Dive Into The End Of The World

Twelve songs by Robin O'Brien and her musical friends take you to the edge. Now dive in. It's our world of floods and draughts, ashes and fire, dessicated bones and fingers sticky with marrow. We've been picking over the ruins, taking each other apart, as the world goes gently, song by song, into it's harmonic night. It begins in 'Summer,' whose beauty and dreamy warmth might fool you. 'I'll love you when it's over,' Robin sings--but that doesn't mean it will be easy. Just listen to Kevin Salem's slashing, slicing guitar intro to 'Sylph.' 'You slide into the muddy water' and look around. It's all coming apart. 'The earth from her back shakes off the rider' (that would be us) Robin sings in 'Ashes' (her answer to Hard Rain) and we have no choice but to surrender ('I will not fight again'). There is nothing left. 'The blood that flows has salted the river/and we cannot drink the water.' It's silent, 'Frozen Still,' and (somehow) 'everything is melting.' We are like Robin's 'Catalina'---anchorless in the everything-all-at-once chaos. The trick is just to 'listen to hear everything' ('Mountain'). 'It's a secret that everybody knows but no one will believe.' Well, you might after hearing Robin and Anthony Presti sing what has to be the most gorgeous duet about nothingness ever conceived ('time is empty/time is gone'). As for 'We Catch Fire,' I swear Jim Morrison is nodding his head in time. We are riders on the storm, and this really IS the end, but not the kind you may think. There's fire and destruction, but also the seeds of something more, something new. A reason our children are born only to die, and 'all of our riches' must perish, as Robin puts it in her gorgeous album closer, 'Under the Skin.' On Dive Into the End of the World, Robin is joined by ace guitarist Kevin Salem (Dumptruck, Rachael Yamagata, Freedy Johnston) and the extraordinary bassists Jocelyne Lanois (Martha and the Muffins, Sarah McLachlan, Crash Vegas) and Marcus Giamatti (Loretta Lynn, Michelle Shocked, Olivea Watson). Special appearances by Chris Harford, Anthony Presti, and Nikos Elliot Flaherty-Laub complete the journey that brings O'Brien's songwriting and vocal wizardry into new musical territory.