alwood sisters

Ohio Indie band, Alwood Sisters has a very interesting new release called Black Falcon and The Forest Spirit. This ‘famban” consisting of sisters, Amy and Meagan Alwood, and brothers, Jovan and Milan Karcic combine an Americana rootsy sound with Beatle-esque harmonies and arrangements. The result is delightful. Liner notes and song credits are rare but the band’s website lists Amy, Meagan, and Milan as providing vocals, guitar and bass. Meagan also plays Wurlitzer and Jovan is the percussionist. The songs are all original and presumably band creations. There are some very nice cuts here but my favorite is the last song on the CD, Like The Rest Of Us. Ethereal, swirling, and beautiful, it really grabbed my attention. But from the opening acoustic guitar on Summer Winds, the band makes interesting and entertaining musical choices. Summer Winds melds into the very Beatle-esque and very pleasant Our Time. Get Up Get Out starts out with some beautifully distorted electric guitar before morphing into an up-tempo pop tune. Nice but I would have liked more of that guitar and suddenly it’s back as the song changes tempo and tone again. Good choices. Black Falcon and The Forest Spirit is an entertaining collection of songs well played. The arrangements are solid and the vocals are very nice. Altogether, it’s a very pleasant and listenable CD and one I can easily recommend. - DON SECHELSKI

The Alwood Sisters, who grew up listening to their mom’s broad record collection, describe their sound as “created in the spirit of that tasty kind of rock you can only get from a good piece of vinyl.” You can bet they’ll be supporting that pre-show record swap.

This sister act represents a musical philosophy that many Athenians, and music fans in general, identify with. According to the duo, “Our music is based around songwriting. That’s all were doing. It’s about the songs we’re writing and about what we’re saying and it’s about making music.”

This simple mission statement has a purity that will please the folks in the audience (looking at you, Donkey Coffee frequenters) but their sound will please a wide variety of listeners, rooted as it is, “in subdued rock and roll, with elements of the psychedelic.” - ACRN the rock lobster

Columbus Alive

The Beautiful Ones

Jan. 1-Feb. 28

Short North Tattoo

1042 N. High St., Short North

614-947-0094

shortnorthtattoo.com

A welcome respite from the assault of self-introspection and resolutions a new year brings, the newest group art show at Short North Tattoo encourages onlookers to examine other people.

"The Beautiful Ones," put together by members of folky local band the Alwood Sisters, is a compilation of portraits by 14 local artists.

The idea for the exhibit formed during the quartet's previous group show "Trick Faces," where nearly 50 artists were given blank papier-mache masks and told to do whatever they wanted with them.

The soul of "The Beautiful Ones" is that same sense of freedom. Meagan Alwood-Karcic and Amy Alwood, sisters who make up half the band, gave the artists only one rule: Have the works ready by hang time.

"We feel very strongly about creativity being as free as possible," Alwood-Karcic said.

The exhibit will showcase acrylics, watercolors, pencil and inks, and "undoubtedly a few unnamed mediums," Alwood-Karcic said. Even more diverse will be the artists' takes on portraiture, which are as unique as each individual's laugh lines.

"A portrait is such a private expression of an artist's mind," Alwood-Karcic said. "At the same time, the face is something that connects every living being together."

Most of the artists will be present at the exhibit's opening reception during Gallery Hop from 7-10 p.m. Jan. 1. Deejaying the event will be Sarah Yetter of the band El Jesus de Magico.

The band says they hope viewers get one thing out of the group art show: "We live to learn and share," Alwood-Karcic said, "and hope to influence others to learn and share."

Sounds like a good resolution.
- Columbus Alive

This is a truly awesome art exhibit featuring portraits by more than a dozen artists, and it's installed at one of the coolest tattoo shops around. Does it get an cooler than that? Organized by members of Columbus' finest folk quartet, Alwood Sisters. The exhibit debuted on New Year's Day, but will be up until Feb. 28, so you've still got plenty of time to get your art on. . . . But why wait? - U Weekly

The Alwood Sisters, who also performed at Nelsonville Music Fest 2010, opened the show with their brand of cool, subdued indie rock. They featured a double-pronged vocal from the sisters, Amy and Meagan. Though their sound did not correlate with the following acts exactly, they were still a welcome sight--a band well-suited to a small, intimate venue such as Kobo. Connoisseurs of expert female harmonizing should seek the Sisters out. - ACRN the rock lobster

Their bag of tricks now includes sturdy songs
There was always something soothing about the Alwood Sisters, even back, many moons ago, when they and a rhythm section went under the moniker the Velveteens.
After what seems like a lifetime, the sisters have returned with Black Falcon and the Forest Spirit. The five-year hiatus between the Velveteens and the Alwood Sisters has given the duo time to hone their craft into something beyond its girl-pop roots.
Take the opening track, “Summer Winds.” The band’s previous wink-and-a-smile, harmony-heavy indie pop has been replaced with subdued, spare instrumentation that shows how strong the bones of the song are, as it does not have to be overdone to get your attention.
Amy and Meagan’s intertwining vocals remain rich, but this time their vocalizations take a backseat to the songwriting. What was formerly their main strength is now an engaging embellishment for a collection of tunes that would stand out in anybody’s songbook.
The sole complaint is that a nine-song disc is too short, and 11 years between albums is far too long to wait. Here’s hoping the Alwood Sisters have finally hit their stride.
An album release show, also featuring Moon High, will be held Saturday night (July 17) at the Rumba Café, 2507 Summit St.

Rick Allen

- The Other Paper

The Alwood Sisters like to emphasize the subdued nature of their music - more plaintive drama than action blockbuster.

But there were plenty of plot twists and even a little violence in the making of "Black Falcon & the Forest Spirit," the debut album they'll release Saturday at Rumba Cafe in conjunction with a new single from fellow whispery mystics Moon High.

In the decade after their youthful buzz band The Velveteens went defunct, Amy and Meagan Alwood took several stabs at rekindling their music. The sisters shuffled from one collaborator to the next, but nothing seemed to click.

"We both had an idea of what we wanted, and it kept not happening," Amy said.

That all changed when the Karcic brothers, Jovan and Milan, entered the picture.

Amy had always been the songwriter of the pair, but when Meagan moved to New York to pursue a visual arts career, music started to pour out of the elder Alwood for the first time. She collaborated with Amy long-distance and returned home to begin recording in August 2007.

Amy had already began dating Jovan Karcic (Gaunt, Haynes Boys) when the Alwoods invited Jovan and his brother Milan (Salt Horse, Pretty Mighty Mighty) to help with the recording. Soon a romance sprung up between Milan and Meagan too. They're now married.

"We didn't do it on purpose," Meagan said of the double sibling love connection. "It just happened."

Many more collaborators contributed to the sessions, including Chris Forbes, Josh Housh, Mike Shoaf and the late Noel Sayre, whose violin parts were spliced in by producer Joe Viers.

The result was an album that captured the spirit the Alwoods aimed for, recalling the '60s and '70s rock and folk records they so adored and not pandering to other people's expectations.

"It took us a really long time to mature, to stop listening to what other people wanted and do what we wanted," Meagan said.

The process wasn't without setbacks. A month after recording began, Meagan fell off the third-story staircase outside her Manhattan apartment, breaking her back and pelvis on the concrete below. She spent two weeks on her back in the hospital, then endured crutches, a cane and physical therapy.

Friends in New York got big names like Spike Jonze and Marc Jacobs to contribute art and merchandise to a benefit that raised almost $20,000 for her medical expenses and inspired a New York magazine item titled "Broken Hipster."

Three years later, Meagan can walk fine - "My back hurts sometimes, but whose doesn't?" - and her album is finally ready after an exhaustive, "anal" mixing and mastering process by Jovan.

The recordings were first unveiled at a listening party last month at Wild Goose Creative, offering a distinct contrast from the bustling bars that often obscure the Alwoods' meek strums and delicate harmonies. They're hoping for a similarly serene vibe at Rumba Saturday.

"I like rock," Amy said. "I just can't do it."

- Columbus Alive

JUN2010
Folk with a Family Flavor

By Elizabeth Alwes


"Like a child's lullaby," her sister, Meagan Alwood-Karcic added.

Indeed, their music has a tranquil quality. Meditative vocal harmonies layer over sincere, pretty guitar melodies. The songs have an old-fashioned, folksy feel, like music your talented friends would play outdoors at a summer bonfire.

Meagan and Amy, sisters a year apart, have been playing music their whole lives. Both sing, and play guitar and bass. They carry on the tradition of their father, Bob Alwood, a Columbus musician who died unexpectedly in 1980 when the sisters were very young. "The only physical evidence we have of him," Meagan explained, "is all music - his guitar, his piano, records that he made."

"Having lost him affects me, because obviously I'm half him," Amy stated. When interest in his genre experienced a renewal recently, "All of these old records started appearing at music stores, and we got to hear his voice for the first time."

The Alwood Sisters gained two members - brothers in fact - in 2007. Jovan Karcic plays drums, and his brother Milan Karcic adds vocals, guitar, and bass. Milan and Meagan are married, while Amy and Jovan are unmarried partners. They identify themselves as a family band. Amy explained, "We consider ourselves a family. We're carrying on a musical tradition on both sides - although theirs were Serbian folk musicians and ours were '60s garage rock musicians."

The band will release their first record, Black Falcon and the Forest Spirit, early this summer. The album was recorded over five 12-hour days. "We brought in people we thought it would be fun to play with," Amy says, including the Alwoods' uncle, Mike Shoaf. It was an intensely improvisational effort: "Some of the songs were really written then and there." The songwriting process included working from ideas or bits of music the sisters created for each other and exchanged in the mail while Meagan lived in New York City. A thirty-second idea from an hour-long tape could become a full-fledged song in the recording studio.

"Kind of . . ." Amy began.

". . . organic," Meagan finished.

I asked about the meaning of the record's title. "Should we tell the truth?" Meagan asked, looking to her sister.

"It's the names of our cars."

"It's pure silliness," Amy explained. "But it sounds kind of mysterious."

The Alwood Sisters will host a listening party for their album, Black Falcon and the Forest Spirit, at 7 p.m. on July 3rd at Wild Goose Creative (2491 Summit St.). The record will be officially released July 17th at Rumba Cafe (2507 Summit St.) with Moon High. For more details, visit www.alwoodsisters.com. - 614 Magazine

I had never seen The Alwood Sisters before, and was completely caught of guard. They had just gone on when I walked in, and upon entering, I thought it was the jukebox. They were harmonious, beautiful, melodic … very pretty folky pop.
~ by tobilynne on February 7, 2009.
- Toilynne blog spot