Caught in the Carousel

Rio En Medio

The Bride of Dynamite
Gnomonsong

Imagine an empty house perching on a mountainside in a desert landscape. Outlines of old framed photographs still mark the sun-weathered walls inside, with only a silhouette of the portraits that used to hang there. Sand litters the halls and the walkways, and on these walls a rhythm resonates with a sound that is felt more than heard. The Bride of Dynamite could be a soundtrack to such a place, as Rio En Medio's vocals eerily mimic the sounds of what could have existed once upon a time. The often ethereal and layered vocals serve as the narration to the stories of ghosts, and of a time and a place one could only bear witness to in a dream. Rio En Medio is a moniker for Danielle Stech Homsy, a musician from New York via California and notably, Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Rio En Medio borrows its name. Homsy recorded the album solely for artistic reasons with no intention of formerly releasing it—that is until a copy she gave to a friend found its way to Devendra Banhart, a musician and poet, and co-founder of Gnomonsong Records.

The Bride of Dynamite encapsulates a wide assortment of musical influences, from classical to traditional folk to electronica, a fusion that is at one point organic and simple, and at another volatile and otherworldly. Borrowing from the text of William Blake, John Ashbery, and a Baghdad travelogue from the 1920s, Homsy places their words in an intimate and almost extraterrestrial-sounding musical background. Handclaps and the sound of children laughing and talking in the background give ballast to Homsy's light and airy vocals on "Everyone is Someone's" while her baritone ukulele provides a folksy backdrop to the whimsy lyrics of "Girls On The Run." "Friday" stands out among its counterparts as it combines percussion beats and digital samples with Homsy's ethereal vocals, creating images reminiscent of fractured scenes from a broken dream. Fans of the aforementioned Banhart and Joanna Newsom might also enjoy Rio En Medio's magical stories and the characters she sets to a dreamy background of digital samples and vaporous, ghost-like imagery. Anyone looking for an adventure or some intellectual nourishment for the imagination should take a bite out of The Bride of Dynamite.

—Camille Iris Cook