Rio en Medio came into being when songwriter Danielle Stech-Homsy picked up her childhood baritone ukulele and recorded 8 songs in her bedroom in Harlem. These simple, haunting songs, inspired by experimental music and traditional folk alike, and loosely interwoven with natural found sounds and fragmented electronic beats and samples, eventually fell into the hands of Devendra Banhart. This delicately hewn album became known as The Bride of Dynamite and was released in 2006 on his Gnomonsong label. Rio en Medio's follow-up album, Frontier (Manimal Vinyl), further plays on the tension between electronic and organic sound, balancing delicate vocal harmonies on oscillating synth riffs and driving dance beats offset with gamelan-like percussion. Recorded in New Mexico the album is imbued with desert and astral references, evoking the original wonder and possibility of the West or the awe of early space travel. Since 2005, Rio en Medio has toured worldwide with many notable bands —Grizzly Bear, Cocorosie, Brightblack Morning Light, Patrick Wolf and Devendra Banhart, to name a few.