Uncommon Ground ^ Rue Royale

Rue Royale
Harmonies from different continents stretch into the night-sky as warm guitars strum. Distant percussion and plaintive piano pulse nearby. You're traveling along Rue Royale.
Rue Royale is a musical journey that developed from Ruth and Brookln Dekker's over-the-pond relationship. Influenced by Fleetwood Mac, Sufjan Stevens, Zero 7 and the northern UK soul of Elbow and The Doves, they began writing together and gradually developed the candle-lit Rue Royale sound, honed through acoustic gigs and home-recorded demos.

A lovingly illustrated EP, The Search For Where To Go, is the first fruit with copies already dispatched to intrigued music fans throughout the US, Canada, England and France. Its five songs open with the gentle kick-drum driven Parachutes And Lifeboats and Walls. The yearning spiritual Even In The Darkness and folk-tinged Everything Comes From You Anyway come next, before the star-gazing closer UFO.

Brookln grew up in St Louis, Mo, to church-music leading parents. He played the coffee-house circuit with God's Green Earth before moving to Chicago in 1998. A solo EP and full-length CD followed along with a short spell fronting local rock act Trevorside. Ruth was raised in Midlands county Staffordshire in the UK, a stone's throw from the historic city of Lichfield with it's 1,300-year-old cathedral. Teenage years sound-tracked by 90's Brit-pop and folk-rock, she met Brookln when touring in a choir Stateside. They wed in England three years ago and settled in Chicago soon after.

Two and a half-years after they picked up their guitars together, the Rue Royale journey has embarked. Light a candle on the table, pour another glass..and climb aboard.