We here at Cleft Music, as well as many of our closest friends, spent our college days listening to Elephant 6 bands. If you live in the Southeast and love music or certainly play music, especially of the independent variety, Athens, Ga, is well known as an eclectic music scene. Perhaps over romanticized by some (Nashville can have the same phenomenon), we like to think that when he heard Ham1 for the first time on their 2005 debut, we heard everything we understood to be good about Athens music- understated but intelligent songwriting, catchy pop sensibilities and a reworking of typical rock instrumentation. How many rock bands employ cello, trombone, a toy drum kit found in a dumpster and still sound like a tidal wave? Ham1 taps into surf music, spaghetti westerns, tender folk songs, sing along dirges, and fleet footed rockers. You could put an entire album together of just their instrumental numbers. Cleft Music first worked with the band by helping finish their 3rd LP, "The Underground Stream," released in '09 by our friends, Infinity Cat. Previous to that their 2nd album was issued by Athens label, Orange Twin, home to bands like Elf Power and Vic Chestnutt. Ham1 has even backed Chestnutt on a handful of tours as well as songwriter, Liz Durrett. They are currently working on their 4th album. You can download their entire first album at their site, www.Ham1.org, as well as here selections from their most current release. Of course, feel free to hear them on our page as well. Listen.
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