Stereo Embers The Podcast: Karen Haglof (Band of Susans)

“One Hand Up”

Karen Haglof has had many lives–and she’s lived them with creative poise and artistic grace. The Minnesota-born musician put herself on the musical map with Steve Almaas in the band The Crackers before joining the indie rock orchestra Rhys Chatham’s Ensemble. From there, and by the way, this is a clumsy expurgate list of Hagloff’s accomplishments, she joined the Band of Susans with some of the Chatham’s crew. After that, she became chef of the East Village’s beloved The Great Jones Cafe’ where she created their famous brunch menu and then she went to medical school, knocked out her medical degree and then joined the hematology / oncology department of New York University Hospital from which she retired in May 2023. If this is making you feel like an underachiever, I get it. We’re all feeling that way.
The fact is, Karen Hagloff is extraordinary. Her fourth solo album One Hand Up is the winning continuation of a music career she put on hold until 2014. Along with guitarist Mario Viele and CP Roth on drums, it’s a startling and bold entry into her fabulous discography. As Stereo Embers Dave Cantrell writes: From the beguiling, personal, damn near avant country romp of the opening title track, rich with sublty applied effects to the snaky phat throb of instrumental “Rte 66 Revisited” that closes this record thirteen tracks later like some kind of funk demon prowling out the door, One Hand Up is an enticement, a gambol, a salmagundi of enchantments mixed with sure-handed production and flat-out ace musicianship. It is, in short, a veritable soundtrack to the love story between joy and intensity.”

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