Sounds for the soul: Music takes the TV studio

Johanna Warren performs before a live studio audience.

Kristina Stuntebeck

Johanna Warren performs before a live studio audience.

Kristina Stuntebeck, Managing Editor

Haunting, beautiful echos filled the TV studio on campus last Sunday afternoon as musical artist Adron kicked off HU Radio’s first in-studio session with the song “Jorgonian of the Midnight Sun,” a lullaby she wrote about a Viking from outer space.

Artists Johanna Warren and Adron stopped at Hamline as part of their Tandem Totem Tour that will carry them from Minnesota to New York.

“I was booking the tour and looking for places to play. Playing at a college is always nice,” Warren said.

Senior Charlie Shafer, the station manager for HU Radio, said Warren reached out to him two months ago about playing on campus, and it turned into a collaborative event with the TV studio.

“We haven’t had many studio sessions. I…think this will be a good thing to get into. I want ways for listeners to get involved and tune into great, live music,” Schafer said.

Adron said she has always wanted to write songs and began singing in front of non-family members when she was 14-years-old. Her style is influenced by multiple genres, including Brazilian and 1970’s American Soul music, and she likes to her singers in other folkloric, exotic, global sounds.

“My number one musical soulmate of all time is Caetano Veloso. My dream is to someday sing with him in some capacity,” Adron said.

Warren said her music doesn’t fit into any specific genre but aims to help people “process the raw data of experience and turn it into medicine” by helping them dig deeper into themselves and the experiences they may have had in their own lives.

“I don’t try to…divide my songs into categories. I write songs and they are what they are,” Warren said. “Healing is my central focus. That’s how I approach it for myself.

She took the studio floor after Adron and played songs taken mostly from her upcoming album New Moon, which will be available May 19.

The Tandem Totem Tour will be the first time Warren and Adron go on tour together, though both artists have taken solo tours and worked with other artists.

Warren said she and Adron have known each other since they were young and used to talk about music. They lost touch for a number of years but recently reconnected and are highly complimentary of each other’s work.

“She was a huge hero to me. At that point, I could barely play guitar, but she was like a wizard,” Warren said. “I wouldn’t be on the path I’m on now if it wasn’t for her.”

Schafer said he plans for Warren and Adron to be the first performers of many in a weekly series of Sunday in-studio sessions and, additionally,  collaborate with HU Programming Board to broadcast live at the Coffeehouse Series in the future.

“This is the start of more opportunities, for sure,” Schafer said.