Featuring the Umoja Refugee Choir
Band Announces West Coast Tour Dates;
Launch Fundraiser for Umoja Refugee Choir
Watch The NPR Tiny Desk Concert Here
New Album BE HERE NOW Out Now
The Mynabirds have announced West Coast tour dates in support of their new albumBE HERE NOW, out now via Saddle Creek. Additionally, The Mynabirds recorded a NPR Tiny Desk concert, which was released today. Watch and share here.
The Tiny Desk concert features Laura singing with a “People’s Choir,” which includes producer Patrick Damphier, singer Jessica Lea Mayfield and members of the Umoja Refugee Choir of Omaha, Nebraska, who sang on “Hold On,” the song on BE HERE NOW singer Laura Burhenn wrote for refugees. “In an era when the current administration seems to be working to roll back protections and erode rights of LGBTQ folks, ignore our country's deeply harmful systemic racism, and shut our doors to immigrants and refugees (the very rich foundation of America), I wanted to amplify these voices, put them front and center, to show my support and let those watching know that they're not alone,” Burhenn says. “It felt especially poignant to sing and ‘shout at the dark’ with refugees, queer and gay friends, and some new and first-generation Americans so close to the White House. I was especially thankful to Bob Boilen and NPR for letting us exorcise that catharsis.”
In an additional act of amplifying important voices, Burhenn has also launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money so that the Umoja Choir record their very first album. The money raised will go directly to funding the production of the choir’s first album of original songs, and will also contribute to the communities in Omaha and beyond that the Umoja Choir inspires, supports, and elevates through song. Read more about the Umoja choir and their important community work, and share the fundraiserhere.
BE HERE NOW features 9 songs written and recorded in just 2 weeks in January 2017 following the Inauguration and the Women’s March. The album is the result of a spontaneous effort to document the news and people’s emotional reactions to it in real time. No stranger to politics in her songwriting, Laura Burhenn aimed to speak from the voice of the collective consciousness in a work of “Emotional Journalism,” singing the heartbreak, anger, exhaustion and resolute hope she witnessed during the Muslim travel ban, the final stand at Standing Rock, and every other news story that rattled America in that period. The album vacillates in style and feel to reflect a frayed nation, featuring a Burundian refugee choir on one song, and a cacophony of dissonant saxophones in a new national anthem on another. It is the last recording made in that space. BE HERE NOW was released as 3 digital EPs over 3 months to emphasize the immediacy of the songs.
Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen
The Mynabirds Tour Dates
Nov 12 - San Luis Obispo, CA @ SLO Brew*
Nov 13 - San Francisco, CA @ The Independent*
Nov 14 - Fresno, CA @ Strummer’s*
Dec 16- Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg - Far Out Fundraiser - Haiti Benefit, featuring BUZZY LEE, Lola Kirke, Kate Berlant
Jan 18 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios+
Jan 20 - Seattle, WA @ Barboza+
Jan 21 - Spokane, WA @ Big Dipper+
Jan 23 - Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst Atrium++
Jan 25 - San Francisco, CA @ Café du Nord++
Jan 26 - Los Angeles, CA @ Moroccan Lounge++
* - with Electric Guest
+ - with Lenore
++ - with Doe Paoro
The Mynabirds Links
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