THE KENNEDYS ARE DREAMING BETTER DREAMS ON NEW CD

THE KENNEDYS ARE DREAMING BETTER DREAMS ON NEW CD
DUE JANUARY 22, 2008, ON APPLESEED RECORDINGS

WEST CHESTER, PA – Appleseed Recordings announces a January 22, 2008, release date for Better Dreams, the new CD from husband-and-wife duo Pete and Maura Kennedy, their first album of all-original songs in seven years.

Better Dreams follows The Kennedys’ last Appleseed recording, Songs of the Open Road, released in October 2006, which saluted some of their favorite “road music” by other songwriters. The music for the new CD was inspired by a pair of seminars Pete and Maura conducted on “using dreams to unlock your creativity.” “We found that we were writing really interesting songs in and around the workshop sessions,” they explain. “All of these songs have something to do with the dreamtime,” where “we have a different kind of freedom there.”

Time and space become fluid in the dreams The Kennedys have translated into the songs on Better Dreams. The cleansing “eternal now” flows through the CD-opening “Breathe,” which counsels, “Breathe into a new life, breathe out all the old times.” The tricky path to love is illuminated on “I Found a Road” and “Light My Way.” Real life nightmares rush into folk history (“Sago Mine,” about the January 2006 mining disaster in West Virginia) or flood the modern day (both “Give Me Back My Country” and “American Wish” lament the draining of civil liberties in post-9/11 America). The dream state itself can be a lifeboat (as on the Eastern-tinged title song and “In My Dreams”), an exhausting anchor (“No Mornings”), or, to mix metaphors, an exhilarating rocket ride to a metaphysical sock-hop (“Speed of Soul”). Appropriately, the CD concludes with an ethereal, near wordless hymn to the ultimate dream – peace (“Pacé”)

As with any CD by The Kennedys, Better Dreams is a showcase for their vocal and musical prowess, powered by Maura’s lead vocals and Pete’s multi-instrumental work. In particular on this CD, Maura uses the full range and nuance of her expressive voice, alternately soaring and plaintive, melding perfectly with the intuitive harmony vocals of Pete and the special guests on the album. In turn, Pete weaves an aural tapestry of musical tones from various guitars, mandolin, keyboards, bass and drums.

Influences from The Kennedy’s two side projects also make musical contributions to the album, heard in the use of electric sitar and ukulele from their “British folk/psychedelic” quintet, The Strangelings, as well as the sounds of The Stringbusters, Pete and Maura’s ukulele duo devoted to jazz, classical and pop.

As Folk and Acoustic Musical Exchange said in an earlier review, The Kennedys are “unafraid to mix philosophy, spirituality, love and artistry with a folk-rock back beat,” and that “is what makes this duo a positive force on all things human.”

For more information on The Kennedys, visit www.kennedysmusic.com or www.appleseedrec.com.
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