What the public is saying about Until the Ocean It's a beautiful day! Thank you KCRW for the song of the day download. Every once in a while you find a jewel in a crown of thorns. (I-Tunes user) Sounds like they used all their influences and made a darn near perfect album. (I-Tunes user) Stunning new album. Boy am I a happy man. If you know the music of the Horse Flies, you'll know what you're in for. Wowdom. Unique and groovy. (Quincy, MA) Easily the best work they've done yet - incredible tunes, great production, just a great CD. Very highly recommended. (Amazon customer) The horse flies are one of the reasons why I totally dig my ears. (YouTube listener) Horse Flies will Transport You! Just ordered your new cd and I do not buy cd's!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I love you guys that much ;o) Made me so happy to stumble across you again on JPR. I had honestly forgotten about you but when I heard the signature vocals and classic back-up I knew it was you, after 20 some years of not hearing you at all. That is the extent of the impression you made on me ;o) I thought of you as punk bluegrass back then but the label no longer applies. Or maybe it still does. Huge kudos to you for staying true to a vision of music that obviously hit home with me ... You touched me years ago and touched me again today. That is the greatest praise I can give to a musician. I don't "Like your songs", I "Feel them." I look forward to much more. Thank you very much. (Medford, OR) … The Horseflies are like advance scouts adventuring into new territories. I can hear several "traditional" musics embedded in the mix, but you pull all these together into what we scholars call a "creolization" in which all the old is carried forward into the new. Flailing banjo with oriental melodic lines and African rythmic patterns could be just a "new age" pastiche, but you have created a unity. This musical excitement induces us to accept the tough messages of the poetry. All these years I've been excited about every new stage of your music, knowing the next adventure would be as bold as the last. So I follow behind, delighted and grateful for this opening you create for us to enter new places. Thank you. (Ithaca, NY) This is the abum of 2008 for me. I can't believe that this band hasn’t gotten the recognition that they should have. The music industry isn't what it used to be, with terrible bands and singers becoming millionaires with songs written by ghost-writers and all of the best music forced into the underground. Actually... I think the music industry has always been like that. Anyways, anyone with a respect for amazing music should buy this album... there are so many different styles of music from all over the world being blended together so perfectly on this one disc that I think my head will explode every time I listen to it (that’s a good thing.) (Amazon) I've been a fan of the Horse Flies for years but never really enjoyed listening to their albums from beginning to end in one sitting. I usually pulled out one or two songs from each and left the others behind. Gravity Dance has some great numbers but the full drum kit takes away from the overall Horse Flies sound. Then I found out they were releasing a new album. On their website I found about 5 sample tracks and I was hooked enough to buy the download as soon as it appeared on Amazon. Until The Ocean is really, really good. Classic sound and some nice percussion mixed in. There are certainly tracks that are my favorites (Veins of Coal, Build a House and Burn It Down, Drunkard's Child) but I can truly enjoy the entire album. The Horse Flies are unlike any band out there today and if you can ever catch them live you will be in for a treat … If you've never heard the Horse Flies then plunk down the bucks and give it a listen. (Amazon) This album is definitely not to be missed. It is amazing how well this band blends so many different styles of music into something that sounds so good! You have to listen to every single song on the album, but my favorites have to be “Carnival Lips”, “Build a House and Burn it Down”, and “Oh Deah.” I hope that this amazing band gets the recognition that they have deserved for so long with this new release, which, in case you didn’t know, is the band’s first in over a decade. (I-Tunes) There is really only one thing to say about this album: Buy it! As a musician and long-time Horse Flies fan, I am happy to say that this album is one of the best I've heard in a long time. The music is always moving, always going somewhere, and never static. The band sounds locked in, and in the pocket. The vocals are clear, and the fiddle sits just where it should. Bass, accordion, and percussion provide an rythmic bed that just begs the listener to get up and dance. This album really deserves a 6 Star rating; it really is that good. A brilliant album from a brilliant band! (Ithaca, NY) Haunting album title, with haunting music to match. The Arabic undertones in 'Rafting from my front door' bring you on a journey to a place you don't get to visit enough. The Tom Bailey-esque vocals in 'Carnival Lips' drive us to forget that we're the freaks instead. This album is accessible to a wide audience, with a clever fusion of traditional influences from eastern Europe to Appalachia, the Bayou to the rice paddy. Innovative production techniques punctuate the humor delivered in many of the songs on this album. The minimalist instrumentals create a constant give and take, each phrase building organically on the previous in a way that can only come from musicians with so much experience together. This album is good from the first time you hear it and just keeps getting better. (Ithaca, NY) Wouldn't it be great to send a video of Baghdad Children to Barack Obama? At the Great Blue Heron Festival, when we first heard it, it was so overwhelming. People twirling and singing "I believe in love- all around love" I have the audacity to hope that song could change the world. Thanks Richie. (Guy Mills, PA) I am delighted to see this band getting national exposure. I lived in Ithaca, NY in the early 90s and heard them play their weird, wonderful music, and at that time it was harder to get eclectic sounds in wider release. I am so glad they are still making music. (I-Tunes) I was intoxicated by the undulating pulse – mesmerized by the mesmerizing banjo uke wackin. Exuberance over took me. What can I say ... ”Barbes” ... it was like being in your living room … (Cannot wait to hear the old stuff Ray Alden just put out of past flies –flying through living rooms a few decades back ). SO THANKS!!! The new CD …brilliant !!! (Connecticut) Loved the build the house, tear it down song, and great music throughout. (Florence, MA) We listened at home last night and were really impressed by the sound and production (as well as the playing of course). (Boulder, CO) Received my copy of "Until the Ocean" on Saturday,..have been wearing the grooves out of it since … I will truly miss the whole "Horseflies Experience"@ The Blue Heron this year...Thanx to the Funkyside for their speedy delivery. (Lafayette L.A.) Thanks for the new album, guys! We love it already. Nothing's made me want to dance so much in a while... (Amazon) It's 9:31 here in Athens, GA and my sweet wife Nancy just spotted a lightning bug out the kitchen window as we were gyrating to VEINS OF COAL. We carried it out onto the back porch where we danced as y'all sang and played. Great album. (Athens, GA) It ain't your grandfather's old time! (Washington, DC) You guys sound swell. (Phila., PA) I am back from Falcon Ridge where I saw the band for the first time. I was very impressed and love the new CD. (New York) So mezmerizing. You guys rock! (California) Whether it is the driving rhythm of “Human Fly” or the haunting vocals of “Drunkard’s Lone Child", these folks are fantastic! If I were fortunate enough to be in a band this is the music I would be playing. (On-line blog) Rockified traditional American fiddle & banjo music (Berkeley, CA) This memo comes from the Festival Superhero Naming Committee. Your Festival Superhero name is as follows: The Wind Charmer. This name was given in accordance with superpowers exhibited at the Rhythm and Roots Festival in Charlestown, Rhode Island, when you battled hurricane force winds with a fragile violin bow. The jury is still out as to whether you might have conjured that hurricane in the first place, but your wind charming powers were duly noted, nonetheless. Really was diggin' your tunes yesterday. A high time indeed. Keep um comin'. (Minneapolis, MN) The new music sounds great and really brings me back to Human Fly which I still love, even after many, many playings. (Williston, VT) You guys are great. Great sound. So if you're wondering if you're doing the right thing, you can stop now. (Virginia) I just bought the new cd and just ordered Human Fly, which was my first experience with you. I just listened to Carnival Lips and I saw pieces of David Byrne, Bela Fleck and Frank Zappa through a glass darkly. I also saw David Lynch and Jeunet et Caro. A bit of Luc Besson, a dash of Hank Williams and the Skillet Lickers with undertones of Baraka. Truly an amazing piece of work that grabs every stone from all corners and makes a hearty soup of beauty laced with the complications of being Human. Thank you for not stopping. Can't wait to hear a collaberation with T-bone Burnette ;o) Blast From The Past - The Horse Flies On a friend's recommendation, we hustled over to the Horse Flies show in the Dance Tent. This veteran band has remained below the radar (at least in the Southeast) only through a lack of touring. Playing instruments that appear far older than the band members, the fiddle-driven grooves are as psychedelic in their acoustic roots as anything Leftover Salmon or The String Cheese Incident ever performed, yet distinctly authentic in their instrumentation. The addition of a conga drum helped the band find and hold long pockets, and the dancing crowd roared when each song finally found a conclusion. (attendee of Shakori Hills Grass Roots Festival) [Richie] was on the other side of the stage, shredding... on a banjo. Seriously. Shredding, like... SHREDDING. Clawhammer style. Clawhammer metal electric banjo. These guys are just unbelievably good at what they do- they make me so happy... and from what I can tell, they're all just about the damned nicest people you'll ever meet. Damn near 30 years in the business, and they all still do it because they love it. (attendee of Shakori Hills Grass Roots Festival)
The Horse Flies will be touring this Spring, Summer and Autumn, and have a new album/CD, Until the Ocean. They are remarkable and thrilling musicians; if you think you know their genre of music, they will bust far beyond that while they astonish you. Judy Hyman is certainly one of greatest folk fiddlers on Planet Earth. (Vleeptronz.blogspot)
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