Ondara
The Rebirth Tour

Ondara

Ondara’s new album, Spanish Villager No: 3, was predominately produced by Ondara and Mike Viola (Jenny Lewis, Dan Wilson) with contributions from Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes, Sebastian Steinberg, Tim Kuhl and Jeremy Stacey. The new collection of songs features a much more full, electric sound.

Of the album, Ondara states, “This collection of work and the work that lies ahead in presenting it to the world, is a metaphor for my spiritual path. There is death and resurrection in it, a peeling of layers, a pursuit of the truest form of the self in the universe. Ironically, the adaptation of the Spanish Villager character has made me more acquainted with myself. By creating an obvious demarcation between the art and the artist, I have charted two paths of maturation. One path is the maturation of the Spanish Villager as a work of art, as a character in a narrative, as a commodity partaking in the mandatory sport of capitalism; The other is my own personal maturation into a spiritual, integrated, and useful member of society.”

The namesake behind the new album is The Spanish Villager: a mysterious man with a potent message who has proven to be a versatile guy: he’s the subject of a short story Ondara wrote and turned into a graphic novel, and now a new album.

Spanish Villager No: 3 follows his 2020 sophomore album, Folk N’ Roll Vol 1: Tales of Isolation, and his 2019 debut album, Tales of America, which received a nomination for Best Americana Album at the 62nd Grammy Awards. Ondara also received a nod for Best Emerging Act at the 2019 Americana Awards.

Ondara grew up in Nairobi, Kenya listening to American alt-rock and making up his own songs for as long as he can remember. At an early age he fell in love with the music of Bob Dylan and was granted a visa through the immigration lottery system. He chose Minneapolis as his home to pursue a career as a singer and songwriter with Dylan in mind. He began making his way in the local music scene, continually writing songs about what he saw, felt and experienced in a place far different from home.

Katacombs

Katacombs is the name Katerina Kiranos landed on after years of building sculptural furniture of bone and wood. Born in Miami to a Spanish mother and Greek father, she spent the majority of her early life bouncing between multiple cultures and wanting to adapt. The common thread anywhere she landed was her love for music. Piano lessons as a child led to days on end of writing and recording from her makeshift bedroom-studio as a teen, which turned into years of collecting songs- all just to store them away. Though she took a detour career-wise, she continued to play where she could and could never escape the urge to spend every day honing her first true passion. She played keys in a few bands and dabbled in open mics but always ended up feeling best in a dark room, single-handedly curating dramatic and ethereal melodies. Set on finally sharing that part of her world, the one most sacred, she started with a small body of work that embodies a wide range of some of her deeply rooted experiences and influences.

“You Will Not”, her debut EP, is a collection of songs that individually represent a place and time of her life, amounting to a rather emotional rollercoaster that traverses geographical borders and genres, hitting the highs and the lows of self-discovery.