MP3 Premiere: Ariel + The Undertow’s “Kindness from Strangers”

Ariel + The Undertow: s/t (1/22/13)

“Kindness from Strangers”

Ariel + The Undertow: Kindness from Strangers

After a sparse, acoustic debut in 2010, Ariel Rubin has swung the opposite direction for her Kickstarter-funded second album, Ariel & The Undertow. With the aid of backing musicians including Duke Levine, Annie Hoffman, and John Ducharme, the record was put together in a year following Rubin’s battle with chronic fatigue syndrome.

“Kindness from Strangers” is Rubin standing up to that fatigue and depression. Name-checking Marilyn Monroe, Sylvia Plath, and Virginia Woolf in the opening, she rolls from her bluesy refusal to follow these ill-fated women into a song of triumph. Her clear, strong voice, reverb-soaked guitars, and a well-placed synth solo ring out, washing out thoughts of darkness with gratitude for a beautiful world and the people in it.

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