Rachel Sumner

Boston based singer songwriter and multi instrumentalist Rachel Sumner and her ensemble Traveling Light will release their full length studio album, "Noise & Fantastics", on February 12th, 2027.

Following stand out appearances at Telluride Bluegrass Festival and Folk Alliance International, the album builds directly on the momentum of Sumner’s work with Twisted Pine.

Produced and engineered by Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter, Lake Street Dive), "Noise & Fantastics" turns old time acoustic stringband music into what Sumner calls 'Femericana'. American roots music written firmly from a female perspective. The title comes from Mark Twain’s 'Personal Recollections Of Joan Of Arc'.

"…and the place was full of loud and lewd women, and they were no wit behind the men for romps and noise and fantastics.”

Sumner takes the phrase as a rejection of expected female submissiveness in favor of raw defiance.

Across 10 tracks, Sumner, supported by Kat Wallace’s searing fiddle and vocals, takes on bodily autonomy, systemic power structures, and generational trauma. She draws parallels to ancient, biblical, and mythological archetypes, the apocryphal widow Judith, the Greek myth of Persephone, Shakespeare’s King Lear, and 12th century scholar Hildegard von Bingen.

Sumner and Wallace are joined by Mike Siegel on bass and Kassirer on piano and keys, with Sumner’s flute and clarinet adding chamber folk color. The 4 some makes for a volatile pairing of stringband and chamber folk set pieces.

“I don’t always allow myself to feel anger or rage in my day-to-day, but writing these songs gave me an outlet for all of the divine feminine fury I’ve been carrying. And there’s joy in that, in being loud and finding so much of myself in the women I read and write about. I hope other people hear themselves in these songs. I believe storytelling can change the world, and recognizing yourself in someone else’s story is a powerful place to start.” ~ Rachel Sumner