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The Music of Over the Rhine

Named after Cincinnati's poorest neighborhood, Over the Rhine was formed in 1989, played its first paid show at a "Rock-n-Roll Laundromat," and released its first album, Till We Have Faces, in 1991. Perennially yoked with the moniker of being "one of America's great unsigned bands," singer Karin Bergquist and chief songwriter, Linford Detweiler, prefer to concentrate on creating eclectic and artful music. "We may remain primarily an underground phenomenon," Bergquist says. "Maybe that's the beauty of Over the Rhine.
Maybe we're an independent film, a handwritten diary, a secret love" (OTR's website). This said, the band is not unknown, having toured with the likes of Bob Dylan, Bruce Cockburn, and Cowboy Junkies. Both Bergquist and Detweiler, in fact, are honorary members and tour frequently with Cowboy Junkies; in 1998, after appearing with the band on David Letterman and a tour of their own overseas, they returned to America! to discover characters on an X-Files episode had been named after them. The Cutting
Room Floor, an independent album of rarities, was released in 2002; their last studio
album, Films For Radio, 2001, is available on Back Porch Records. Over the Rhine's mysterious music and depth-charged lyrics deserve an ever-increasing audience. Peculiar and popular, traditional and experimental, influenced by Americana, folk, rock, and pop, the band continues to create its paradoxical wonder.