Sway Wild, Beth Bombara

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Laura Totten

Sway Wild

Sway Wild is comprised of Mandy Fer and Dave McGraw, who’ve been performing as a duo since 2010 but only recently adopted their current moniker. Their recently released single, “Comin’ and Goin,’” is Americana meets world music, with hushed vocals, island rhythms and gospel-esque harmonies courtesy of fellow folk duo Birds of Chicago. They’re currently touring in anticipation of the release of their debut self-titled album, out in September. With folk-rocker Beth Bombara.

press release: Sway Wild was born on a small island in the Salish Sea. Following a two-month sailing voyage through the remote anchorages of British Columbia, acclaimed indie-folk duo Dave McGraw & Mandy Fer, joined by longtime friend Thom Lord, returned to their San Juan Island, Washington home still hungry to explore. The result was nothing short of an artistic epiphany; an evolution of sound that called out loudly for a new name. Sway Wild will release its self-titled debut album worldwide on September 13.

They share “Comin’ and Goin’”, the leadoff track and single. Fer’s voice and electric guitar swoop acrobatically atop McGraw and Lord’s pulsing worldbeat inflections, while Birds of Chicago layer gospel harmonies over accompanied piano and horns. “It’s a song about impermanence...how all things come and go, as do we,” says Fer. Share "

Sway Wild’s songs navigate the corners of rock, folk, pop, jazz, prog, and funk. At its nucleus, it is music saturated in gratitude for well-lived lives and sympathetic to our shared humanity. McGraw says, “We want to make music that allows people to feel what they need to feel.” Fer and McGraw’s gorgeous harmonies paired with moving lyrics serve to both process and share their jubilation, grief, and frustration with a complex and deeply imperfect society.

Perhaps most remarkable is Fer’s astonishing electric guitar work. Using her beloved Fender Stratocaster for both lead pyrotechnics and chordal rhythms, often at the same time, Fer challenges the listener to comprehend how she manages to extract so much feeling from six strings and an amplifier. With this album, laden with Fer’s potent solos, she has decisively placed herself within the vanguard of female guitarists claiming their rightful place in an artistic pantheon that has historically been dominated by men. McGraw and Lord, who met as wildlife biologists studying endangered California condors in the Grand Canyon, provide unwavering support for Fer’s formidable musicianship.

Sway Wild was recorded in Portland, Oregon at The Hallowed Halls, a historic Carnegie Library, by engineer Justin Phelps (Cake, Galactic, Bob Weir), whose expertise at the helm is tangible in the warmth and presence of the finished product. An impressive cadre of the band’s friends and heroes brings the songs to their full, frenzied potential. Birds of Chicago and Sean Hayes provide guest vocals, members of MarchFourth add the irresistible energy of a full horn section, and cellists Skip VonKuske (Portland Cello Project) and Anna Fritz, along with Anna Tivel on violin, contribute the brooding dynamism of bowed strings.

For Fer and McGraw, the sailing expedition served as a kind of sabbatical from seven years of heavy international touring, sharing stages with the likes of Iron & Wine, Gregory Alan Isakov, and Mandolin Orange. The days on the boat were filled reading books in quiet green coves, watching humpback whales and black bears for hours on end, and talking over simple dinners of freshly baked bread and fish caught from a creaky plastic rowboat. Inspired by their journey, the three former band mates returned to their pastoral island and took to playing music in Fer and McGraw’s living room, with no aspirations other than to enjoy the process of creation. 

In the ensuing months, Fer and McGraw departed from their well-established acoustic approach in almost shocking fashion, each returning to the instruments on which they began their respective musical trajectories as teenagers. With Fer refocused on electric guitar, McGraw behind a drum kit for the first time in over a decade, and Lord on electric bass, the trio allowed themselves to rediscover everything they loved about making music. This soon gave birth to a creative torrent of new songs, and the trio emerged as a fully formed band, organically and unexpectedly, with a sound transformed. With a fresh sense of purpose, the new material was honed on tours across the U.S. and in Europe, performing alongside band favorites Lake Street Dive, Charlie Hunter Trio and others.

The name Sway Wild evokes a specific feeling. From the beginning, Fer, McGraw, and Lord intended this band, and this album, to reflect what the endeavor felt like to them: a pathway to the uninhibited unfiltered core that we all possess. The words themselves are an invitation, if not a command, to seek out this untainted part of ourselves. In many ways, Sway Wild’s music is the product of truly wild places, and, like ribbons of light piercing a dark green canopy overhead; it can help us find the wildness that is unquestionably still within us.

Michigan-bred, St. Louis-based musician Beth Bombara's album Evergreen began thousands of feet above sea level. Looking to step back and clear her head after a long bout of touring, the rock & roll-influenced Americana artist nestled herself in the Rocky Mountains in a remote cabin. The cabin’s name? Evergreen. She spent time wandering through acres and acres of untouched forest around the cabin, up and down craggy rocks that felt nothing like her native Michigan nor her adopted home of St. Louis. Almost by accident, songs for her sixth album began to take root.

“I wasn’t writing a new record -- at least, I didn’t think I was at the time,” she admits. “But I’m starting to realize, that’s just what I do. I write songs. You know how trees exhale oxygen? They don’t think too hard about oxygen...it’s just a byproduct of their existence. Well, songs are a byproduct of my existence. I’ve already exhaled these songs, but maybe they’re a needed breath for someone else. And the idea that even one other person needs them is what fulfills me.”

Although based in Missouri, Bombara has spent much of her adulthood on the road, carving out her own award-winning mix of vintage folk and electric roots-rock. She’s been a solo artist, a bandleader, and an occasional side musician for other artists. With Evergreen, Bombara resumes her role as the leader of an amplified Americana band. These songs were largely written on the run -- in friend’s basements, during soundchecks, and on the road -- while Bombara and company toured the country in support of her 2017 release, Map and No Direction. As a result, there’s a strong sense of movement here, from Samuel Gregg’s versatile guitar playing to the thump of the group’s rhythm section (featuring Mike Schurk on drums and Kit Hamon -- Bombara’s right-hand man and longtime collaborator -- on bass). Gluing the sound together are Bombara’s unforced vocals, sharp hooks, and optimistic lyrics, which find her taking an honest look at life’s difficulties while continuing to move forward with positivity.

“Getting to work these songs out on the road was invigorating,” says the songwriter, who’d previously recorded Map and No Direction with a small, insular team consisting of Hamon and co-producer Karl Kling. “So I already feel invincible with my touring band, and then my friend John Calvin Abney joined in on keys (and production). The five of us just walked in to the studio, set up in one live room, and hammered out the whole album in less than a week. It was the most fun I’ve ever had making a record. Everyone’s doing what they do...it just felt effortless.”

From Tom Petty’s heartland rock & roll to Aimee Mann’s quirky indie-folk, Evergreen sources its inspiration from iconic sources. Even so, this is the unmistakably unique work of Beth Bombara, a singer/songwriter who, over a half-dozen albums, has nodded to past traditions while always pushing ahead into new territory. Evergreen is her newest high-water mark: an album that matches her craft with the nuanced stomp of her strongest band to date.