole 7/13/18 Gashouseradio.com - GashouseRadio.com

Tied To A String, by Andy Nolte is replete with lighthearted piano and vocals, but it’s the thunderous string arrangements that take it over the top and make it an overall progressive release. Otherwise, the music and over all concept are loosely based in rock and jazz, with some pop inflections and a balladeering direction. The songs aren’t all ballads, but most of them follow that speed and tempo with the exception-of a few which stand out as the more energetic and less serious numbers in the mix on what is an overall delightful listening experience for fans of both the serious and not-so serious variety.

“Europa Tide” kicks the album off with a very quirky and spacy opener with all the bells and whistles to be found in one single track on the album. It’s like landing on a frozen planet and describing the tides around you. The stories to be told on the album start with this one, which is easier to define in that aspect than most of the following tracks. Underneath the slow piano grooving there’s some cool synth work that lingers, but from the center of the track onward it becomes increasingly intense and that is where most of the magic lays, preparing you for the rest of the ride.

“Kiss Me” is probably the most stripped back song on the album, and it holds its own somewhere between that and the more upscale arrangements on offer. It’s simply a case of cleverly placing a completely different song early in the collection with Nolte at his wittiest but also not his most serious moment on the album. This is just very traditional in every way, unlike the next track, “L.A. Can Wait” with its much less serious approach about throwing ideas around town in just a couple of hours of getting together for a visit somewhere besides Los Angeles.

“Tied To A String” comes next at just the right time for something more seriously intended by Nolte, which the title track usually brings to any album. This can be followed either on its own or in its leading fashion on the album and come out a single or simply an album track. The point is that it works no matter how you find it on both levels and it positions the next track up very well. “How Can I” is one of the album’s most enjoyable cuts with its very soothing delivery. This is where Nolte and his songs get undeniably awesome, especially if you’re taking this great album in altogether thus far.

“Take A Trip” falls somewhere between the previous two tracks, but never exceeding them, instead it’s on par with them although the three have nothing lyrically in common but do musically bode well together. This track gets downright gospel at times to mark the stark difference it makes between them, and that’s a compliment to the whole written, produced and arranged album. “These Days” and “Safe In My Dreams” help even out the efforts to weave these complex arrangements together with each track standing on its own feet within the bunch, yet play so well as a concept together. But Nolte may have artistically placed the final track “Synecdoche” as the sleeper of the album, so don’t miss how it sets the album up to seamlessly play again.


-Mindy McCall 7/13/18 NoDepression.com - NoDepression.com

Andy Nolte’s – Tied To A String, is a long playing album with only nine tracks which make up a loosely conceptual-based title about time and space coming together. The tracks are not all the same visual imagination though, with some sounding less about space and more about social-political subject matter, but that could also be how one gets that far out into space. You can make your mind up as to where they come together if you’re progressively inclined or not, and that’s where the album and Nolte earn the rock tags it gets. But it’s best to keep that to the softer side it’s on, because there’s more to it than meets the ear.
The set gets underway with the mellow but astonishingly eclectic “Europa Tide” ripping through the speakers with an overall, very pleasant ring to it. The main result I get from this song is that it makes leaps and bounds to lead off with a single in every way, as the song winds up an obvious choice for a lead single and it even contends for the album’s magnum opus as it rides a clear cut above them all. However, that is not to indicate the album has no other choices for singles, in fact every song has accessible appeal but not all for the same reasons. “Kiss Me” instantly proves the latter in just one listen.
As the ride carries on, the concept seems to be about going through one experience after another together in succession as the songs are already embarked on a journey that you feel unfold with each track but there’s no destination and that is why “L.A. Can Wait” as Nolte exemplifies in this one track alone. It does lead to “Tied To A String” which the title track reveals the over-all album concept of, but it’s done so in complimentary fashion to both the song’s subject matter and how they tie in together between them. It’s one of the album’s top four tracks without question.
“How Can I” is also another superb track, and Nolte’s vocals get a chance to come off most languid, with some fabulous lyrics to its credit and the overall arrangement is second to none. It leads into “Take A Trip” with yet another song to exemplify the concept and it falls into the top four as well for me. By this time on the album you are captivated with a very spiritual song to contrast most of the others, earning its place on the album.
“These Days” shows more of his songwriting prowess on what turns out to be the sleeper track for me, which embodies everything the artist and content are about. Savoring the moment and being thankful is what it’s all about. “Safe In My Dreams” is where the previous track winds up fitting right in, with some more hypnotizing strings and a fair amount of orchestration on one of the album’s best songs. You’ll also not want to skip the finale, “Synechdoche” with its unique title and interesting lyrics. Tied To A String is an easy listening masterpiece of colossal proportions.
-Michael Rand July 13, 2018 Mobangeles.com - Mobangeles.com

The first time I listened to Tied To A String, by Andy Nolte, I have-to admit I didn’t catch anywhere near the amount of beauty there is to behold on the Austin, TX based artist’s debut solo release. In fact, it still grows with every listen, but you have-to pull the trigger somewhere in the mix in-order to give a fresh perspective whenever an album this good comes along. There’s too much going on to describe it beyond some of what the songs contain, as they all have something substantial to offer. One thing is for sure, after taking it in enough times I am glad to say I will be looking forward to more from Nolte in the future.
Europa Tide opens with what must be heard to be believed there’s anything to follow it, because it plays almost like an entire album itself. It might be the most accessibly pleasing track but it’s plenty worth digressing because it’s hard to select which track really gets that honor. Kiss Me makes that effort with no hesitation and Nolte shows he can bounce back from any such opening salvo. You believe every word he’s singing, and the music is so precision it’s hard to turn a def ear to as he pays down an artistically world-class studio performance. Two songs in and you’re already knocked out.
L.A. Can Wait changes the mood up very nicely with Nolte starting to show similarities to artists like Randy Newman. It starts to beg the question at this point if this is a jazz, R&B, rock or all three. The answer is simple, it’s all three and much more, as Nolte somehow gets the best of all worlds which comes from being a multi-instrumentalist and working with only the best musicians around him. But as for this track, it goes the distance by getting into all kinds of subjects of casual and even intense conversation material of the current social environment. And just as much can be said for the exquisite title track Tied To A String.
How Can I is the first song that really grabbed my attention about Nolte himself as an artist, and on that note I went back and started over because I finally got where he’s coming from and everything clicked from there. I also hope you enjoy this great track, it’s quite the tasty ear-worm. Al that, whilst Take A Trip is about tasting another life in the concept of it all, which is almost like a mini-book you can easily imagine with or without music. The languid prowess of the also very musical songs really are its ultimate powers.
I also like everything with equal affection as it winds down with the flute featured These Days with its remarkably entrancing vocals and backing vocals. It reminds you to be thankful for this album and enjoy it while it lasts, as he deeply expresses. It leaves you Safe In My Dreams with one of the biggest musical efforts to back his voice, which is on par with the great storytellers, before topping it off with Synecdoche and proving what a fine artist he is.
-Trace Whittaker 7/14/18 Stereostickman.com - StereoStickman.com

Tied To A String – by Andy Nolte is the debut solo album from the Austin, TX based rock artist. The album is also classified to some as progressive rock, but there really is not much rock music of any heavy nature on it to speak of. However, progressive rock can be sliced hundreds of ways, as it comes with at least that many sub-categories within the multi broad- based genre. But not to take Nolte or the music on this album as a non-rock artist and effort, it just describes the fact that if you aren’t up on the vast amount of ways to define progressive rock, you might find the album deceiving. It’s best found in the concept rather than its energy.
A better way to describe it is singer/songwriter music, or even more defined to folk stylings of the current day. Nolte seems to be influenced by everyone from Bob Dylan to David Bowie, and one other such category is avant/prog which the album kicks off in the style of, along with jazz undertones which include piano and saxophone. Both of which feature on the excellent opening track “Europa Tide.”
The pace doesn’t increase on “Kiss Me” but it does further compel you into Nolte’s voice, which is featured more prominently on this piano ballad which also comes with some even more mesmerizing horn play at the outset. But it’s his voice and accompanied piano that essentially own this beautiful track. The lyrics here are also very clever and help make it so memorable and lovable, and the saxophone solo tops it all off just right. “L.A. Can Wait” follows at a bubbly pace with one of the only spots where you’d call it any kind of rock music, with a foxtrot beat throughout it, which is the most energetic moment on the disc.
“Tied To A String” is the epic title track, which contains a string/heavy arrangement on a huge ballad with an equal amount of delicateness applied to it. This is definitely-one of the highlights on the album, but it’s often hard to find the hot spots because the album plays so consistently from track to track. “How Can I” is one of the more sublime tracks, and where Nolte’s voice comes off the most commanding and interesting over yet another very jazzy tune. And “Take A Trip” is also in the same up-tempo vein with Nolte’s playful vocals dominating the overall arrangement with great lyrics to match it.
“These Days” comes with a narrative approach about saving the moment, complete with a swirling flute solo before the track begins to pick up with more commanding piano and vocals on a track that clearly stands out as one of the album’s best. And the album winds down with a couple of more endearing tracks in the shape of “Safe In My Dreams” which lends heavily to the album concept with another interesting piece of music and vocals before “Synecdoche” glues the final notes together with absolute perfection and grace.
-James Olsen 7/13/18 skopemag.com - Skopemag.com

"Andrew Nolte, “Tied to a String.” A multi-instrumentalist who’s played with local acts including the Derrick Davis Band, Zissou and the Tom Petty tribute act Damn Torpedoes, Nolte proves to be an extraordinarily talented composer and arranger in his own right on his highly sophisticated nine-song debut. This is pop music, fundamentally, but Nolte draws upon elements of jazz, classical, folk, cabaret and other styles, fleshing out his tunes with exquisite accents of horns, winds and strings. I’m not quite sure how Nolte has flown under my radar until now, but this is one of the best Austin records of 2018."
Peter Blackstock Austin360.com
8/31/18 - Austin360.com

Q.How would you classify your music or this new album?

A.I describe the music on this record as “epic folk ballads”. I write with elements of pop, folk, jazz and rock, so it’s a complicated answer.

Q.Who are some of your top 5 musical influences?

A. I listen to a bit of everything, but I think the work of David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Ben Folds, & Neil Young have all left their mark on my compositional preferences.

Q. What do you want fans to take from your music?

A. I want to connect to listeners on an emotional level. I hope they can relate to the universal concept of love across distance and time, which are the album’s primary lyrical themes.

Q. How’s the music scene in your locale?

A. Austin is saturated with absurdly talented musicians, and this is both a blessing and a curse. I could write a whole article on the subject! There’s plenty of work here for those of us that are up to the job, but the bar is high and the gigs limited.

Q. What is the best concert you have been to? What do you like most about playing live?

A. I think the Flaming Lips put on a fantastic show. I’ve only seen them live twice, but both experiences were inspiring and engaging. My favorite thing about playing live are the moments when I feel like a conduit for something divine. There are sometimes these magic fleeting moments of improvisation that happen onstage, where the air feels electric. I chase those moments that are bigger than my ability, when I’m just a vessel for the music.

Q. Is there a song on your latest CD release here that stands out as your personal favorite, and why?

A. “Synecdoche” is currently my favorite song off of my album. I’m very proud of it both lyrically and musically. I also love the string arrangements and the dynamics of the performances on the track. It’s an abstract, Quixotic concept, and it’s not a very commercial song- there’s no chorus! I really thought I was just writing it for myself and that it wouldn’t make the album. So the fact that it’s on the record and it came out so beautifully makes me extremely happy.

Q. How have you evolved as an artist over the last year?

A. I’ve learned to embrace my strengths and I’ve accepted my limitations. I think a lot of artists have this moment when they realize that they can’t write like their heroes and influences, and they just have to be themselves and write whatever that may be. Making this album helped me surrender control and just write what is right for me.

Q. If you could meet, play a gig, co-write a song, have dinner, have a drink with any band or artist (dead or alive) who would it be?

A. I’d love to have a conversation with Ben Folds. I’m a big fan of his work, and I have so many questions about how to go about navigating this industry from another quirky pianist perspective. Plus he seems very funny and like he’d be an entertaining dinner companion.

Q. What’s next for you?

A. I plan to start performing the album live and touring it regionally around Texas starting in the Fall. I’m also going back to the studio to start the next album next month. Then, when it comes out, I’ll start another, and so on and so on. So it goes.

End of Interview - IndieShark.com

Andrew Nolte, “Tied to a String.” Out of nowhere came this attention-grabbing debut by a longtime local sideman with rare musical vision and a cast of instrumentalists who helped him realize it. Strings, horns, winds, harmonies and more — but, significantly, no guitars — breathe wondrous life into Nolte’s often daring and inventive melodies.
-Peter Blackstock
12-20-2018 - Austin360.com