Rachael Sage Music
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Rachael Sage Music website |
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Kincső Nóra Pethő
"Watching films from a different viewpoint,
i.e. being a jury member gives you responsibility. On the one hand, it
is great to watch many different short films, documentaries and
animations, on the other hand it is really hard to make a decision. I
made notes and sent them with my ratings to support my decisions and
make them understandable. I am very proud that I was the only woman
among my jury fellow members on the very first Lake Oswego Short Film
Festival,” she says. Continuing, Kincső Nóra Pethő says, “In January
of this year Eleanor King contacted me and asked if I could be one of
the jurists for the film festival they were planning. (Her husband) is
an American director and screenwriter. After Red Sparrow came out, I was
quite busy on social media and Simon wrote to me, saying he had a
script, The Romanian Incident. He asked me to read the script, because
he thought there was a role for me. The script has won many awards, but
the film has not (been made) yet.
I cannot wait to do it, as my role is fantastic. Earlier this year (2026) the film Ashes To
Iron (English translation) by film director Danny A. Abeckase was released. It featured Kincső Nóra Pethő in the role of a nun, Sister Greta. This is a Hungarian production that went through a Hungarian casting agency. My agent connected with them and they asked for an actress to play a nun. The advantage Read More
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Paula Fong - New Album
“Oh my gosh, there
are so many things (to be excited about). It is my first full length
album and that is very exciting, because I feel it is a new expression
of my body of work and I feel is representative of this phase in my
music career and that I haven’t achieved before. There were a lot
of things I was excited about going into the recording process with my
producer, exploring new sounds, trying to stretch out and grow as a
musician and artist. For example, incorporating string sections with the
violin, cello, and viola was something I really enjoyed doing. I
experimented with new sounds and arrangements that I hadn’t done
previously. With my first EP I was trying to capture more of a live
sound. It was recorded in a studio, but it was representative of things
that I do when I perform live,” she says. Continuing she
says, “At one point we were going to release it in (five song blocks)
and then we decided to have it just be one cohesive album. We were
working two main days in the studio and on one day we had all the string
players sitting together in a room and they were recording live to the
room. On the second day we had drums, electric guitar and some other
instrumentation. There were two separate sonic approaches to a lot of
songs on the album, but there were a few that were done outside of that
entirely.” The first three tracks on the album, “River
Run,” “Marianne,” and
“Ophelia,” were recorded at Swan Dive Sound and were
produced by Justin Sinclair who also produced the rest of the album. You
will not get far into “River Run,” before you are hooked on Paula Fong’s
beautiful vocals. She is reminiscent of a young Allison Krauss. Phil
Glenn’s banjo and Casey Lipka’s upright bass introduce us the song,
while Paula Fong accompanies herself on acoustic guitar. “Marianne,” begins
like a slowly flowing, meandering river, picks up the temp and then
falls back into
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Electronic Firefly
Electronic Firefly
website
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Scarlett Macfarlane is Sorry
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Agota Dunai Lost in Black Forest
She describes
Black Forest
which appeared on Hungarian television as, “weird, dark things are
happening.
Natalia (Dunai) and her husband Kevin (Joó)) are going down the road
and another car almost hits them.
They get off the
road and they decide to stop there and have their hike in that part of
the forest. After a while they realize they are lost, so they decide to
go back to their car, but they cannot find it. They find another couple
who are lost as well.”
From there the film takes a turn that is part Sliding Doors (the
film), part Alfred Hitchock and very supernatural, as seemingly evil
forces try to prevent them from finding their way out of the forest.
“Everybody’s story goes in a different way,” she says.
One of the more
interesting roles that
Ágota Dunai has appeared in was as a drag king, who knew? We thought
there were only drag queens.
“Recently, I was cast to play a drag king. I was in shock and even my agent was in shock. I was really happy. It Read More
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Kat and Burn Release Album in LA
We have known Katja for a long time now and
full disclosure, consider her a friend and
as for Bernie, following our recent conversation, he does not
have a choice, his laughter, smile and warm nature are contagious. So, we did not
recall hearing or seeing them travel in the same music circles in past
years, so we wondered what led to this collaboration. Bernie explains, “We had known each other for half a year, not much longer than that. We had seen each other at parties or events. The consulate general for Austria was hosting something and I knew Katja was a musician, so I introduced myself. I have never done a saxophone album, when the main instrument is a saxophone. I figured why don’t we give it a try and it took us another few months to get together in the same room, which is my studio that you see behind me. I usually (am a producer and engineer). We had our first meeting and we were sitting in a room saying what are we going to do now? I had some idea, but it didn’t really materialize that much.” Katja interjects,
“That’s not true. If I may interrupt you, the very first song that we
worked on for the very first session was “Kruisin Kats.” Bernie continues, “I was going to get to that. My idea was to get to something in the vein of Khruangbin, Read More
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jojomago Fabulous New Album
“In Italy Mago means a witch or a wizard. It has a different kind of twitch and people are (she tilts her head to one side) why jojo the witch? My biggest dream is to have grey hair and move out into the woods. Yes, that is my hope and dream that I can grow into a wise old witch in the woods with grey hair. (she laughs quietly) Who knows? Some people think that a witch is a bad thing, but I’ll take it,” she says with a hint of mischief in her eyes.
The name jojomago however has roots far deeper than when this American lady moved to Italy fifteen years ago and she explains, “jojomago is a nonsense name. I have a bunch of aunts and uncles and their love language is making fun of you. When I was little, one of my uncles decided my name was ‘jojomago, baddest girl I know.’ He would say it over and over again and I hated it. “Baddest,” no I’m not the “baddest,” I’m a good kid. It has always been a name that stuck with me and when I decided to start a music career I really wanted to have a name that was unique, one of a kind, because I could go by Jo or JoJo, because that would make a lot of sense, but there are a lot of artists out there that are Jo or JoJo and you know how it is, finding an emerging artist is the worst thing Read More |
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Ruby Dice - Fun Country Music
Describing this as
intentional, Ruby Dice says, “I almost have my next record written and a
lot of the songs are about working (big smile). We were always stocking
shelves from a pretty young age at the hardware store, but when I was
eleven, I was cleaning bathrooms. (With a serious look she continues)
Hardware bathrooms are kind of gross. I try to write about what I know
about. I have worked a lot in my life. (Many) of my classmates were out
taking care of animals, out in the cold when they were little kids. It
is a relatable topic and I try to write about what I know. “ As you might
suspect from the trailer to the documentary, the album represents a
collaboration with some of Austin’s finest musicians. She expands upon
that thought, “I really wanted to highlight what makes this town so
special right now. I think as artists we can get caught up in future
goals and I didn’t want to do that with this album. I have such a
special team that I get to work with all of the time. I really lucked
out with all of these guests that said yes. It originally started with
me just wanting to become a better songwriter and I was going to the BMI
office twice a week and hitting up as many people as I could to write
songs with me.
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Marie Lind From Denmark
She describes her
birthplace as, “It is
close to Sweden. Some of it is very rocky in the north and in the south,
it has really good sandy beaches. A lot of people vacation there,
because of the beaches and fine sand. In the summer if the weather is
really nice and the sun is shining it feels almost like being in the
south of Spain or Italy. Even though it is a small island, not everybody
knows everybody, but almost. If you want to go to university you have to
go to Copenhagen and the mainland.”
Continuing Marie Lind says, “I was born there,
in a little town in the north and then I spent my childhood there,
before moving from the island to go to boarding school in 1992, I think.
I did not move back to the island, because I wanted to go to a music
high school. It is called a gymnasium. You live at the school and you
share a room with other students.
I think we were eighty-six students when I stayed at the school.
I stayed there for two years and they were some of my best school years. I had to go overseas to Sjaelland to the island where Copenhagen is. I had to move a bit to go to that school.” Read More
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Deer Fellow Cinematic Pop Folk
Alyssa says, “It
is a very classic Austin musician meeting about eleven years ago. We
both liked each other’s sets at an open mic and Matt came up and
introduced himself to me. It was my first night at open mic, but Matt
was a regular. A couple of months later we sang together a cover song at
the open mic.” They are not
native Austinites, but both have been in the Texas city long enough to
claim it as home, with Alyssa having moved from Kansas City Missouri,
thirteen years ago and Matt was born in San Deigo, but grew up in
Houston, prior to moving to Austin in 2009. That is a long way to go to
find your musical selves and to marry someone, although it was not
planned that way. They stopped by to chat about their recently
released album Hues and Matt Salois explains why that title was
picked. “It started with the song “Beautiful Gray” and that is about this in between will they or won’t they start a relationship. The feelings with that we incorporated into “Beautiful Gray,” just like it is not black and white,” says Matt, before Alyssa adds the word, “haziness,” which Read More
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Hank Alrich and the Broken River
That is where our conversation began…with the
stories, not the bear! “Almost all of them (songs) have a story and that
is how I work. People like to talk about their intention and meaning,
but I honestly don’t understand the process of what brings me a song. As
a friend of mine said, do not dig too deeply into understanding how a
process works. I will be washing the dishes or sweeping the floor or
splitting firewood and a line will come to me.
I don’t know where it comes from and I have learned that if a
line gets my attention, I better log it. I will say it into a phone or I
will somehow save it. I
will dry my hands from washing dishes and I will write that line down
and I will go back to washing dishes and thirty seconds into washing
dishes the next line comes (he says in jest) it takes forever to wash
the dishes sometimes. In November of 2017 songs had just been coming and coming. I drove from California (to Austin) for the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar. For several years I was directing the music which is embedded in that wonderful Read More |
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Actor Ruben Yuste
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Stew Cutler Undercover (Mostly)
He explains, “A while ago a friend of mine came by to see me play and she is a manager person, a producer person and she didn’t end up working with me, but I did for many years work with her on her main project which is the Harlem Gospel Singers. Her main comment was your music is really good, most people don’t know any of these songs. Why aren’t you doing any covers?
I don’t have a really
good answer as to how this all got going. I thought of it as a challenge
to take some songs that people knew and to turn them around a little
bit. I have been a little bit fascinated with songs that end up as hits
or top forties hits like the song “Betcha By Golly Wow,” the one that I
did on solo guitar. It was a top R&B hit. It is such a Jazz tune. So
many of Stevie Wonder’s songs were Jazz tunes. Now I can’t say that
about “Close To You,” I am proud of the arrangement on that. It was a
little different and I included a drum solo out of respect for Karen
Carpenter. It was played by Bill McClellan. I introduce it on stage as
Freddie King meets Karen
Carpenter.”
The
interesting thing about “Betcha By Golly, Wow,” is that is almost
associated with the Philadelphia group The Stylistics and for good
reason as the single was a gold record that peaked at #2 on the R&B
charts in America and #3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Here is
the thing though, The Stylistics were covering The Thom Bell and Linda
Creed song recorded in 1970 by Connie Stevens under the title “Keep
Growing Strong.” So, we might say that Stew Cutler recorded a cover of a
cover and reimagined it, just as The Stylistics reinterpreted the song
in their own way. It occurred to us that
even those of a certain vintage may be familiar with many of these
songs, such as “Summer Breeze,” by Seals & Crofts, but many others may
be hearing these wonderful songs for the very first time. “That is something Read More
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Fiona Joy Hawkins Lava and Snow
She begins by explaining why she refers to her music as Neo Classical / New Age, “ Neo Classical means derived from the Classical period. You have the Baroque period, the Classical period, the Romantic period and a whole pile of smaller ones and I guess that has led up to now and I think that is Neo Classical. New Age means something a little more connected and it means being connected and spiritual, but without any religion. It says something about the world around us and it has a deeper meaning. A lot of music has gone before us, going back to the Gregorian chant. One music period develops and grows from another.”The music is Neo
Classical / New Age. You have a concept and you write about that and
hopefully they (the listeners) understand where that piece of music
comes from. Really, music has no value unless it has value to the
listener. You hope when they are listening it takes them somewhere else
in their own space and they connect with the piece of music. That is
usually what happens and that is the beauty of instrumental music. It
can mean whatever you want it to mean.”
Segueing
into talking about the album, she says, “In 2024 I figured it was time
that I recorded another album. I wasn’t really inspired. My husband
(Bas) was going to work overseas for six weeks, so I thought okay
this is really the perfect opportunity for me to go into a
self-imposed lockdown where I can find inspiration to write an album. An
album doesn’t come from nowhere; it comes from something that you want
to say. I (thought) I will
get out the photo albums and just explore the world around me, which was
my house, because I didn’t go anywhere apart from the supermarket. All
of those things are really bad for your mental health, can I just say.
You dig deep and you go to an emotional level you are going to be if not
inspired, certainly touched by something. If you listen to the news
something is going to touch you and affect you. If you leave yourself
vulnerable and open to all of that. All of the songs have got their
roots in that six-week period.” As for the other people who had a role in bringing this album to life, “I have a producer Peter Stevenson and he was amazing. The piano tuner was incredible because on that day we had to pick up and move to another location. The studio that we were recording in is made of steel, so it was a winter morning and when the sun comes on the building you get expansion. We were getting all of these cracks (the sound). All kinds of things were recorded there Read More
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Iris Jacobs Dutch Filmmaker
“I started this
project during the pandemic. Lots of things were going on in the online
atmosphere and I was seeing a lot of things going around, especially
with conspiracy theories and polarization was already happening there.
Then I had an idea to write a romantic comedy thriller and to combine
these elements. It is about these two characters that represent these
polarizations. They are sort of opposites, but somehow, they are the
same. They were both trauma informed polarizations, but they have
different coping mechanisms. You have a spiritual wanderer who is in the
misty countryside and she is going to have a date with an ex-military
man. He is extremely suspicious and he thinks that he is being recorded
all of the time. He is going to meet this woman in the countryside. They seem to be different, but they sort of have a similar trauma and that is also why they are really attracted to each other. They are also very reactive in their relationship. They find a stranger bound to a tree. They go on this mission together. The guy bound to the tree appears to know more than they do. They have to collaborate to figure it out. Of course, they fall in love (not the guy in the tree).
It
is going to be a feature for sure and it is inspired by Hitchcock, who
is one of my great heroes. There are also elements of Billy Wilder and
the more Nordic filmmakers. I am sort of heading there. It is a very
tight script as well. It is also surrealistic with a lot of suspense,”
Iris Jacobs explains.
Iris Jacobs, who until recently solely focused on short films and
theater in various capacities, has, as we counted five different feature
films at different stages of development and she recently received high
praise and Best Female Director Award at the Barcelona Film Festival,
for her work in short films, more specifically the award was for
Conclave Clandestine, which featured dancer Anna Soler Canet and
dancer / actor Marc Comellas.
No matter what country you are moving from or moving to, it sometimes
takes a long time before you are embraced by your new home, but it
appears that
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Audray
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Ana Luísa Ramos
She begins, “I was
born in Ribeirão Preto and that means Black River. In the city we have
this river and it used to be a big river. Now it is not that big and not
that clean anymore. I was born in 1988. I always loved music. My parents
are not musicians. From my mom’s side her grandma and her brothers, they
used to play and sing and paint, but music is very present in my culture
and people are very much connected to music. I have always had
music at my house and I had many diverse influences. My father loves
Brazilian music, but he also is a Beatles fan and all of the sixties
Rock bands. My brothers, I have two older brothers and they were the
ones who introduced me to MTV. We used to see what was happening in the
U.K. and in the U.S. I remember the first time I saw Pink Floyd (big
smile).
I started singing in choirs and my grandma, my father’s mom, loves
Classical music. At the time we would listen to music on CDs. There was
this magazine that if you bought the weekly issue, you would receive a
different CD every week. There were many composers.
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