Ramon and Jessica

Ramon & Jessica played the uke before it was cool. But then, multi-instrumentalists Dina Maccabee and Jesse Olsen have been making music together since becoming pals in high school over 15 years ago. The comfort and closeness of their long-standing friendship is apparent in Fly South, their upcoming third album, and the quirky and experiment-friendly qualities of their music that have been central from the start (in their senior year of high school, Dina was playing the Pope in a rock opera written by Jesse) are in full swing.

Ramon & Jessica started in earnest after college, as Dina and Jesse's individual careers were developing in different directions. Dina continued studying classical viola while branching out into genres diverse as Brazilian tropicalia and Middle Eastern psychedelic rock. Her playing graces recordings by Thao and Mirah, Carla Kihlstedt (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Tin Hat) and innumerable Bay Area bands, and her singing and playing as a Real Vocal String Quartet member are featured on Metals, a recent Feist album that has garnered attention on the international stage. Jesse meanwhile focused on composing and producing, continued to pick up new instruments and played with groups divergent as Hubbub Club, a radical marching band, and Open Graves, a site-specific experimental percussion duo. He also wrote scores for films and dance companies.