Biography
Hopewell Exchange is an Americana/Blues/Folk act started in Baltimore, MD. The group was started by Michael Meredith in 2008 following a period of performing under 'Someone Familiar'. Meredith performs most of the songs solo, sometimes accompanied by other southern musicians. With Hopewell Exchange System the project began essentially as sad hymns and banjo riffs about river lore in the deep south. Murder ballads aside, the direction of the project folked itself up with Heartless Devil, which was released as 200 hard copies hand letter pressed by Meredith with inserted drawings for the credits. Heartless Devil might be summed up as testing the waters of cleaner sound, with most songs being rooted in old-time structure and recorded at the studios at the Maryland College of Art in 2009.
The following summer Hopewell Exchange released the Coal Water EP for a Baltimore 7 inch collection which also included bands such as Future Islands, Weekends, and Small Sur amongst others. This EP had Meredith focusing more on the strange tales often circulated around places like southern Alabama. The songs on Coal Water tell of murder at the state fair, or of leaving a small town to realize your love has left you.
After Coal Water was released Hopewell Exchange relocated to Tennessee and spent nearly a year working on Motor Oil Cathedral, a short LP in homage to mountain men, homeless legends, and people in Appalachia that find a calling in building monuments out of junk. The release is heavily in debt to junk yards, slum mazes, and out of control pastors amongst hillbillies.
Now, Meredith has relocated to Arizona and is working on a new EP scheduled for mid 2011.
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