Sussex

The celestial sound of the vibraphone and the irrepressible joy of its “operator” Michael Emenau instantly brings every Sussex audience into a world of fun and wonder. Tethering the vibes lush, resonant sounds to earth with driving fingerstyle guitar and award-winning roots songs is the work of Sussex's co-leader and multiple CFMA Contemporary Singer of the Year, Rob Lutes.

Over the past eight years and three albums, the two founders of this innovative CFMA Ensemble of the Year nominee have explored exciting and unexpected musical blends to transport audiences to places both nostalgic and uncharted.

For its third album, SHINE, the band has enlisted Joe Grass (Patrick Watson, Mara Tremblay) on pedal steel guitar and Morgan Moore (Martha Wainwright, Barr Brothers) on upright bass to produce a multi-textured sound that is not quite like anything else you've ever heard.

Genres be damned. Sussex is country-jazz, ragtime-folk and Tin Pan Alley-blues. Sweet vocal melodies, sophisticated textural vibraphone chords, sultry bass lines and soaring pedal steel runs interweaving through a set of literate, melodic songs about backyard memories, roadside motels and bittersweet love. Songs that offer 101 ways to fight - or dance with - the darkness.

With six originals from Lutes, the jazz-Americana instrumental Skating from Emenau, and three gems from the early 20th century, SHINE travels a rarely trodden sonic landscape that leads listeners close to the very heart of American music.