Benjamin Cartel, Max Dvorak, Ryan Langois

After earning a buzz as one of New York City's up-and-coming songwriters, Benjamin Cartel put his solo career on hold in 2004, the year he co-founded the indie folk duo Kaiser Cartel. Years later, that band is still moving along... and Cartel's solo career has earned a new set of wheels too, thanks to an EP that bridges the gap between Wilco's wry rock & roll and John Lennon's classic pop.

Money and Love is Cartel's first solo release. Like the musical influences that spawned it, the EP is a mix of old and new. Several songs, like the vintage pop/rocker "No One," were written before Kaiser Cartel's formation. Others, like the rave-up title track, are newer compositions. "Julia," one of the album's harmony-drenched highlights, was written somewhere in the middle. Cartel looked everywhere for inspiration: relationships, the road, even old Alfred Hitchcock movies.

The recording process began at The End Studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with Mike Cohen (Lucinda Black Bear). Cartel recorded the songs simply, strumming an acoustic guitar while two friends chimed in on bass and lead guitar. He then sent the bare-boned recordings to his friend and occasional tour mate Kristoffer Ragnstam, an indie pop musician living in Gothenburg, Sweden. Ragnstam, along with his bandmate Joel Lundberg, added layers and arrangements to Cartel's songs, turning what began as a skeletal EP into something more fleshed-out and eclectic.

"I let Kris and Joel add whatever they wanted," Cartel says, "and didn't get in the way of their process. I felt good about the songs and my performance -- and as a fan of Kris' band, Kristoffer and the Harbor Heads, I was honored that they wanted to contribute to my recordings."

Some finishing touches were added several months later, when Ragnstam and Cartel rendezvoused in L.A. at New Monkey Studio (originally owned by Elliot Smith), and then later at the home of Aqualung's Matt Hales, who'd previously worked with Cartel on the Kaiser Cartel albums March Forth and Secret Transit. Together, the musicians added handclaps, backing vocals and piano.

The result is a recording rooted in honest, straightforward songwriting -- the sort of singer/songwriter fare that Cartel regularly performs at his solo shows, with nothing more than an acoustic guitar to back him up -- and dressed up with full, genre-spanning arrangements. It's an album that builds a bridge between opposites: between old and new, love and loss, rock and pop, solo songwriting and full-band recording.

My name is Max Dvorak, and I'm a singer/songwriter based out of Verona, Wisconsin. I started writing music in the spring of 2010, and began to perform for the audiences of Southern Wisconsin the following Fall. I perform original acoustic music that is deeply influenced by artists such as Dave Matthews, Tom Petty, Tyler Hilton, Bruce Cockburn, Into it Over It, Koji, & many more. You can trace elements of my music back to each and every one of these artists, and if it weren't for the music they've created, I wouldn't be writing and performing the music I am today.

Many who are involved in our local music scene have acclaimed my live performances, and the support of these people have helped me get to where I am today. I strive to make all of my live shows an experience that audience members will never forget. No one leaves a Max Dvorak show without having something on their mind.

Some of my more notable accomplishments include the opportunity to perform at the famous 12 Bar Club in the Soho District of London, playing on the main stage of the world's largest brat fest in Madison Wisconsin, Performing on Channel 3000's Urban Theater Show, Nashville's 12 & Porter, and sharing the stage with national acts such as: American Idol contestant Josiah Lemning, One Tree Hill's Tyler Hilton, The Dangerous Summer, Koji, Into It Over It, Jeff Pianki, Kiernan McMullan, Mark Croft, touring double-neck guitarist Mark Kroos, and many more.

Out now is my debut full-length record s entitled "Home." This eleven-track release features a variety of different musical stylings that were written over the last two years. The songs on this record were all written about important times in my life that were significant in shaping the person I am today. From heartbreak to new beginnings, this record reflects all of the experiences I've had as a young adult. Bringing the album to a close is the song "Home," which inspired the title of the record because it is a song about this chapter of my life coming to a close and the common struggle of finding one's place in the universe.