There are times when beauty and sadness are inextricably linked. Massachusetts-based GEM CLUB understands this fragile symmetry. The band-singer/pianist Christopher Barnes and his collaborators, cellist Kristen Drymala and vocalist Ieva Berberian-create music that is intimate, graceful, and filled with melancholy. "Breakers", their 2011 debut, paired plaintive piano melodies with impressionistic lyrics. Made primarily in Barnes's bedroom, the album displayed how music, even at its most minimal and hushed, could be cathartic, even transcendent. For the new "In Roses", arriving January 2014 from Hardly Art, GEM CLUB have ventured beyond the isolation of the bedroom to record in San Francisco at John Vanderslice's analog studio Tiny Telephone, choosing ... read more