Auralei w/ Paul Fonfara (Painted Saints)

Saturday, February 18, 2017
8:00 pm

With Stephanie Tschech providing a foundation of cello and voice, complemented by mulit-instrumentalist Nate Lehner, <b>Auralai</b> combines the best of classical beauty with pop-esque rhythm and melody. Stephanie's abstract but vivid lyrics, and complex yet catchy rhythms and melodies are often described as "transporting", sometimes haunting, sometimes hilarious, always fiercely engaging. No slave to both conventional songwriting and classical cello form, Auralai brings a much needed fresh breed of indie-pop music that is nothing short of captivating.

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<b>Painted Saints</b> is centered around the songwriting of <b>Paul Fonfara.</b> With odd cinematic twists, and a transparent sense of sincerity they tackle a Spaghetti Western, Heroin Klezmer, Experimental Sad Bastard Chamber Folk, Psychadelic Shoegaze Dirge Motown, Andrew Bird if he was from Twin Peaks sound.

A transplant to Minneapolis from Denver, where after finishing a degree in music studying Clarinet, Fonfara got his start in DeVotchKa, then moved on to record and tour internationally with 16 Horsepower/Woven Hand and with Jim White on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label. When Fonfara settled in Minneapolis 9 years ago, his well-honed and exploratory talents were immediately recognized as he became a member of local favorites Spaghetti Western String Co., balancing the precision and delicacy of that band with the raucous playfulness of the Brass Messengers, and silent movie film scores of Dreamland Faces. To fill out Painted Saints, Fonfara recruited many of Minnepolis’ finest players including members of The Poor Nobodys, and Dark Dark Dark.

Throughout all of his time working with other bands and collaborators, Painted Saints has remained Fonfara’s outlet for his own songwriting. A talented painter, his songs become sprawling sonic landscapes of visually imagistic lyrics, often as melancholic and forceful as they are shimmering and lovely. Lyrically, the songs are populated by escapist dreamers, flailing underdogs, and children’s imagined civil wars. Songs find inspirations in Henry Darger paintings, a boxer comtemplating his life between the moment he takes a hit on the chin to hitting the canvas, children watching the world below from the tallest Pine tree in small town Wyoming, and bike rides through blizzards.