Upstate has spent 15 years building their Hudson Valley folk sound in pieces, but Abalone, their fourth album, is the first one all four members wrote together, recorded live to analog tape, and released as something that sounds genuinely more like them than anything before. The Abalone Tour brings that record to The Falcon in Marlboro on Friday, December 4.
About the Show
The Hudson Valley quartet of Mary Webster (vocals, acoustic guitar), Melanie Glenn (guitar, vocals), Harry D’Agostino (upright bass), and Dylan McKinstry (guitar) has been at this for 15 years, releasing three albums before this one: A Remedy, Healing, and You Only Get a Few. Abalone, out October 2 on Royal Potato Family, marks a turning point: it is the first record where all four co-wrote together, and the first to incorporate McKinstry’s male vocals into the three-part harmony blend that has defined the band from the start.
The recording approach was deliberate. The band cut the album live directly to analog tape, a rejection of the splice-it-later convenience of digital recording. Webster has said the result felt “way more raw and genuinely us than they would have been otherwise.” D’Agostino describes Abalone‘s themes as “a long and brute history that gets illuminated and transfigured by something new and from without.” Critics have reached for Lake Street Dive, The Roches, and Manhattan Transfer to describe the band’s sound; one reviewer added a touch of Loretta Lynn, which lands closer to right than the comparison has any business doing. The album’s ten tracks are described as deeply human and emotionally resonant, introspective without losing lightness.
Webster has said the band has “led with humor and personality over perfection” throughout their career, and Abalone, in its rawness, keeps that spirit.
Venue & Logistics
The Falcon is a 150-capacity listening room on Route 9W in Marlboro, nationally respected for booking jazz, blues, rock, soul, Americana, and the acts that don’t fit any single label, with musicianship as the common thread. For a band whose creative philosophy runs toward rawness and the live moment, this is the right room. Dining runs 5:30 to 9 p.m.; music at 7:30 p.m. The room is small, and advance reservations are worth making: call 845-236-7970 or book through liveatthefalcon.com. The Hudson Valley has no shortage of good listening rooms, and The Falcon is one of the ones that earns its reputation night by night.
Tickets
No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. Buy tickets