5:30-8:30pm, come enjoy farm to table food and cider, along with live music on the lawn

Formed in Ithaca, NY in early 2020, Freight is a new songwriting collaboration between JP Payton (JP and the Easytigers) and Liam Lawson (The Auroras). Groove-centric and playfully syncopated, the band's primary sound is a danceable variety of folk-rock, replete with telecaster twang, and a no-nonsense steel-string chug. Payton's confessional songwriting draws from the country music tradition; his lyrics explore the interior dynamics of close relationships, the connections between people and the places they live, and the pains of growing up and old. As the name suggests, Freight is a balance between momentum and substance, funk and storytelling, with its spiritual home waiting somewhere just a little farther down the highway.

In October 2020, as upstate New York dug in to weather another coronavirus winter, Payton and Lawson set about recording their first album at Sunwood Recording in Trumansburg, NY. Realizing that social distancing would be an unavoidable factor in the recording process, the duo decided to embrace the production-forward sound of bands like Beck, Jay Bennet-era Wilco, and James McMurtry. The outcome was a funky sort of country rock, in which the different guitar and vocal components fit together like puzzle pieces, complementing and expanding upon a basic Waylon-style drum and bass foundation.

Freight is Liam Lawson on electric guitar and vocals, JP Payton on acoustic guitar and vocals, Chris Ploss on drums, Walt Lorenzut on bass and Loveday on vocals.