Laura Carbone - Live at Rockpalast

At the beginning of autumn 2019, back in Berlin after a 6,000 mile North American tour and barely over the jetlag, Laura Carbone and her boys-in-black were invited to play a primetime simulcast live concert for Germany's prestigious "Rockpalast" TV series in October. This iconic institution started in 1974 and continues to this day having seen hundreds of rock, heavy metal and jazz bands grace it's stage, including Siouxsie & The Banshees, Radiohead, John Cale, Sonic Youth, Talking Heads, Echo & The Bunnymen, Patti Smith, Van Morrison, Smashing Pumpkins, David Bowie - it was the kind of show Laura stayed up late for on Saturday nights as a teenager living in small-town southwestern Germany. On October 12th, 2019, Laura and the band took the Rockpalast stage at the Harmonie venue in Bonn for a live nationwide broadcast.

In January the band was to start recording Carbone's third studio album, and, come early March, all is going according to plan. The new songs are coming together, the studio is booked for May, and Laura and the band are looking forward to returning to the US in the autumn. Then on Friday night, March 13th, Berlin went into lockdown. So what now? After the initial shock, they began thinking about what they could do.

Fast-forward to April 2020. Understanding now that the new studio album won't be recorded this year, an idea emerged with Laura and the band: "What if Rockpalast would let us release that show as a live album? They won't of course, but what if they did? And what if we could release it this year, right around the one-year anniversary, when one thing we're all dearly missing is the live experience?"

Yeah, what if?

10 songs, taken from Laura's first two albums "Sirens" and "Empty Sea." Mixed in Los Angeles by Scott Von Ryper from The Jesus & Mary Chain / The Black Ryder and mastered by Philipp Welsing at Original Mastering in Hamburg, with no overdubs whatsoever.