Introducing VIKESH KAPOOR
Loose Music are thrilled to announce the European release of Pennsylvanian folk singer Vikesh Kapoor’s outstanding debut album, ‘The Ballad Of Willy Robbins’, on 14th April.
Watch the official video for ‘Bottom Of The Ladder’, the opening track off the forthcoming album:
Following a spur-of-the-moment cross-country trip with a pair of fiery European girls, Vikesh Kapoor left school for a brief yet inspiring stint as a mason’s apprentice. The America he had previously known resided narrowly between his childhood home in rural Pennsylvania and the New England university he left home for. Alongside his parents’ own immigrant struggles, these experiences quickly witnessed Kapoor to the scope of the American dream.
A few years later, Kapoor performed at Howard Zinn’s memorial service in Boston, in front of Zinn’s family and colleagues (including Noam Chomsky). Roused by Zinn’s lifelong battle against class/race injustice, Kapoor spent the next two years in Portland, Oregon working on his full-length debut record. The Ballad Of Willy Robbins, a concept album loosely based on a newspaper article, chronicles the brutal but hopeful story of a working class man who slowly loses everything: ambitions, health, family and shelter. It’s a worker’s tale, less specific to the blue-collar life as it is about anyone struggling to make something of themselves.
Co-produced by Adam Selzer (M. Ward) and features Nate Query (Decemberists, Black Prairie), Jeff Ratner (Langhorne Slim) and Birger Olsen (Denver), The Ballad Of Willy Robbins is out on Loose, 14th April 2014.
Pre-order CD/LP here.
“a series of sharply etched portraits of struggling Americans that points back along a road of socially conscious songs. Woody Guthrie is standing at the head of that road” [Full article here] – THE NEW YORKER
“Vikesh Kapoor nails the kind of effortless folk songwriting of Pete Seeger’s that painted a visual picture capable of moving us to action.” [Full article here] – THE BLUEGRASS SITUATION
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