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Allysen Callery is a folk artist from Rhode Island/USA, Her vocal delivery recalls the haunting style of the late 60’s early 70’s British Folk Revival.
Her first two albums Hopey (2007) and Hobgoblin’s Hat (2010) were self released, but reached an international audience, thanks to radio stations such as Folk Radio UK, Sideways Through Sound (Australia) & favorable reviews from Terrascope.
In 2011 her EP Winter Island was released by Berlin based indie label Woodland Recordings, with Allysen touring Germany & Switzerland in it’s support. The rare first edition of this EP sold out in it’s first month of release.
In 2012 her second EP The Summer Place again was released by Woodland Recordings, with Allysen again returning to Germany and Switzerland. In addition the vinyl only record label JellyFant pressed Winter Island &The Summer Place into one beautiful limited edition record.
September 2013 marked Allysen’s 5th release, the full length Mumblin’ Sue on JellyFant (DE) and domestically on the eclectic 75 or Less label for CDs, iconic artwork designed by the great William Schaff.
2014 saw the release of an EP Allysen Callery Folk Radio UK Session which marked the first official pairing of Allysen and musician/producer Bob Kendall, who provided a delicate psyche touch on 4 tracks, including a never before released track called All in the Morning and a cover of the Traditional Blackwaterside. Two singles were later released that year a cover of Bonnie Prince Billy’s I Gave You for the music blog Slowcoustic and on JellyFant Schallplatten a cover of Sybille Baier’s The End with sweeping production by Bob Kendall.
In 2016 her 6th full length album The Song the Songbird Sings was self-released on CD. In 2017 it was released on vinyl in cooperation of Jellyfant and cosirecords.
Also in 2017 the EP “Prince’s Pine” was release on the UK Folk Label Reverb Worship.
Allysen tours in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and domestically from Maine to NYC.
In 2014 she played multiple showcases at the SXSW (South by Southwest) festival, and was ranked highly by The Washington Post and out of 1500 acts made a list of 40 by NPR ‘s Bob Boilen for “Intriguing unknown artists”.
On July 30th, 2015, Allysen sang on the Harbour Stage with the folk group Haunt The House at The Newport Folk Festival.
March 2017 Allysen returned to SXSW to play two showcases.
Allysen's a songwriter and (self-taught) guitarist from Rhode Island who produces what she herself terms "quiet music for a loud world", and what's been dubbed by others "ghost folk". Certainly the latter tag can seem particularly accurate, in that Allysen's music often seems familiar from somewhere you can't quite place, the ghost of a song you might know perhaps, and also in that she sings almost exclusively in a tender, hushed tone, if not exactly pianissimo. However, this doesn't mean her music lacks expression, or that her writing lacks substance. Her music doesn't need to shout or force an entry into your mind; it casts its oblique spell without overwhelming the sound picture.
“Ghost Folk” artist Allysen Callery is back with a new release that reaffirms her reputation as a leading singer-songwriter. The Song the Songbird Sings is the Bristol, Rhode Island guitarist’s first full length album since Mumblin’ Sue, her outstanding 2013 release that caught the ear of American and European audiences. The new release highlights her trademark British folk revival sound of the 60’s and 70’s which this time includes layers of sonic colour from guitar wiz Bob Kendall.
Books, plants, shadows, lights and cats: Allysen Callery, one of the most peculiar and fascinating voices of the current American folk scene, does not hesitate to betray the domestic setting, the daily essentiality, the deeply earthly nature of her inspiration. The warmth of small things, of those rituals that are repeated unchanging day after day, that environment of intimate familiarity that has made the strength of many, more or less great, in the history of traditional song, and that continues to offer its evils to those who want to find comfort and support: it is not necessary much more to the artist of Rhode Island to outline her rich artistic vision, which to the limitation of the instrumental compartment reaffirms again with her fourth album "The Song The Songbird Sings" the extraordinary variety of harmony and writing which is endowed with.
Ihr aktuelles Album “The Song the Songbird Sings”, das vor kurzem auf Vinyl neu herauskam, kommt auf sehr leisen Sohlen daher, und der Opener “It’s not the Ocean” hat mit fließendem Saitenspiel, entspannten Twangs und der leisen Melancholie des Gesangs etwas von einem Schlaflied. Doch nicht nur die Verse über das Ertrinken, auch eine leichte Brüchigkeit in der vielleicht etwas zu trostreichen Stimmung liefern einen kurzen Blick ins Bodenlose mit. Ohne zu stark vergleichen zu wollen, vermute ich, dass Hörer, die Ähnliches bei Marissa Nadler oder in etwas subtilerer Form bei Josephine Foster schätzen, auch an Callerys Songs Gefallen finden werden.