It would have been easy for The Ladles to write 2020 off as a lost year. Forced to scrap a calendar full of tour dates and stuck quarantining on opposite coasts, the trio watched helplessly as cancellation after cancellation rolled in and the prospects of making music together grew dimmer with each passing day. Everything the band had planned was up in smoke, it seemed, everything except for a three-week summer residency in the quaint little town of Springville, New York.
“That residency at the Springville Center for the Arts was pretty much the only thing that stayed on the books for us,” says fiddler/singer Lucia Pontoniere. “We decided we’d just go ahead and treat it as an opportunity to develop some new material, but it ended up being so much more than that.”
Indeed, those three weeks in rural Erie County proved to be transformative for the band, yielding breakthroughs both personal and artistic, as well as the group’s stunning and spontaneous new album, ‘Springville Sessions.’ Recorded over the course of four days in an historic former Baptist church, the collection is pure Ladles, mixing timeless folk, pop, jazz, choral, and chamber music into an addictive blend fueled by spare, acoustic instrumentation and lush, three-part harmonies. While The Ladles—Pontoniere, guitarist/singer Katie Martucci, and banjoist/singer Caroline Kuhn—have always managed to walk the line between technical virtuosity and emotional intuition, ‘Springville Sessions’ finds the trio reaching new heights with a less-is-more approach, embracing their environment and recording the entire album with the stripped-down intimacy of a live performance. The result is an entrancing chronicle of a singular moment in time, a raw, organic record that hints at everything from I’m With Her and The Wailin’ Jennys to Mountain Man and The Staves as it finds connection and hope in the face of isolation and overwhelming uncertainty.
“We never planned on making an album like this,” says Pontoniere. “It was more like a happy accident, and only in hindsight did we realize how special it was.”
Those sorts of happy accidents seem to follow The Ladles wherever they go. Founded roughly five years ago, the trio first came together by chance, when they realized they were the only three women in the New England Conservatory of Music’s Contemporary Improvisation program. While coincidence may have introduced them, it was chemistry that bound them, and from their earliest performances together, it was clear that The Ladles had something special on their hands.
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Art’s Cafe, 5 E. Main Street, Springville, NY 14141
Limited menu available
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