Get to know The Pines (opening for Tift Merritt tonight at World Cafe Live)

The Pines are a midwest duo consisting of David Huckfelt and Benson Ramsey, two musicians who met while living in a Mexican Barrio in Arizona.  Their music echos the styles of current vogue acts Dawes and Field Report, with Ramsey’s weathered voice slipping the aural aesthetic into a haunting fog among slide guitars and some adept finger-picking.  The band released a new album called Dark So Gold in January; it is an album as simultaneously majestic and isolated as a pine forest, its essence perhaps best captured in the song “Cry Cry Crow” (watch the official video below).  The band, which has played with Emmylou Harris, Bon Iver and Iris DeMent among others, opens for singer-songwriter Tift Merritt tonight at World Cafe Live.  Tickets are $18 here, and doors open at 7:00 p.m.