The Places: 'I'm A-Gone Down to the Green Fields'
The Places' Amy Annelle hide caption
The Places' Amy Annelle
The Places' latest CD is Songs for Creeps. hide caption
The Places are a dark, backwoods folk group featuring the voice and songwriting of Amy Annelle. Her lo-fi, atmospheric recordings are self-produced, with help from Brian Beattie, and largely homemade. The instrumentation is mostly traditional with lap steel and dobro. But Annelle sweetens the mix with haunting harmonies, drum loops and eerie, distant voices, creating the sense that something very, very bad is lurking beneath the surface.
The Places' latest CD, their sixth, is Songs for Creeps. They say it was recorded "in a tiny garage studio full of weird instruments, cantankerous vintage gear and thrift store desert paintings," in Austin, TX. There Annelle mixed her home recordings with studio tracks to create a stark but beautiful collection of songs.
The Places are still building an audience, but they've gotten some good exposure. Billboard Magazine picked the band's latest CD as one of the best of 2006, and the group has shared the stage with acts like Jolie Holland, Mountain Goats, M. Ward and Elf Power.
Songs for Creeps is out on Annelle's own label, High Plains Sigh. The featured track is "I'm A-Gone Down to the Green Fields."