Read all about it: SHUFFLEMAG.com/aaron berg talks about exiles-in paradise.

Horizon is pleased as punch to have just set out a stack of CDs from our own Aaron Berg (and 3 of our favorite upstate musicians). This post modern Americana opus is the result of 2 years of sonic work spanning a recording session in Chicago, then a mixing episode in Nashville and finally pressed up and released this month to us and the world. Read on or find out more, listen and download stuff at www.aaronbergmusic.net

THE SINGER: Raised in South Carolina, Aaron Berg grew up in a household that owns one of the South’s oldest independent record stores. So, it wasn’t surprising when at a young age he began playing bass and at 18 moved to New York City to study jazz bass at New School University. Soon the sonic direction of Berg began to veer as the Greenwich Village folk scene worked a spell on him blending his thoughts of the Carolinas back home with the blasts of life on the streets of Brooklyn. Berg abandoned jazz and dived into the teaming waters of Brooklyn’s post-modern singer songwriter scene. His first record “Songs for Madame X” debuted in 2007 -a flurry of recording and touring was followed by a self-published book of prose”Midnight Shining Sun” (an autobiographical travelogue packaged with a 14-track CD).

THE ALBUM: “Exiles In Paradise” is the second full-length studio album by Aaron Berg. Recorded in Chicago, and mixed in Nashville, “Exiles…” features: Mike Bagwell (pedal steel), John Byce (drums), and Chris Garrett (bass). Special guests include Jim Becker of Califone and Tim Joyce of Lesser Birds of Paradise. Instrumentation also includes upright piano, Fender Rhodes, violin, bowed bass, Hammond M3 organ, various percussion, dance hall drum machine, and ambient loops.

THE SOUND: While Berg draws on a mixture of Appalachian folk, 90′s grunge, delta blues, and contemporary Americana and hip hop, his sound is anchored in

JB’s BEST of 2011
Drummer, composer, tastemaker, father, avid vinyl collector, Greenville resident and leader in sweater fashion. Former Fruitbat, Rocket Number Nine Zoom Zoom Up, and current Heavy Love and North Main Rambler.

1 BEIRUT – The Rip Tide
Is this perfection?!? The songs (concentrated pop), the arrangements (dense with ideas but devoid of clutter) and the language (original by way of saturated world folk study) lead me to believe so. After exploring eccentric musics and challenging himself, he found his audience on his own terms. The last few records were great but on this one he found his voice in all it’s uniqueness and delivered a highly polished record that will be celebrated (at least in my home) for many years to come.

2 GIRLS – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
They’re stepping out on an epic adventure so expect the unexpected. He’s still singing mostly about girls (this would include his mom) but their sonic pallet has expanded and they use these tools in effective ways.

3 TORO Y MOI – Underneath the Pine
It doesn’t hurt that he is from South Carolina but he is doing something new. It’s pop music and dance music. Doing them both well, at the same time is the rub. No, I don’t think the Bee Gees did.

4 TUNE-YARDS – Whokill
Musically gifted, socially connected and full of perspective, she may be the perfect communicator. And with a voice that can charge, prod, soothe, hurt and love she connects with the listener in a pure and intense way.

5 DESTROYER – Kaputt
I admit that I stay one step behind Destroyer. Every record he makes I’m pissed that it doesn’t sound like the previous one. Kaputt is no different. I guess this one sounds like a cocaine fueled roller rink.

6 ST. VINCENT – Strange Mercy
Ballsy progressive guitar rock from protestant over-achieving chick. Think Sufjan but

NATHAN SALSBURG – acoustic guitarist
New CD/LP out NOW! “Affirmed”

Louisville, Kentucky’s Nathan Salsburg is a folklorist, producer, and presenter of vernacular music for East Village Radio, the Drag City imprint Twos & Fews, and the Alan Lomax Archive, among other outlets. With his first solo record as a performer — entitled Affirmed, after the 1978 winner of horse racing’s Triple Crown — he enters a wholly new interaction with the corpus of American (and British) musical folklore. The album, seven original instrumentals and one trad arrangement, is a startlingly diverse synthesis of guitar traditions — from Gary Davis to Sam McGee; Peter Lang to Nic Jones — refracted through a compositional sensibility long on melodic adventurousness and short on repetition and drone, those shibboleths of the American Primitives. Affirmed is a remarkably confident, emotional debut by one of the most original and gifted young guitarists playing today.