Tonight! Ha Ha Tonka at Off Broadway + New MP3

Tonight at Off Broadway, Springfield's own Ha Ha Tonka is headlining a bill with Magnolia Summer and John Henry and the Engine. The band's forthcoming album, Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South, was recorded at Sawhorse Studios with Jason McEntire. We had this to say:

Ha Ha Tonka's 2007 album, Buckle in the Bible Belt, bounced among gritty Southern-rock fervor, gospel-influenced piano balladry and even soulful four-part a cappella harmonies. But at the Bloodshot Records day party at this year's SXSW music festival, it became clear that the material from the Springfield, Missouri, band's much anticipated second full-length, Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South, goes one step further. By molding all of these influences and musical touchstones into one hard-driving, spiritually stirring sound, its music merges echoes of the past with an urgent immediacy. "Walking on the Devil's Backbone" -- a song recently released as an album teaser -- finds Ha Ha Tonka embracing a much more groove-oriented feel that still retains plenty of down-home Southern charm and rambunctious energy.