The Ladles have three-part female harmony perfected – but their sound is more than that… They are an amalgamation of their respective histories and influences. With sophisticated arrangements, they create a dreamy otherworldly atmosphere that draws audiences in and demands attention. They quiet noisy bars and liven up staid concert halls. The Ladles are Katie Martucci, Caroline Kuhn, and Lucia Pontoniere.
With the COVID-19 pandemic canceling an entire year’s worth of tour dates, The Ladles decided to turn their only remaining gig of 2020 — a three-week summer residency in the quaint town of Springville, New York — into their extraordinary and spontaneous new album, Springville Sessions. Recorded over the course of four days in a historic former Baptist church, the collection mixes “folk sensibilities” with pop, jazz, choral, and chamber music, creating a “gorgeous” blend fueled by spare, acoustic instrumentation and “brilliant harmonies.”
Composed of fiddler/singer Lucia Purpura-Pontoniere, guitarist/singer Katie Martucci, and banjoist/singer Caroline Kuhn, The Ladles have always managed to walk the line between technical virtuosity and emotional intuition. But ‘Springville Sessions’ finds the trio reaching new heights with a less-is-more approach, embracing their environment at the Springville Center for the Arts and recording the entire album with the stripped-down intimacy of a live performance.
“With only the three of us and an engineer in the room, we were free to just be ourselves,” says Purpura-Pontoniere. “Everything was as intimate as it could possibly be.”
Glide is proud to premiere the video for “Sunset Pink” a folk-roots diamond that stirs with conveying emotion and grace. The Ladles carry a prominent sense of arrangement and style reminiscent of the roots vocabulary of Gillin Welch and First Aid Kit. The song with its theme of moving through anxiety is poignant as we’re about to enter one full year of covid lockdown.
‘Sunset Pink’ is a song about moving through anxiety – returning to your body and environment so you can be present with the people you love. The title (Sunset Pink) is a reference to the brilliant sunsets over the pier in Red Hook Brooklyn. When we had the chance to shoot a video there with dancer Emory Ferra this past fall it was a no-brainer. Emory took the narrative of the song and beautifully embodied it with her improvised movement,” says the trio.
photos by Noel Woodford
