The Brooklyn-based indie-folk The Welcome Wagon (Monique and Vito Aiuto) are premiering their Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas record-release special for their new record Esther on the Asthmatic Kitty Records (AKR) Youtube page at 8pm EST. Find the premiere page HERE.

Filmed in a retired Lutheran chapel somewhere in the swamps of Jersey, the special features songs from the duo’s new album ‘Esther,’ plus one classic. Surrounded by friends and family, Monique & Vito are joined on stage by a host of talented musicians – plus a few special guests! It’s a cozy watch – perfect for this time of year! Vito and Monique will be chatting live with viewers in the Youtube chat during the premiere.

The Welcome Wagon – Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Record-Release Special

Esther is The Welcome Wagon’s fourth album and is part of an ongoing audiovisual collaboration between Monique and Vito. Monique has made a painting to correspond to each of Vito’s songs on the album, three of which are featured in the album’s artwork, with a limited edition print of the piece “Isaiah, California” available as part of a special LP bundle. The 10-track album will be released on November 4th (Asthmatic Kitty Records).

The Welcome Wagon is thrilled to announce their new album Esther set for release November 4th via Asthmatic Kitty Records. The indie-folk duo is comprised of Vito Aiuto, a Presbyterian minister who pastors a small church in Brooklyn, and his wife Monique Aiuto. Esther is their fourth full-length album and marks the return to Asthmatic Kitty Records, the label on which they began their musical journey. As a preview they released the first single “Isaiah, California” off the album that is out now.

Esther is the fourth full-length album from the Welcome Wagon as they return to Asthmatic Kitty Records, the label on which they began their musical journey. Fittingly, it is a record that explores the idea of home in all its beauty and complexity. Regarding the album, Vito of The Welcome Wagon says, “It became apparent to us that so many of these songs were about coming home, or leaving home, or reckoning with the homes we grew up in. Plus we wrote them in our home”, says Vito, laughing.

“Making a home in this world  is one of the hardest and most beautiful things any of us ever do”, says Monique. “Our music helps us to do that—to make a home, together with our family and friends—and we hope that somehow our songs might help others to make a home wherever they are, too.”

Esther is as much about homecoming as it is about making peace with—and a home in—uncertainty. The project had its beginnings in the summer of 2017, when the family took a two-month sabbatical to California. Shortly after returning to Brooklyn, Vito found himself holding his guitar and allowing his fingers to play a few notes that just felt…right. Then the pandemic hit, and Vito’s strumming, lyrics, and thoughts became the soundtrack of the family’s lockdown lives. Though Monique had given up painting a decade prior, she felt an urge to go home as well, to reconnect not just with an artistic identity but with her midwestern family. She began using pieces from a collection of her late grandmother Esther’s treasures to create large-scale collages, beautiful, evocative, and almost haunting in their pastiche of the past. Esther became the namesake of the project.

Click HERE to listen to “Isaiah California”

Esther was born out of this wellspring of creativity and homecoming, exploring the profound knowing and equally profound mystery in both family and faith. In Esther, the questioning is the destination, and it is one where peace can be found and home—and art—can be made. There’s a salve there. There is music. There are moments of grace, large and small. Welcome.