Port Alden trio Low Tide Radio released its second album, "Salt Line," last month, and the record is now getting regular airplay on three stations outside town for the first time in the band's five-year run. The group recorded the eleven-track album over the winter in a converted boathouse on Wharf Road that doubles as bassist Dev Cariappa's home studio.
Singer and guitarist Nessa Thorvald said the band chose the boathouse partly out of necessity, since studio time at commercial facilities was more than the band could afford after a lean summer of gigs, and partly because the space itself shaped the record's sound.
"You can hear the room on half these tracks. The ceiling's low and it's mostly wood, so everything's got this warmth to it we never got recording anywhere else," Thorvald said. "We didn't plan that, it just happened."
From the boathouse to the coast
"Salt Line" has picked up regular rotation on WKHN in Millbrook, a college station in Fenwick, and an independent station in Corrigan Bay, roughly ninety miles up the coast, according to drummer Owen Bracewell, who has been tracking spins since the album's release. The band had struggled to get attention from stations outside Port Alden with its first album in 2023.
Bracewell said a music director at the Fenwick station reached out directly after hearing the record through a mutual contact, and the other two stations picked it up after that. The band has booked four shows in Fenwick and Corrigan Bay for October, its first out-of-town dates since forming.
"We're still playing the Ledger Room every other Friday, that hasn't changed," Thorvald said. "It's just nice knowing people two towns over are hearing it too."
