"Talking-songs" is Adam Gnade's (guh-nah-dee) attempt to write music that sounds "how America feels." Based around prose writing (not poetry or spoken word) he brings in elements of noise, country, mountain music, and work songs. His albums and stories (his first novel, Hymn California, is out this Valentine's Day Dutchmoney Books) intersect, sharing characters, creating a "universe of lives and backstories." In the past two years, he's toured the US and UK twice (alongside friends Youthmovies, Jonquil, Eugene McGuinness, Blanket, and House of Brothers) and released records on Drowned in Sound Recordings, Loud + Clear, BelowPDX, DeathBombArc, Native Kin, Bad Drone, and Try Harder Records. Live, sometimes it's Adam with a banjo or five-string acoustic guitar standing in the middle of the crowd; sometimes full band basement orchestra. This fall saw the release of the Honey Slides EP, a collaboration with Oxford, England's Youthmovies on the Try Harder label and the Palaces/Whidbey Island double-CD. A 12" version of Palaces/Whidbey Island will be released in July 2008 by Bad Drone Media.

"As a lyricist Gnade remains a gifted artist at work; macro portraits are constructed, giving us cinematic views of the characters in the music and instantly dropping the listener square in the middle of Gnade's world of hopelessness, long windy nights and a cast of hopeless romantics making their way through the world." --The Mag