The Tallest Man On Earth – Tickets – College Street Music Hall – New Haven, CT – March 5th, 2022
The Tallest Man On Earth
Daughter of Swords
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This event is Reserved Seated on the Floor with General Admission Standing Pit, as well as Reserved Seated in the Balcony.
COVID-19 Vaccination (14 days past second shot) OR proof of negative COVID-19 PCR test (received within the past 72 hours) required for entry. If vaccinated, please bring your vaccination card or clearly legible photo of your vaccination card on your phone and a valid photo ID. If unvaccinated please bring printed or digital proof of your recent negative PCR test. Masks are required for all ticket holders and staff despite vaccination status. You may pull your mask down when eating or drinking only. These policies will remain in place until further notice.
To present proof of vaccination and/or negative PCR test results on your phone, we’ve partnered with Bindle, a digital health platform that is secure, easy to use and completely anonymous; your personal health information is never shared and your biometrics are not required. Visit the App Store or Google Play Store and search for MyBindle. Set-up is free and simple. If you are unable to provide digital proof, physical proof is also accepted.
***In the interest of public health, The Tallest Man On Earth has postponed his 3/4/21 show (originally 5/7/20) until March 5, 2022. Hold onto your tickets as they will be honored for the rescheduled date. Refunds are available at point of purchase until 3/2/21 at 10AM.***
THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH
On April 19th, 2019, The Tallest Man On Earth released his first album in 4 years. I Love You. It’s A Fever Dream. was written, produced and engineered by Kristian Matsson and was recorded almost entirely in his apartment in Brooklyn, NY.
When asked for some insight into the album, Matsson says “Here’s what I can tell you: Of course there are some love songs and then there are some other songs. Making the album I was thinking a lot about the lenses we view our lives through and that, for some reason, our worst tendencies seem to be carried out so loudly, while our best can go unnoticed. I’ve come to realize that some of the most powerful, most inspiring moments in my life have been the most subtle and that so often the thing that deserves my attention, is trying the least to get it.”
In recent years Matsson has undertaken single oriented projects that incorporate writing, producing and self releasing songs and videos in regular intervals, often with purposefully intense deadlines. He’s described finding inspiration in the entire process, and in particular in the satisfaction of making something and having it out quickly. For listeners and viewers the fascination has been in watching an artist work through his life, in problems and celebrations large and small, putting his thoughts out into the world while he’s still processing them himself and watching them evolve over time.
Links: Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Spotify
DAUGHTER OF SWORDS
In 2017, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig began recording a set of songs... about a breakup that had yet to happen. Her partnership had drifted into a comfortable state of indecision, stalling when it came time to make big life moves or chase new horizons. She had the sense that she needed to slip the relationship in order to pursue everything else life might have in store -- more music, more adventures, a general sense of the unknown. Those feelings drifted steadily into a set of songs that lamented the inevitable loss but, more important, outlined the promise of the future. Recording the ten tracks that became her stunning solo debut, Dawnbreaker, under the new name Daughter of Swords gave Sauser-Monnig permission to go.
Dawnbreaker began as the first phase of Sauser-Monnig's return to music after stepping to the sidelines for the better part of a decade. Her college trio, Mountain Man, rose to quick acclaim for their peerless harmonies around 2010, but the friends slowly drifted apart, following their own interests to different coasts and concerns. While working on a flower farm as a farmhand, though, Sauser-Monnig realized that she missed the emotional articulation she found in writing songs and singing them and resolved to start again. She pieced together an album just as Mountain Man -- now newly gathered in the fertile Piedmont of North Carolina -- began to regroup for its second LP, 2018's aptly named Magic Ship. Working with Sylvan Esso's Nick Sanborn, Sauser-Monnig shaped what began as quiet reflections into confident compositions, crackling with country swagger and a sparkling pop warmth. They were, after all, preemptive odes to the next phase of life.
Calling the ten tunes of Dawnbreaker breakup songs is to hamstring them with elegiac expectations, to paint them as sad-eyed surrenders to loss and grief. Sure, there is the gentle opener "Fellows," a hushed number that explores the turmoil of being unable to reciprocate the feelings of a wild and shy, tall and fine man. And there's the blossoming country shuffle of "Easy Is Hard," where Sauser-Monnig stands in the yard and sees her lover leave, his taillights fading into the night sky; she can't sleep, so she gets up to turn the lights and stereo on, to "feel my soul coming down."
Even there, amid the throes of a life convulsion, there is a wisp of hope and possibility, framed by the way "the dim light change[s] into dawn, rosy blue, pink fawn." The very heart of Dawnbreaker is not the impending breakup that inspired many of its songs but the sense of liberation and breaking out that the breakup inspired. Buoyed by the insistent patter of a drum machine and rich acoustic guitars, Sauser-Monnig finds herself in search of new thrills during "Gem," whether pondering the fleeting nature of existence at a waterfall's edge or watching the shapes of mountains seemingly dance beneath her headlights. The muted, harmonica-lined boogie of "Sun" begins with a vulnerable confession, a revelation of loneliness; it is, however, a low-key anthem for the open road, about giving oneself over to the infinity of solitude and an endless strip of asphalt. Sauser-Monnig captures these scenes with a painter's eye and delivers them with a novelist's heart.
There's no better testament than "Shining Woman," where Sauser-Monnig portrays a ropy woman navigating her "steel steed" up and down the bends and passes of California's fabled Highway 1. She openly marvels at that spirit and strength, wishing that for her own life. With Dawnbreaker, she has found it in some measure -- the joy of something new, the excitement of risk. Though Sauser-Monnig nearly recorded these songs as barebones folk ballads, she reimagined them with Sanborn and a top-tier crew of North Carolina friends, like fellow Mountain Man singers Amelia Meath and Molly Sarlé, bandleader Phil Cook, and guitarist Ryan Gustafson. These vivid settings highlight the emotional contours of these songs, revealing the complexity that comes with knowing that, in order to live, you sometimes have to let something as strong as love go.
At the start of "Human," the undeniable climax of Dawnbreaker, Sauser-Monnig wakes up early and finds her lover in bed. She slips out of the room, watches the sun rise alone, and has herself a long think amid nature's frozen splendor. What does it mean to leave? What does it mean to stay? Is she wrong, and is he right? As the piano rises and her voice multiplies, coming in now from all sides, she admits something crucial to herself: "You can't will a love to life/But you can do the loving thing: Make like a bird and fly." It is a moment of reckoning with one's own liberation, of realizing that sometimes a profound loss is the only way to gain something else. That is the lesson of Dawnbreaker, an intimate document of what it means to set oneself free.
Links: Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Spotify
College Street Music Hall
238 College Street
New Haven, CT, 06510