Born and raised in Kansas, Melora Creager comes from a musical family and received classical training. At 18 she moved to New York City to attend Parsons School of Design. While majoring in photography she began playing her cello in rock bands and became involved with drag performers. She formed "The Fingerlakes Trio," a falsely geeky classical group that performed covers of disco hits, before joining NYC's Ultra Vivid Scene who recorded three albums for cult British label, 4AD. It was her first exposure to the professional rock world -- UVS opened for label mates like The Pixies, Belly and Throwing Muses. Following a tour with Nirvana as a cellist on their In Utero tour she desired to do a project of her own, and she created Rasputina.

The concept for the group came to her fully formed; the idea was written as a manifesto. Her intention was to create an electric cello choir -- no boys or guitars allowed. Through want ads she recruited like-minded young cellists. Rasputina evolved, employing elaborate costuming, as they were unable to move about while forcibly stationary in their chairs. What began as strictly "Victorian Whites" -- bloomers, corsets and hoopskirts, has evolved into an amalgam of historical feminine icons -- Indian princesses, Hawaiian handmaidens and fallen medieval queens, Rasputina keeps their cultish following enthralled with intimate recitals and post-show receiving lines.

Rasputina works as an anomaly in popular music. By ignoring fashion trends and maintaining artistic integrity coupled with musical enthusiasm, the group has thrived as time has passed. They expose passionate fans to historical tales, and inspire young string players to seek alternatives to the classical world.

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Parplar is the Young God debut from the fabulous itinerant force of nature Larkin Grimm. She's got an elemental voice that comes from somewhere under the earth. She alternately moans like a woman-in-full, wails like a banshee, or coos like a crazed little girl, depending on her mood. Parplar was co-produced by Michael Gira (Devendra Banhart, Akron/Family, Angels Of Light, Swans) and Larkin Grimm. It was recorded at Old Soul Studio in Catskill NY, with additional recording at Seizure's Palace in Brooklyn and mixed at Trout Recording, Brooklyn. Larkin's risen to the occasion on this one – really found herself as a singer, and it features absolutely stellar vocal performances of songs that are sometimes soulful, whimsical, sensual or bizarre. The production is as varied and unpredictable as Larkin herself. Parplar is released Oct 28, 2008.

Larkin and co-producer Michael Gira have been in email correspondence since early '04, when Larkin sent him a crude demo of her vocalizing to an inexpertly but nevertheless very musically played double bass and scraping metal sounds. Gira heard something essential in her voice and encouraged her to work on developing her true voice and to master an instrument. Along the way she did that and much, much more. She's developed a powerful, multi-faceted woman's voice, is an expert finger-picker and has become a highly individual/eccentric songwriter. In 2007 Larkin and Gira finally met in person for the first time at his house near Woodstock, NY, and commenced honing in on her immense repertoire of accumulated recent songs. After a few months of intense work they chose the 15 songs that comprise this album, culled from a list of about 50.

In addition to singing and writing the songs Larkin plays acoustic guitar, banjo, decrepit casio, Chinese harp, and mountain dulcimer. Most of the recording was done in the living room at Old Soul ­ usually littered with vintage instruments but cleared for the occasion ­ and you can hear the wood of the late 18th century mansion in the sound. Guest musicians include Young God's new luminaries Fire On Fire (Colleen Kinsella, Caleb Mulkerin, Micah Smalldone and Chriss Sutherland). They played a variety of instruments – dbl bass, banjo, accordion, electric and acoustic guitars, dobro, percussion, and also donated a hefty slather of their patented backwoods vocal harmonies. Additional contributors include Jordan Voelker (viola) and Brian Carpenter (trumpet) of Beat Circus, Eszter Balint (violin), Phil Puleo (hammer dulcimer), Steve Moses (trombone), Gwen Snyder (piano, vibraphone, glockenspiel vocals ), Kenny Siegal electric guitar and other assorted instruments), Siobhan Duffy Gira (vocals) and Jason LaFarge (electric guitar)...

Larkin GrimmLarkin Grimm was born 26 years ago in Memphis TN to hippie devotees of the religious cult The Holy Order Of MANS - her parents were runaway kids that met in San Francisco in the late 60's and eventually found their way into the cult, which later moved to Memphis. Larkin spent her early years in this communal environment, raised by several parents at once. When the cult disbanded Larkin was 6, and her nuclear family moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia and quickly grew to include 5 siblings. Larkin says she ran wild in the mountains and was "raised by the family dog." Larkin got the taste of music in her from her fiddler and singer father and her folksinger mother. She dropped out of school at 10 and didn't return until 12. At 13 she was sent to boarding school (courtesy of Georgia's Coca Cola, which funds the school with the intent of helping gifted Appalachian children). Larkin excelled, (though her erupting hormones and wild imagination were already roaring) and she won a full scholarship to Yale to study art. She spent a while there then freaked out at the elitism of the place. She left and returned several times, somehow along the way managing to find herself in Thailand, where she studied Thai healing massage and "befriended strippers and watched them being humiliated and abused by sex tourists", bummed around Guatemala, and also hitchhiked around southern Alaska by herself, until she found a place "so beautiful I couldn't leave, camped out there in my tent for about 2 months with the plan to starve to death, get eaten, or get enlightened." Larkin says a Cherokee shaman named Jezebel Crow found her on the mountaintop and lured her to her truck with the promise of maple syrup and sausages. She became her "first great teacher, initiating me into the shamanic practice of using natural hallucinogens to gain spiritual wisdom. On one such trip, I got my first jolt of golden light to the brain and was possessed by a forest spirit who taught me to sing." Jezebel drove her down to her commune in Olympia, Washington, where she would live off and on for a few years, soon hanging out with "eco-warriors, vagabonds, sexual deviants and various other miscreants." But Jezebel encouraged Larkin to go back to Yale and when she returned Larkin started incorporating singing into her art practice, which led her finally to decide to become "a real musician".

Back at Yale for the last time (eventually "graduating" with one credit left to go) Larkin met Dave Longstreth and became a member of Dirty Projectors for a time. When she left that band she joined up with the Providence RI Noise/Art scene, and was active in arranging gigs and festivals there, as well as working on her own music. Larkin soon made 3 self-recorded albums of freeform, improvisational songs (or "acoustic noise" as she calls it), 2 of which were released by Secret Eye (Harpoon, and The Last Tree). She books her own tours, travels constantly, and has by her own force of will, itinerant nature, and sense of reckless adventure managed to build a supportive network of friends and fans around Europe and the US/Canada. Larkin has shared bills with Devendra Banhart, Spires that in the Sunset Rise, Espers, Mi and L'au, Brightblack Morning Light, Entrance, Viking Moses, the Microphones, and Old Time Relijun. She has no permanent address (and doesn't want one), but in the warm summer months can usually be found living in a tent in the woods.