HYMN FOR HER

Hymn for Her, though from Philadelphia, lives its life on the open road.

‘Lucy & Wayne and the Amairican Stream’ by Hymn for Her
The album “Lucy & Wayne and the Amairican Stream,” accurately portrays the many genres the nation has to offer, as it should. The album was recorded, mixed and mastered throughout the United States.
The recording sessions took place in California, Florida and Pennsylvania. The mixing was done in Detroit and mastered in Nashville.
This makes the album nearly impossible to describe.
As a melting pot of genres, every song comes up with something different for the listener to enjoy.
In the first three tracks, the listener gets to hear bluegrass, folk and punk, respectively. “Lucy & Wayne and the Amairican Stream” also brings forth elements of blues-rock, psychedelic and country.
Other times it is best to describe the music geographically, or through random, scenic situations.
Take “Fiddlestix,” a song that presents a sound of an old fashioned Hootenanny down in the Louisiana Bayou. Almost naturally, the listener will find his or her foot tapping to the rhythm.
Or there is “Montana,” the road-tripping song that finds itself in a weird blend of Detroit garage rock with the Wild West rebellious feel of the state from which the single got its name.
Even the mood of the album cannot be accurately portrayed as a whole.
“Not” comes across as a sad, soft, Southern ballad.
“Sea” comes across as a peaceful, almost commune like sound.
Reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac or other hippie bands of the time, the song still finds itself blending in with the variety of the album.
The two-piece does a great job with two key things: harmonizing and experimentation.
The harmonization brings the listener a feeling of something nostalgic. The art form of harmony seems to be in its last breaths, but upon listening to this album there is still hope.
Experimentation with the album is a treat for all listeners.
It comes across as nearly flawless, in a way that reminds the audience of Jack White.
“C’mon” is an example of the group’s experimentation. At first the song comes across as folk-rock, but when the chorus kicks in, the song hits a psychedelic vibe, reminiscent of the Dead Weather.
“Sangre” takes an approach of having verses that sound like the song is gospel. Then the song changes into a slow paced, psychobilly punk chorus.
Overall, the album is a 12-track masterpiece. “Lucy & Wayne and the Amairican Stream,” if it can gather enough attention, could possibly make future lists of greatest albums or “1001 Albums You Should Listen to Before You Die.”
Hymn for Her is a group with a world of potential.
If the future works out in the band’s favor, the shape of music — and the artists who create it — will make a drastic change for the better.
— Wil Petty - Red and Black/University of GA

Rarely do you find a record that kicks so much ass in so many ways. Hymn for Her is Lucy Tight & Wayne Waxing raising hell in their 1961 Airstream trailer, and you won’t believe how much passionate noise two people and a cigar box slide guitar can make. The opener, “Slips,” leads off with a nice Lester Flatt lick, roars into Jason and the Scorchers land with a howling Led Zeppelin harmonica topping, and it’s nothing but whup ass the rest of the way. Recorded entirely in said Bambi Airstream, the range of this record is astounding. “Not” sounds like a lost Mazzy Star/Portishead moment, the soft croon of Lucy Tight floating on a bed of guitar and vibes. Classy. Then it’s “Montana” that has a heavy White Stripes mojo, again with the crazed slide guitar and some sleazy wah wah action that makes you think Cream had reformed again. By the time you get to their potent cover of Morphine’s “Thursday,” you believe there’s not anything Hymn for Her can’t do. Lucy & Wayne and The Amairican Stream is simply a brilliant record, full of energy, wit, and irreverent pokes in the eye to conventional genres and styles. It don’t get much better than this.

-Ink 19 (FL)/James Mann - Ink 19

“An ear-blisteringly good listen. Energetic, even heavy at times, but wholly organic. I hope to hear more from Lucy and Wayne, and you should too! Whether you call it alt-folk, stomp-grass, or cow-metal, this is one the best D.I.Y. efforts to come along in years!”
~ Chris “Toast” Diestler, KBAC-FM, Santa Fe, NM
- Chris "Toast" Diestler, KBAC-FM, Santa Fe, NM

“There’s a raw, almost primitive electricity that sizzles off “Lucy & Wayne and the Amairican Stream,” the new album from Philadelphia duo Hymn For Her. They have drawn comparisons to the White Stripes for their powerfully stripped-down sound, but there’s a more rural, old-school feeling to the music they create together.
A big part of their sound comes from the three-string cigar-box guitar that Lucy plays, a throwback to the kind of instrument many old blues players built for themselves because they couldn’t afford a bona fide guitar.

The ripsaw sounds that come from it led to edgier subject material. Their dissonant harmonizing recalls the sideways collaborations of the first couple of punk rock, Exene Cervenka and John Doe.

Another unusual element that contributes to Hymn for Her’s distinctive sound is their mode of transportation: a 50-year-old 16-foot aluminum Airstream trailer that they live in so that their toddler daughter (and their 90-pound black Labrador), can be with them on tour. They also recorded the entire album in the trailer while touring the country last year.

-Los Angeles Times/Pop and Hiss by 1/26/11 Randy Lewis - Randy Lewis

Hymn For Her – a duo comprising Lucy Tight and Wayne Waxing - are certainly not afraid to mix their styles on their latest album. They play all the instruments themselves and bring a certain infectious energy to all that they touch. They sound at times like a couple of precocious kids let loose in a recording studio for the first time, willing to try their hand at anything and everything.

On several tracks they go for a high-energy country hoedown feel, often dominated by banjo and harmonica. Their song “Montana” by contrast is heavy metal-ish, complete with Led Zeppelin-style guitar. “Grave” is a sprightly meditation on the imminence of death, and “Not” a surprisingly touching ballad with a simple xylophone hook. The breathy vocal from Tight really brings home the intimate circumstances of the recording. For the whole album was recorded in a tiny trailer – a 16-foot vintage Bambi Airstream – which also serves as their home.

The bluesy “Here” starts with a similar intimate vocal, this time from the male half of the duo, Waxing, but complete with powerhouse electric guitar and harmonica hook. Just when you think they’ve tried about everything, the intro to the last track “Odette” features their young daughter singing, before you hear Tight whispering sweetly “Now let Momma try” before turning in a beautiful unaccompanied vocal performance.

If it sounds like a mish-mash of styles, it certainly is. But if you want something a bit different – and it must be said, a bit off-the-wall at times – give Hymn For Her a try. For what the album lacks in coherence, it makes up for with a sort of unbridled enthusiasm from the first note to the last. - Yellowmoon

By Melissa Ruggieri
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Musicians are notorious for being a bit ... unusual.

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But a couple who travels to gigs in a 16-foot 1961 Bambi Airstream with their 3-year-old daughter and an aging black lab named Pokey, well, that’s a whole new level of wackiness.

Meet Lucy and Wayne Waxing, otherwise known as Hymn for Her, a Philadelphia-based duo who plays what they term “stomp-grass punk folk.”

They not only live in the Airstream but roam the country in the silver beast, negotiating parking in impossible-to-maneuver cities such as San Francisco and performing their blazing, fist-pumping tunes -- created with a broom handle cigar box banjo, dobro, bass drum, hi-hat and harmonica -- at holes in the wall from Santa Fe, N.M., to Cleveland to Atlanta, where they will pull in Friday at the Highland Inn Ballroom.

The couple, longtime musicians who previously played for a decade in the equally idiosyncratic MPE Band, decided once their daughter (whose name they prefer not to publicize) was born, that it was time to return to duo-hood.

“She turned 2½ and we were in our terrible twos, not her,” Lucy Waxing said. “We wanted to get back in our essence again. When a kid comes along you get this feeling that you need to plant some roots. So ours were on two moving wheels, and that became our home.”

The Waxings went solo and last year released their second album, “Hymn for Her Presents ... The Amairican Stream,” filled with a dozen foot-stompers with names such as “Fiddlestix” and “Montana.”

The CD, like everything in their lives, came to life in that Airstream.

“The idea was, we always go to other places to record, and this seemed ideal," Waxing said. "Everything was compact and [the trailer] has a great, punchy sound to it. Wherever we parked, we would start recording.”

Pokey, who was rescued more than a decade ago at a gas station in Pocahontas, Ill., dutifully sidestepped the cords and instruments cluttering the space, and Wayne Waxing’s brother looked after their daughter while they recorded or performed.

For this current tour, which will keep them on the road through April, the couple is enlisting a nanny for the first time.

The couple has also opted to leave the Airstream in the driveway of Wayne Waxing’s father’s home in Philly during the winter months, traveling instead in a blue Ford E350 with 300,000 miles on it.

“We had the Airstream last year through a winter blizzard, and we really almost died,” Waxing said. “We’re not big prayers, but we were sitting there praying a lot. It’s pretty much an adventure every day. Having a kid on the road makes you want to find adventure.”

Concert preview - Melissa Ruggieri

Trailer Hitch

Hymn for Her's range life
By Alan Sculley


Many albums rely on songwriting style, production approach or the personalities of the musicians for a unique sound or character. But for Lucy Tight and Wayne Waxing, who make up the duo Hymn for Her, some more tangible elements come into play—namely, a chain saw, a cigar-box guitar and a 1961 Airstream trailer.

Those three elements figured strongly into the making of Lucy & Wayne and the Amairican Stream, the second album from the duo. While on tour in Memphis, Tight and Waxing's former band was helping a friend clear some fallen limbs from a storm that had hit the area. A chain saw bucked and hit one of the musicians in the head, sending him to the hospital.

Grateful for the work and sorry for the accident, the friend gave the group a unique thank-you gift—a combination guitar and bass he'd made using a cigar box for its body and a broomstick for its neck.

For a good while, the cigar box guitar sat idle in a closet.

"There were a lot of mixed feelings about the cigar-box guitar," Tight says in a phone interview. "Every time we'd pull it out, it kind of reminded us about the chain-saw accident, so it kept on going back in the closet. Then finally, for some reason, Wayne and I just took it with us and we said, 'You know what, we'll play this thing one day when we have some time to learn it.'"

The duo recorded a 2008 debut CD, Year of the Golden Pig, which showcased the stripped-back acoustic sound. Then one day Tight decided to pull out the cigar-box guitar and see what the instrument could do. The two were immediately excited by the tone that emanated from the odd and seemingly primitive instrument, and decided to make the cigar-box guitar the centerpiece of Lucy & Wayne and the Amairican Stream.

Unconventional to say the least, the cigar box comes with two guitar strings and a single bass string with its own pickup—and its own set of challenges. "It really took a while to learn this thing," Tight says, "because the neck is a broom handle, so there are no frets. I really just had to tune my ear in."

And rather than take the cigar-box guitar into the studio, Tight and Waxing decided to record their new songs on tour, using their 16-foot 1961 Bambi Airstream trailer as a makeshift studio with their three-year-old daughter and 90-pound black Labrador by their side.

"We laughed a lot and had a good time doing this recording," she said. "And the sound, it is what it is. But the roundness of the Airstream and the round edges make for a very unique sound, I think. It kind of bounces back and forth in a very lively way, which makes our album sound really live and rocking."
- Alan Sculley

Minimalist pop that veers off in a thousand directions without losing focus, Hymn for Her’s new album Lucy & Wayne and the Amairican Stream proves that extended-form composition is alive and well in America. Lucy Tight and Wayne Waxing recorded Amairican Stream in their vintage Bambi Airstream trailer while on tour, and their music sounds like nothing else — Tight plays cigar-box guitar through distortion pedals, and nearly every song features modestly demented slide guitar and harmonica. You can hear bluegrass overtones, but the overriding impression is of some mixture of Captain Beefheart’s Safe as Milk and the casual song structures of The Shaggs. Each of the record’s dozen songs ends up someplace unexpected, with banjo and artfully placed power chords leading the way. It’s something new under the sun — the amazing “Here” suggests that garage rock has finally moved into the trailer park. Where it belongs. - Edd Hurt

"Created using broom handle cigar box banjo, dobro, bass drum, hi-hat and harmonica, the music of Lucy & Wayne and The Amairican Stream by US duo Hymn For Her, proves categorically that you don't need a megabuck budget to create some high-end kick-ass boogie. Recorded in the classic sixteen-foot 1961 Bambi Airstream trailer (caravan) that they call home, it's an impossible-to-categorise and unforgettable sonic wall of banjo-thrash-country-rock-acid-blues of the sort that you could imagine Jack White having on his iPod". - unknown

...Enter Hymn for Her. From Philadelphia, their sound is somewhere between Rob Zombie and Old Crow Medicine Show. She plays a cigar box with one bass string and two standard guitar strings. Two pickups make it sound twice as big. He plays guitar and banjo, kick drum, hi-hat, and harmonica. They sing in unison mostly, with occasional harmonies and instrumental breaks. They play as hard as is humanly possible.
The level of enthusiasm over Hymn for Her's particular approach to that whatever-it-is kind of music they do (which is decidedly not bluegrass) was akin to some of the punk rock shows I went to in college.

The next day, as the neighborhood poured into its community garden for a good old American potluck, around a fire (started from beer boxes - the wood collected was felled branches from the odd Brooklyn tree), children running around with plastic swords, dogs aplenty, and homemade star-shaped carrots, the excitement about that Philadelphia "bluegrass" band still leaked into assorted conversations. Like I said - whatever they want to call it doesn't matter, as long as it sticks. - Kim Ruehl

So what can you do in one of those funny-looking, toaster-shaped Airstreams? Lots of stuff, sure, but making music maybe isn't the first thing that comes to mind.
Unless you're Lucy Tight and Wayne Waxing, the Philly-based duo that concocts gritty roots music in their 16-foot 1961 Bambi Airstream under the name Hymn for Her. The duo gets around, as you might imagine, and has managed to forge an Orlando connection. Local promoter/pop-culture advocate Jessica Pawli has started doing PR for the duo, who recently impressed at one of Copper Rocket's Southern Friday Sundays.

Pawli slipped me a copy of Hymn for Her's new album, Hymn for her Presents… Lucy & Wayne and the Amairican Stream. These 12 songs are highly elevated, especially for material recorded in a driveway.

The best stuff, such as the rustic, yet hard-edged "Fiddlestix," rocks way harder than one would expect from the raw materials of banjo, harmonica and some kind of cigar-box stringed contraption. Visit myspace.com/hymnforher to check it out. - Jim Abbott

After being part of a promising but underexposed early 1990s alternative rap group called The Goats, Ternay and Simpson went for a change of direction when they formed the folk-rock trio Maggi, Pierce & E.J. (MPE) with singer Maggi Jane. And in 2008, Maggi and Ternay maintained their involvement with folk-rock as the male/female duo Hymn for Her. The duo heard on Hymn for Her's first album, Year of the Golden Pig, is more stripped-down and minimalist. Maggi and Ternay provide acoustic-oriented folk-rock that is as subtle and understated as it is substantial. Maggi's vocals are delicate, but emotionally, she has no problem getting her points across on intimate performances such as "Highway Maggi," "Sugar Monkey," "Yer Flower" and the Latin-flavored "Tatiana." Subtle, dry humor is an attractive part of the equation on Year of the Golden Pig, and Maggi's use of understatement is perfect for a less overt type of humor. Admirers of MPE's work should have no problem getting into Hymn for Her. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide - Alex Henderson

"Through sheer hard work, persistence, and giggging wherever and whenever, allied to fresh, optimistic talents, Philadelphia's MPEband built up both a significant following and a lasting body of work. Their down home sound, all harmonies and acoustic instruments, imbued with a loveable, inclusive, fraternal sensibility made their appearances in your town special and left behind them an inevitable glow of well being.
That glow is still apparent here on Year Of The Golden Pig, which finds Maggi and Pierce performing as Hymn For Her. 2007 was the Chinese year of that designation, and an annus mirabilis for the couple in that they had a child during this propitious time. Hymn for Her is partly just that: a celebration of life and new life; songs to each other and songs to the baby, all sung from one voice, almost from one conjoined entity. With ever-inventive and varied instrumentation, it takes a little while to appreciate how much is going on and how structured this music is. But listen and the reward comes." - Nick West

Subtle yet stirring folk from Philly.
So, you’re a member of an alternative rap/hip/hop group, popular in the nineties but seemingly going nowhere, suddenly you fancy a change and think to yourself that perhaps something a little more earthy might appeal, maybe you want to write folk music… so, what do you do? You decamp to Philadelphia of course, spiritual homeland of R&B, and actual home to the likes of Jill Scott and Boyz II Men. Makes perfect sense, no? Well, it certainly seemed to work wonders for Pierce Temay, leaving his past as a member of The Goats behind to form MPE alongside former bandmate E.J. Simpson and folk singer Maggi Jane. Now he and Maggi have formed Hymn For Her an offshoot of their former band to perform even more stripped back folk. With this, their debut record, the pair have shown a knack for subtle, yet substantial song writing, Maggi’s vocals always gliding languidly over the music, delivering the dry humour of the lyrics in a manner so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable at first listen. Certainly this is interesting stuff, and hopefully it bodes well for the future.



- Subba-Cultcha/UK review By: Matt Merritt

"Hymn for Her is a duo that might be able to help reenergize the fading Philly freak folk scene. Maggi and Pierce write captivating songs that can transcend you to another world or bring you back to a time lost in your subconscious. Check out their song “Drive,” a beautifully produced work of art. I love the use of the windshield wipers as a backbeat which lulls you in, but before you can get truly comfortable, the song turns the corner exploding into something that would have been a nice addition to the soundtrack for Natural Born Killers or Very Bad Things - taking you on a nightmarish drive through the desolate roads of the southwestern deserts. You can catch them this Saturday at The Fire before they head out on tour through Florida and across the country. myspace.com/hymnforher”
3/25/09 - Q.D. Tran

This is definitely Year of the Golden Pig and, as usual, it is a good year if only for the fact that Maggi Jane and Pierce Ternay have gone duo and actually released something in that form. After twelve years producing excellent music with cohort EJ (as in Maggi, Pierce & EJ), they now add to their resume, foregoing electric instruments for the simple accoutremental acoustic ones, easily gathered and packed for touring. They are, in fact, on the road as I type, supporting the Year album and introducing baby daughter Diver to their world. It is a good world and a kind world and, most of all, a musical world.

Their world is a simple yet complex combination of musical styles, easily accessible and quite unique. Maggi Jane, with her sometimes childlike voice and fascination with the world both good and bad, anchors Pierce and gives him ample foundation. What Pierce gives Maggi is hard to put into words. Alone, they make music. Together, they make magic (and Divers).

That magic is on the whole smoother than previous efforts with EJ, only partially due to the exclusion of electric instruments. Pierce is a master at doing more with less, layering sound sometimes with guitar, sometimes with the studio. The result is full and warm as is the sound, which wraps around Maggi's vocals, and sometimes Pierce's own, like a favored blanket.

You can hardly call what they do folk or pop or even Americana, whatever that has come to be known lately. After thirteen-plus years creating music, they have created their own sound, their own way of looking at things, so let us just say that they do Hymn for Her, a combination of genres and sounds and whatever it takes to create the whole. Like an excellent film director, they create pieces and splice them together seamlessly. They are artists.

Take Mountain. A bird call and banjo intro (Comin' Round the Mountain) give way to driving acoustic rhythm guitar and Maggi whose voice fades behind Pierce's and gives way to chorus, subdued yelling in the background, and then slow voice with yodel (Pierce nails it).

And Drive, an insane and incredibly catchy drive to madness. Simple and direct, Pierce lays down train track acoustic guitar rhythms (the underbelly) while Maggi Jane plucks single notes on banjo, voices perfect over rhythmic sound effects of wiper blades and rain, verses long and lean, Pierce's voice at first deep, then concert high before joining Maggi's higher and in-sync tones. No throat massage here. She steps into the abyss, a list of destinations/visitations a la I've Been Everywhere squeezed through a car radio and ending with the repeated "I'm a killah" which stops just short of insanity (yours, not hers).

Of course, those are anomalies, but anomalies only in that they rock in a more peaceful setting. The lighter side dominates, from the Spanish-flavored Tatiana to the country-ish Killin' the Pain to the old-timey and, believe it or not, pop influenced Highway Maggi (the harmonies are straight out of the sixties).

They end it all with two tracks not listed. The first is a short insertion of highway sound effects. It rolls into a simple and alluring song of returning home (or is it), lightly plucked acoustic guitar beneath soft vocals and basic banjo at beginning and end. This is the way to end an album, slowing things to a melodious crawl. Perfecto.

The astonishing thing here is that Maggi, Pierce and EJ—and in this case, Maggi & Pierce—struggle in relative obscurity while others less talented (and certainly less adventurous) prosper. It is a black eye on the music business, obscured by a thousand other black eyes. But it doesn't have to be that way. You can help a couple of struggling artists and beef up your music at the same time. Buy this CD. Listen to it a thousand times. Then buy one for a friend. After all, every journey begins with a single step.

- Frank Gutch Jr.

The Beat
...However, the same bill provided this week’s best surprise with Philadelphia’s Hymn for Her. The domestic duo of Maggi Jane and Pierce Ternay tour and record in a vintage 16-foot travel trailer with their toddler, though I didn’t personally see that little thing play shit. Their amalgam of folk, blues and bluegrass ain’t no easygoing sweet-tea affair. It’s an intensely haunting, alternative vision that sometimes strikes cutting moods.

He basically plays a one-man band setup with drums and banjo, while she makes them a full band. They employ a cigar-box guitar with only a few strings that, when fed through her pedals and played with a slide, has a wild, untamed drone that’s just enormous in presence. But despite their intriguing instrumentation, a big part of their sound is the vocal dynamism between the two, like when they rocked a Zeppelin cover where the typical guitar parts were performed with their voices.

Together, it all weaves extraordinary atmosphere. From otherworldly meditations to fire-breathing rave-ups where banjos are banged like bongos, their live show is riveting and transcendental. Hymn for Her conjure a grippingly modern vision of folk that’s completely free of cliché. Though they’re Northerners, they seem to love Florida because they play here a lot, including a couple upcoming dates (March 26 at Copper Rocket, March 29 at Stardust Video & Coffee). Do yourself a solid and check ’em out. - Orlando Weekly-Bao Le-Huu