Taking flight with a new partner
BIRDS OF CHICAGO, a collective based around the musical partnership of JT Nero and Alison Russell, release their self-titled debut album this month. Released in the US in October, the record has attracted some positive reviews for the duo. For example, the Chicago Sun-Times hailed them as “two of the most compelling new voices in American roots music”.
Nero explains the genesis of the group thus: “We’ve been collaborating in increasing regularity over the last several years with our respective bands — Alison in Po’ Girl and me with JT and the Clouds. We’ve been mutual fans of each other’s music, played at each other’s shows and on each other’s records. So it reached a point to give the thing between us its own space and its own name. Initially we were going to use our own names and the title of the record was going to be Birds of Chicago. But we ended up calling ourselves that as well. It seems to stick in people’s consciousness.”
