Cold Chocolate is a genre-bending Americana band that fuses folk, funk, and bluegrass to create a unique sound all their own. Feauturing Ethan Robbins on guitar, Ariel Bernstein on percussion, and backed by some of the root's music scene's finest players, this group from Boston is impressing audiences throughout New England and beyond. Punctuated by tight harmonies and skillful musicianship, and with a focus on songwriting, Cold Chocolate has quickly gained recognition for their original music and high-energy shows. The band has shared bills with Leftover Salmon and David Grisman, and regularly performs at venues and music festivals up and down the East Coast.
Guitarist/songwriter Ethan Robbins began his bluegrass career at Oberlin College. A founding member of The Outhouse Troubadours, an Oberlin Bluegrass Phenomenon, he began to explore how this hard-driving fast-paced genre could be stretched. A classical violinist from age four, Ethan fell in love with the guitar when he turned fourteen and his father bought him five quintessential albums: The Band’s “Music from Big Pink,” Bob Dylan’s “Bringing it all Back Home,” John Hartford’s “Steam Powered Aereo-plane,” Hank Williams “Live at the Grand Ole Opry,” and the Grateful Dead’s “Workingman’s Dead.” Ever since, Ethan has attempted to bring those raw, rootsy sounds into his own original material. Kathy Sands-Boehmer of No Depression writes, "[Ethan] feels the music in his heart and soul and it shows when he plays. Ethan becomes the music on stage. There’s an almost mystical connection between his guitar and the notes that flow out of it."
In 2012, Ethan met percussionist Ariel Bernstein at a mutual friend's gig in Boston. As a student of Jim Tiller, the Principal Percussionist and Assistant Principal Tympanist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Ariel Bernstein earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Percussion for Performance at the State University of New York, Geneseo. A master of restraint, the loose-wristed Ariel brings a light and tasteful groove to Cold Chocolate’s tunes, filling out their sound and heightening the band’s live energy. In addition to playing in Cold Chocolate, Ariel can often be found at Dimension Sound Studios in Jamaica Plain, engineering the records of many of scene's finest acoustic musicians, including Josh Ritter, The Ballroom Thieves, Darlingside, and Mr. Sun.
Writes Simon Waxman of The Boston Review, "[Cold Chocolate] sounds softer than the dew on the mountainside, harder than a Harley pushing back red dust, sweeter than true love."
Writes Simon Waxman of The Boston Review, "[Cold Chocolate] sounds softer than the dew on the mountainside, harder than a Harley pushing back red dust, sweeter than true love."
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