The first Black Light Saints album, Impossible Picks, is streetwise and edgy, so until you hear it a few times, you only feel, but don't realize, how carefully they build their musical thoughts. Since completing the album, they've picked up Danny Lucero and Fonz and have been playing those don't-wait-too-long-to-see-them shows that you can only ever find when a really good new band comes along. They've got one at the Art Institute After Dark Friday the 11th, and then they're on the road, in on the South By Southwest madness in Austin at Cedar Street on Wednesday (March 15) and the next night in San Antonio at Limelight.

The band has also kept up the heat on the recording side --- there's a new web-exclusive release at dopecouture.com, and their first remix package is being put together now.

Britton Wetherald and Dan Agosto (producer of Impossible Picks) stopped by Heart & Soul to talk about all of this --- about how it all got started and why, and about where it's going now. Here's what they had to say:

All the while, Impossible Picks keeps getting more attention, like when Kate Stahl is doing a story at popsugar.com about fashion designer Christina Fan and has this to say: "Fan let us in on some of her favorite Chicago things — and even introduced me to awesome new Chicago band Black Light Saints". Black Light Saints' Impossible Picks is at Amazon, Amazon U.K. and iTunes. You'll love it.

Pittsburgh Connections is the widely respected annual choreography series presented by Point Park University's Pittsburgh's Playhouse. This year's performance premiere's November 12, and runs through the 21st. You can find more information on the shows, which include new works by Dionna Pridgeon, Kassandra Taylor, Gina Patterson and Justin Myles, at Pittsburgh Playhouse. For the first installment of the podcast with Craig talking about his return to Point Park, check out Craig Kaufman's Return to Point Park University, and for more on "A Path Home", here's the full article: Craig Kaufman's A Path Home Premieres.

Any work of art is the product of the experiences of the artist who creates it, and although many artists think of their creative process as more dependent on imagination and skill, the way that creativity forms the reality of art is inseparable from the experiences that shape an individual. In his new work, "A Path Home", Craig Kaufman creates a study in Dance of something he has experienced, perhaps more imaginatively than most: how to choose a path. Kaufman's biography is already a study in dedicated but unusual choice; for Kaufman, who now lives and works in Chicago, home is both the hard-working world of western Pennsylvania where he grew up, and the aesthetically intricate world of professional choreography. Although such paths are not unusual in the arts, they usually imply contradiction, but for Kaufman the different worlds he's experienced are fluid and balanced aspects of the same choice, the same path.

Here's a really short podcast that traces the development of the "Wouldn't It" production. It starts with the intro from the final release, but then shows five different stages of the song's development, playing different progressive versions of how the arrangement and production of the track changed. Each of the versions is from the same section of the song, the second verse and chorus, until the podcast closes with the rest of the song from the final release. If you've got a few minutes, take a little trip through the process of how a singer/songwriter and her producer find the track that they want to make from a beautiful song.

Craig Kaufman left Point Park University in December of 2005 and set out, like so many other graduates from the prestigious dance program, to see what he could see in the world of professional dance. It's not that long, but he's already returning to Point Park as one of the choreographers for the University's widely respected Pittsburgh Connections series.

This is the final part of our first AOTPR podcast. Here Dan and Johnny discuss the final changes that went into their collaborative track 'Some Time.' To end the discussion we listen to the finished track that will premier as a part of Extensions Dance Company's new season.

For part 1 click here.
For part 2 click here.

Welcome to part 2 of the first AOTPR podcast. In the second of three sections composers Johnny Nevin and Dan Agosto go further into the story of writing music for choreographer Lizzie Mackenzie. The last part of "Composing Some Time for Lizzie MacKenzie" is here.

For part 1 click here.

Welcome to the first episode of the AOTPR podcast. In this section, the first of three, 'ohana Dreamdance producers Dan Agosto and Johnny Nevin talk about composing the original score for Lizzie Mackenzie's new choreography Time Now. The work will be performed by Extensions Dance Company throughout their new season.