Like an indulgent meal you might make at the buffet line your freshmen year of college, All the Islands is about taking all the best musical flavors and combining them into one delicious sonic superdish. Twangy banjo, bluesy harmonica, smoky saxophone, stormy cello, crisp acoustic guitar, heartbeat bass and driving drums: mmmm, take a whiff of that musical smorgasbord. 

All the Islands is a Minneapolis based folk-pop band dedicated to bringing contemporary power and punch to the wizened folk tradition. The band just released their debut album Modern Man in February 2016, which reads like a timeline into the band’s musical exploration. While the band’s genre is most clearly understood as folk/pop, each track points to a unique influence from jazz to bluegrass to rock. Yet, all the songs maintain their acoustic folk roots. Thematically, the album explores the parallel angst and beauty of living in modern society, with each song offering a unique vignette on the struggles of modern man.

The group started performing together in 2011 as a street gig under the name Bridge Street. After graduating University in 2012 as a political scientist, lead singer Joey Olson moved to Chile and spent a year and a half not using his degree. Instead he spent that time absorbing the complex rhythms of the Salsa, the burning emotion of the Tango and the great stories of Latino folk artists such as Manuel Garcia and Silvio Rodriguez. During this time he walked everywhere with his harmonica -- admittedly he sucked, as one must when playing harmonica. But eventually the soulful vibratos of the harmonica would become an integral part of his musical style. In the summer of 2014, Olson reconnected with guitarist/banjoist (yes, that’s the technical term) Drew Hagmann and began the formation of All the Islands.

Since then the band has taken off locally, playing all over Minneapolis and all the while adding more musicians to their musical archipelago. Drummer Mike Decker and Bassist Nick Spielman joined the band in 2015, ushering in a new tide of groove. Cellist David Skinner and Saxophone player Mark Lee joined the crew later in 2015 and added both punch and drama (musical drama of course). The band is currently spending most of their time brainstorming how they can be more like Nicki Minaj and Kanye West. Unfortunately, not a single productive idea has come of this. 


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