Upstate has experienced a series of transitions over the past three years, navigating through the pandemic and significant life events such as marriages, births, funerals, and spiritual awakenings. These experiences provided the band members, Mary Webster, Melanie Glenn, Harry D’Agostino, and Dylan McKinstry, with a much-needed break from the demands of touring and allowed them to create a record that reflects on every aspect of their lives with honesty and authenticity.

In anticipation of its third studio album, You Only Get a Few, Hudson Valley based folk quartet Upstate has released a new single, “Catalpa,” out today on all digital streaming platforms. Inspired by the refreshing energy of spring, the delicately crafted arrangement calls on the yearning harmonies of Mary Webster and Melanie Glenn to paint a sentimental portrait of life’s most transient moments.

Upstate has announced their third studio album, You Only Get a Few, will be released March 31 via Royal Potato Family. The group’s first full length studio release in three years, the forthcoming album sees members Mary Webster, Melanie Glenn, Harry D’Agostino and Dylan McKinstry navigate the peaks and valleys of transition as they embark on a new and exciting season.

It's been since Summer 2020 when we last heard new music from Upstate. In the interim, there's been babies, marriages, engagements, relocations, new career paths, band members departing, band members arriving and that merely scratches the surface.

Higher Ground, in collaboration with Burlington City Arts, is proud to present an outdoor concert series called Backside at 405. Located behind BCA Studios at 405 Pine Street, in Burlington’s vibrant South End Arts District, Backside at 405 will feature live music every Friday and Saturday night all summer long.

“Everything Changes.” Well, it should. Our country is deeply damaged. Open your eyes. Our minority populations have never garnered the respect and equality promised by America. We have systemic problems rotting our foundation. We lack the leadership we deserve. Sadly, our president doesn’t represent the beauty that we are. It’s time to be the change we need. Protest. Shout and scream. Vote. Donate. Educate. Have meaningful conversations that alter the narrative. Upstate’s “Everything Changes” isn’t about social injustice or even the pandemic but it is relevant for this necessary time of revolution.

A Capella? Maybe. Upstate is certainly harmony-driven. It seems like a new word should be created for the type of honest music that Upstate has developed. Their new single, “Everything Changes” was written before the pandemic but it certainly applies nicely to the current times we are all living in now. In the grand tradition of Napoleon Dynamite’s Happy Hands Club to the prayer songs of Indigenous Pow Wow music, this lady's wordsmiths lyrics come to life when Upstate performs.

Upstate have shared a new video for their forthcoming single "Everything Changes." Available tomorrow (Fri. May 15) on all streaming platforms, both the song and video were recorded and filmed simultaneously in one take in vocalist Mary Kenney's living room a few weeks prior to the nationwide shutdown due to COVID-19. While the Hudson Valley-based band didn't write the song with the pandemic in mind, it retroactively speaks to the current times.

For Upstate, the last few years have been a time of profound exploration and self-discovery. As the band knocked off milestone after milestone on the road, their sound, their lineup, and even their name all underwent dramatic metamorphoses. Challenging and thrilling all at once, those changes have finally culminated in the band’s dazzling new self-titled album, a collection that showcases both their remarkable growth and their adventurous blend of folk, R&B, jazz, gospel, and rock and roll.