Releases
The National - I Am Easy to Find CD / 2 LP / Indie 2 LP / DLX 3 LP in stores May 17
I Am Easy To Find is The National’s eighth studio album and the follow-up to 2017’s GRAMMY®-award
winning and chart topping release, Sleep Well Beast.
The new album is prefaced by opening track ‘You Had Your Soul With You’. As it unfurls, it’s so far, so
National: a digitally manipulated guitar line, skittering drums, Matt Berninger’s familiar baritone, mounting
tension. Then around the 2:15 mark, the true nature of I Am Easy To Find announces itself: the racket
subsides, strings swell, and the voice of long-time David Bowie bandmate Gail Ann Dorsey booms out—
not as background vocals, not as a hook, but to take over the song.
I Am Easy To Find also features vocal contributions from Sharon Van Etten, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Lisa
Hannigan, Mina Tindle, Kate Stables of This Is the Kit and more.
There are choral arrangements and strings on nearly every track, largely put together by Bryce Dessner
in Paris—not a negation of the band’s dramatic tendencies, but a redistribution of them.
A companion short film of the same name will also be released with music by The National and inspired
by the album.
The film is directed by Academy Award-nominated director Mike Mills (20th Century Women, Beginners),
and stars Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander. Mills, along with the band, is credited as co-producer of
the album, which was recorded at Long Pond, Hudson Valley, NY with additional sessions in Paris, Berlin,
Cincinnati, Austin, Dublin, Brooklyn and more far flung locations.
The band have announced “A Special Evening With The National,” a series of five unique events in Paris,
New York, London, Toronto and Los Angeles. The Roy Thomson Hall date in Toronto on April 24th sold out
in under an hour.
Further Canadian dates slated for later this summer include June 21st in M o n t r é a l (Place Des Arts),
June 22nd Hamilton (Pier 8), and Aug. 28th Vancouver (Deer Lake Park).
I Am Easy To Find is available in 4 unique configurations: a CD, standard double LP on black vinyl, a
deluxe limited edition triple LP featuring yellow, red and grey vinyl. The third piece of vinyl contains the ‘I
Am Easy To Find Original Film Score’ on one side with an etching on the reverse. Additionally there is a
limited edition indie exclusive 2 LP on clear vinyl.
More about the film I Am Easy To Find
On September 3, 2017, director Mike Mills emailed Matt Berninger to introduce himself and in very short
order, the most ambitious project of the National’s nearly 20-year career was born and plans for a hardearned
vacation died. The Los Angeles-based filmmaker was coming off his third feature, 20th Century
Women, and was interested in working with the band on…something. A video maybe. Berninger, already a
fan of Mills’ films, not only agreed to collaborate, he essentially handed over the keys to the band’s
creative process.
The result is I Am Easy To Find, a 24-minute film by Mills starring Alicia Vikander, and I Am Easy to Find, a
68-minute album by the National. The former is not the video for the latter; the latter is not the soundtrack
to the former. The two projects are, as Mills calls them, “Playfully hostile siblings that love to steal from
each other.”
More about The National
Both individually and collectively The National’s members have been involved in countless artistic,
charitable and socio-political pursuits. The group released ‘A Lot of Sorrow’ documenting their collaboration
with installation artist Ragnar Kjartansson, that took place at MOMA’s PS1 and saw the band play their
song ‘Sorrow’ for six hours in front of a live audience. They are behind the Red Hot benefit albums Dark
Was The Night and Day Of The Dead, and the compilation boxed set titled 7-Inches for Planned
Parenthood. Band members have received a Golden Globe Nomination for work on the score of the 2015
film Revenant, founded or play a major part in MusicNow, Eaux Claires and Haven Festival and Boston
Calling, and participated heavily in both Barack Obama Presidential Campaigns, and much more.
Selections:
1. You Had Your Soul With You
2. Quiet Light
3. Roman Holiday
4. Oblivions
5. The Pull Of You
6. Hey Rosey
7. I Am Easy To Find
8. Her Father In The Pool
9. Where Is Her Head
10. Not In Kansas
11. So Far So Fast
12. Dust Swirls In Strange Light
13. Hairpin Turns
14. Rylan
15. Underwater
16. Light Years
Interpol - A Fine Mess 12” Vinyl EP / Ltd Ed CD EP in stores May 17
Recorded during time spent in upstate New York with Dave Fridmann, the five songs that make up A
Fine Mess gradually emerged as a body of work with a narrative and flow unto itself. The title track, and
BBC 6 Music-playlisted single ‘Fine Mess’, then received further production from Kaines & Tom A.D. and
mixing from Claudius Mittendorfer, who had first worked with Interpol as engineer on Our Love To Admire.
The resulting set is a living, breathing postcard from the band to their fans as they tour the world
throughout 2019, and a linear continuation of the visceral and contagious energy set loose with
Marauder.
Echoing its title, the artwork for A Fine Mess is illustrated by a series of lost images, recovered from an
abandoned police station in Detroit, MI. In a crumbling evidence room – amongst the rubble – an
undeveloped roll of film, dated “1-20-96”, featured latent images of a breaking and entering scene, the
rooms in chaos.
From the beguiling refrain of the title track, to the soulful topsy-turvy of ‘No Big Deal’, cathartic chorus of
long sought-after live favourite ‘Real Life’, anthemic swell of ‘The Weekend’, and angular shades of
‘Thrones’, A Fine Mess is a bracing and distinct entry in Interpol’s oeuvre.
Following recent headline performances at Madison Square Garden, Hollywood Bowl, Sydney Opera
House and a double header at Royal Albert Hall, Interpol continue their worldwide run of dates with
festival appearances at Glastonbury, Primavera, All Points East with The Strokes, Best Kept Secret and
Osheaga on Aug. 2nd.
- UK import CD editions are limited to 3,500 copies worldwide
“Interpol are back with ignited energy.” – Stereogum
“Interpol seems to have become an entirely new band, as evidenced by the energy, songcraft and
unexpected warmth of their new album.” – Rolling Stone
“Bristling intensity—the most commanding and forceful music Interpol has released in well over a
decade.” -Newsweek
“Interpol has become a genuine legacy band, cultivating a robust following stateside and abroad that has
stayed loyal no matter the changing winds of the outside indie rock world.” -Uproxx
Selections:
Fine Mess
No Big Deal
Real Life
The Weekend
Thrones
Big Thief - U.F.O.F. - CD / LP / Indie LP
U.F.O.F., F standing for ‘Friend’, is the name of the highly anticipated third record by Big Thief, set to be
released by 4AD on May 3rd.
The New York-based band, featuring Adrianne Lenker (guitar, vocals), Buck Meek (guitar), Max
Oleartchik (bass), and James Krivchenia (drums), has spent the last 4 years on an incessant world tour,
winning the devotion of an enthusiastic and rapidly expanding audience.
U.F.O.F. was recorded in rural western Washington at Bear Creek Studios. In a large cabin-like room,
the band set up their gear to track live with engineer Dom Monks and producer Andrew Sarlo, who was
also behind their previous albums.
Having already lived these songs on tour, they were relaxed and ready to experiment. The raw material
came quickly. Some songs were written only hours before recording and stretched out instantly, first take,
vocals and all.
Others were explored in search of perfected moments of dynamic feedback and spiritual, rhythmic
togetherness. A careful New Age sprinkle of mystical textures and stabs was added and kept in the mix
only when all agreed that each element had become absolutely crucial to the tune. The completed palette
feels classic, upfront and honest, with an occasional, welcome glimpse into the magic box.
Their songs represent an emotional bravery and realness that weaves intimate relationships with the
listener, a phenomenon that has made them one of the most widely-respected bands of the current era.
Their first two back-to-back releases, Masterpiece (2016) and Capacity (2017), have been analysed, wept
to, danced to, critically applauded, imitated, hummed idly, and shouted out loud. They have soundtracked
crowded restaurants, difficult conversations, cowboy bars, yoga classes, night drives, and lonely
bedrooms.
“Making friends with the unknown… All my songs are about this,” says Lenker; “If the nature of life is
change and impermanence, I’d rather be uncomfortably awake in that truth than lost in denial.”, says
Adrianne
The band make their return to Canada later in 2019 with shows Oct.15 Montréal (La Tulipe), Oct. 16
Toronto (The Phoenix) and Oct. 25th Vancouver (The Vogue).
In addition to LP and CD formats there is an indie exclusive LP pressed on clear orange vinyl.
“The alien abduction that happens in the lyrics of Big Thief’s new song “UFOF” is nearly as strange and
beautiful as the one that happens in the music.” – Pitchfork – Best New Track
“It was Lenker’s alluring charm along with her timid, surrealist folk songs, but the performance felt like a
cozy house show with one of the most fascinating songwriters around. It was an absolute treat.” -
Exclaim (from Adrianne’s recent solo performance in Toronto)
U.F.O.F. lifts the listener, slowly, into a delicate, celestial mystery, each member of the band adding their
own visceral mastery to its skyscape. Adrianne Lenker’s voice finds new resting places, layered like a
cloud above itself on album opener ‘Contact’ or crooning low through thick grass on ‘Betsy’. Her fingerpicked
guitar chords evolve and extend into warming harmony. Her leads beam passion and pain. Buck
Meek’s exploratory notes and avant-garde textures slither to the song’s subconscious narrative, while
James Krivchenia’s relaxed tempo and snare drum ghost notes possess your head into a steady bob.
Max Oleartchik’s bass guitar playing is elusive and rhythmic, either crouching undetected or ripping a
quick one for the people. When his bass goes missing from the song ‘Cattails,’ imagine him levitating
above the tune in quiet meditation, waiting for that perfect moment to slide back into the mix. The
moment doesn’t come till halfway through the next song.
When the album’s final number drifts away into droning, alien invitations, the power to look within our own
selves has been fully transmuted. The dreamer awakes and sees for a moment a vibrating figure
disappear from the corner of the bedroom. The door is open and future music awaits. It’s morning.
Goodbye alien.
Selections:
1. Contact
2. UFOF
3. Cattails
4. From
5. Open Desert
6. Orange
7. Century
8. Strange
9. Betsy
10. Terminal Paradise
11. Jenni
12. Magic Dealer
Aldous Harding - Designer Gold Vinyl LP / LP / CD in stores April 26
Aldous Harding will release her third album, Designer, on April 26 through 4AD.
Designer finds the New Zealander hitting her creative stride. After the sleeper success of
Party(internationally lauded and crowned Rough Trade Shop’s Album of 2017),Harding came off a 100-
date tour last summer and went straight into the studio with a collection of songs written on the road.
Reuniting with John Parish, producer of Party, Harding spent 15 days recording and 10 days mixing at
Rockfield Studios, Monmouth and Bristol’s J&J Studio and Playpen.
From the bold strokes of opening track ‘Fixture Picture’, there is an overriding sense of an artist
confident in their work, with contributions from Huw Evans (H. Hawkline), Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo),
drummer Gwion Llewelyn and violinist Clare Mactaggart broadening and complimenting Harding’s rich
and timeless songwriting.
To celebrate the launch of Designer, Aldous Harding will headline shows in North America, Europe and
the UK throughout the year, with more dates to be added. She’ll be in Montréal April 12th at Sala Rosa.
First single ‘The Barrel’ has been launched, with a delightfully off-kilter accompanying video that
transmutes to film the intense and commanding energy seen in Harding’s live shows.
In addition to standard LP and CD formats there is a gold vinyl edition exclusive to inde retailers.
“Haunting.” – NPR
“Quiet, cryptic, utterly arresting…her exposed voice is riveting, changing character from song to song.”
- NY Times
“Harding maintains the quiet charm of her past work, while embracing a new role as a chanteuse of sorts”
- Pitchfork
An artist of rare calibre, Aldous Harding does more than sing; she conjures a singular intensity. Her body
and face a weapon of theatre, Harding dances with steeled fervor, baring her teeth like a Bunraku
puppet’s gnashing grin.
Her debut release with 4AD, 2017’s Party (produced with the award-winning John Parish (PJ Harvey,
Sparklehorse) introduced a new pulse to the stark and unpopulated dramatic realm where the likes of
Kate Bush and Scott Walker reside. Party, which was praised by The New York Times as “quiet, cryptic,
utterly arresting…[and] riveting.” NPR said Harding is “haunting” while Rolling Stone likened her to “Nico
in a private karaoke room singing Jewel until closing.” The album garnered a performance on Later…With
Jools Holland and gained a fan in Lorde who said “Aldous Harding is the most interesting musician
around.”
Selections:
1. Fixture Picture
2. Designer
3. Zoo Eyes
4. Treasure
5. The Barrel6. Damn
7. Weight of the Planets
8. Heaven is Empty
9. Pilot
SOAK - GRIM TOWN Double Vinyl w/ 7” / 2 LP / CD IN STORES APRIL 26
SOAK (aka Bridie Monds-Watson) returns with her 2nd album in 4 years in the form of Grim Town;
bringing with her 4 years worth of growth, introspection and understanding.
Grim Town, the follow-up to her Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut Before We Forgot How To
Dream, which saw her win the prestigious Choice Music Prize for Album of the Year, the Northern Irish
Music Prize and the European Border Breaker Award, in addition to being shortlisted for a Q Award.
SOAK had, arguably, more to process than most her age. One of the Mercury Prize’s youngest ever
nominees, her debut kickstarted an extraordinary teenage journey.
Her astonishingly assured, emotionally mature songwriting was often hailed as wise beyond its years;
but, as her new album often asks, when do we ever truly shake off those childlike fears, the impostersyndrome,
the outsider-status?
The term ‘to come of age’ lands with so much expectation, but with Grim Town, Bridie dissolves all such
assuredness with imaginative, ambitious, and cathartic results.
It is almost as though the greater soundscape-heavier in places, more pop-focused in others-has given
SOAK the confidence to put her long overdue introspections in the firing line. It’s beauty and brutality is
there from the album open opener, ‘Get Set Go Kid’ which traces the train-tracks out of depression (“I’ve
got to get out, I can’t live here anymore!”) and was as inspired by the audio-visual environmentalism of
Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ as Bridie’s train-obsessed grandad on voiceover duties.
In addition to double LP and CD formats, Grim Town is available in a limited edition double vinyl with a
bonus 7” exclusive to indie retailers.
“Soak exposes longings, fears, traumas and resolve – somethings elliptically, sometimes with disarming
bluntness. Her unrefined sentiment and her unremitting vulnerability shows that she has a lot to teach the
world.” – New York Times
“The voice of her generation … there is beauty and wisdom in SOAK’s music.” – NME
“Sensational…the most auspicious of debuts.” – Mojo ****
“A richly textured record…a quite precocious talent.” – Q ****
“Both innocent and haunted…SOAK defies conformity.” – Guardian ****
The central premise of ‘Grim Town’, says SOAK, is “a dystopia that I’ve created in my brain: me on the
inside, processed into a pretend location. The way I could wrap my head around a lot of what I was going
through was to make it feel like something quite physical and real. Once I had the idea of the album
being an actual location, exploring the dynamics of this town and what it would look or sound like felt like
the right way to give my mental state a personality.” So if debut album ‘Before We Forgot How To Dream’
was conceived as a time-capsule of innocence, vividly capturing those moments in adolescence when
anything felt possible, ‘Grim Town’ perhaps examines the reality: on what happens next after you enter
adulthood (but actually feel more in crisis than ever), and the world around you isn’t what was promised
to you or your generation.
A record about getting lost that you can, also, truly get lost in, ‘Grim Town’ arrives as inspired by the
audio-visual environmentalism of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ as the production of Arcade Fire, Broken Social
Scene or Phoebe Bridgers. With unflinching honesty, Bridie tackles everything from long-distance love,
depression, divorce and social anxiety to the changing modern landscape (sexually, politically,
emotionally). And it’s accepting the jumble of emotions which make you ‘you’ that emerges as the
ultimate message of ‘Grim Town’, with its suitably placeless universe in which everybody’s personal ‘Grim
Town’ looks different, but everybody’s matters.
A. Swayze & The Ghosts - 12" Vinyl in stores March 29
A.Swayze & the Ghosts is an exhilarating new garage-punk band from Hobart, the capital of Tasmania,
the island located just below Australia. They are comprised of lead singer Andrew Swayze, alongside
high school friends Hendrik Wipprecht (guitar), Zackary Blain (drums) and Ben Simms (bass).
They release their debut 12” on March 29th via Rough Trade Records. The lead single “Suddenly” is
backed with the epic, 10 minute jam-fest known as “Reciprocation”.
Tasmania is known around the world as The Island of Inspiration and it’s no secret that the albums that
have inspired A.Swayze & the Ghosts came from classic artists such as Iggy & The Stooges, Television,
Fugazi, The Ramones and Australia’s kings of punk, The Saints.
Elements of these masterful artists from an early era can be found in the band’s DNA and have allowed
them to grow into their own world, to create their own scene, on an island that also has much deep and
meaningful history with potential to have some new rock n’ roll history too.
Within the driving impact of “Suddenly”, A.Swayze & the Ghosts is unleashed in all its bombastic,
garage-punk glory. Written by front man, Andrew Swayze and his wife Olivia, “Suddenly” addresses the
pressing issue of gender inequality, using Olivia’s own anecdotes and experiences of day to day
harassment, choosing “the perspective of a woman for a more sincere and potent viewpoint of the
subject matter”.
“Cross razor-edged guitars and thunderous rhythmic backing, A. Swayze & the Ghosts pummel into your
eardrums with barely-checked ferocity. Immediately swept up in this tide, you’ll quickly realise that
Swayze is singing from a woman’s perspective, singing about the gender imbalances still rife in modern
society. Even without the battering-ram action of A. Swayze & the Ghosts backing, the anecdotes would
be disturbing, but set aloft on the aerodynamic guitars the inequality will batter your psyche, energising
you to stand up in this fight.” – The 405
“I’m overpowered by this frenetic, fuzzy delight. This is the kind of band that mum wouldn’t let you join.” –
Dave Ruby Howe, Triple J Unearthed
“Providing an immediate and incessant sound from the outset, sparking guitars relish under the rich
production, exploring the already spritely atmosphere around Swayze’s bouncing yelp, unconstrained and
punching. Swayze writhes as he murmurs “you told me to stay / but I wanted to go” in harmonic unison,
the voices simmering with liberation, bold and unblinking in their seriousness. ‘Suddenly’ is an instant and
incendiary introduction to a tempestuous and perhaps essential new group.” – So Young Magazine
It’s 2015 and you’re in their capital city Hobart. It’s freezing because the Winter sun tends to forget about
you too, employment rates are nearly as low as the temperatures and you sit in a bar and slowly gorge
yourself warm with booze and burgers as a sick sign of camaraderie to your State having the highest
obesity rates in Oz. There’s no place like home.
Sound familiar? Me neither.
But to lead singer Andrew Swayze, this mirage is the defeated, “no-hope” horizon that gave birth to A.
Swayze & the Ghosts and spat out their explosive sound. They say desperation breeds genius but often,
desperation just breeds further desperation, and in an effort to cope with this The Ghosts headed down
the yellow brick road of self destruction, “writing songs like Suddenly, in our shitty house share and killing
ourselves at gigs in front of 30-40 people”, they gave new meaning to the phrase ‘line check.’
Their absolute favourite to play live, the song’s uncut rigidity mimics the spikey, enclosed landscape of
everyday repression. From the pungent and obvious ‘you say I’m weak ‘cos I don’t have a dick’ to the
more subtle ‘you told me to stay / but I wanted to go’. There it is, that complexity, that simplistic,
seemingly innocent exchange which cloaks a hidden agenda and subtracts power. The familiar theme of
a loss of control continues along with the stopping and starting of the instrumental, brought together only
by Andrew’s uplifting bark: ‘I am with you / Are you with me?’ Powerlessness and destruction are instead
projected from the outside in, from our society and surroundings rather than self-inflicted.
Selections:
Suddenly
b/w
Reciprocation
Stephen Malkmus - Groove Denied LP / CD in stores March 15
Following hot on the heels of 2018’s Sparkle Hard comes Groove Denied, the rejected electronic album
Stephen has been telling everyone about.
Groove Denied was written in Berlin and Oregon between Malkmus’ soundtrack to the Netflix series
Flaked and Sparkle Hard. It finds Stephen in a playful, exploratory mode – recorded by himself in
Oregon; Malkmus plays bass, organ, drum machines, a Roland 2080 and a Memorymoog alongside
other instruments interspersed with loops and vocal effects.
Groove Denied is not a full-blown plunge into EDM or hiptronica. In fact, there aren’t any purely
instrumental tracks on the album. Every song is precisely that: a song, featuring Malkmus staples like an
artfully askew melody and an oblique lyric.
Groove Denied is Stephen playing hooky from his customary way of going about things, jolting himself
out of a comfy routine. As Malkmus commented recently in a recent video interview, “It’s kind of funny to
mess with stuff you’re not supposed to mess with.”
The first taste of Stephen’s new groove can be sampled with the release of the single “Viktor Borgia,”
and its accompanying video starring Stephen alone in a dance club. The title playfully merges the name
of the comedian-pianist and the ruthless dynasty of Italo-Spanish nobles.
With its stately melody and the almost-English-accented vocal, the coordinates here are early Human
League or even Men Without Hats. “Yes, I was thinking things like Pete Shelley’s ‘Homosapien’, the
Human League, and DIY synth music circa 1982,” says Stephen, adding “and also about how in the New
Wave Eighties, these suburban 18-and-over dance clubs were where all the freaks would meet – a
sanctuary.”
Stephen will embark on a solo tour, sans Jicks, this Spring, kicking off in Toronto at the Great Hall May
13th.
His first album as a solo artist since 2001, Groove Denied is a fine companion to Sparkle Hard, echoing
the experimentation (Auto-Tune, genre-dabbling) found there.
When Stephen Malkmus first arrived on the scene in the early Nineties, as frontman and prime creative
force in Pavement, the area of music with which he was associated couldn’t really have been further from
the techno-rave sounds of the day. Electronic dance music, then as now, was about posthuman
precision, inorganic textures, and hyper-digital clarity. Whereas the lo-fi movement in underground rock
championed a messthetic of sloppiness, rough edges, and raw warmth – a hundred exquisitely subtle
shades of distortion and abrasion.
Fast forward to the present and here comes Malkmus with Groove Denied – Stephen’s first solo album
without his cohorts the Jicks since 2001. Made using Ableton’s Live, instead of a human-powered rhythm
section, Malkmus’s arsenal further included drum machines, along with a host of plug-in FX and “soft
synths.” He compares the process of track-construction to the way his kids “used to make these girls on
my iPhone – choosing hair colour, dresses, etc. That intuitive swipe and grab thing. Chop and move the
waves. Apple computer scroll style of thinking.”
This departure from the tried-and-tested stems back to earlier in this decade, when Malkmus spent a
couple of years living in Berlin and was exposed to the city’s vibrant club scene. Back in the Nineties,
Stephen had given rave culture a wide berth, in part because of bad personal associations with the drug
MDMA (he’d had “a really really bad trip” on Ecstasy in 1987, bizarrely on a visit to New York to see Miles
Davis perform). But in Berlin, thanks to a younger deejay friend, Malkmus made forays into the city’s
world-famous all-night party scene and became fascinated by techno. “The music can be great… you can
zone out, dance, and focus on music – or just get wasted!”
Groove Denied will shake up settled notions of what Malkmus is about and what he’s capable of,
repositioning him in the scheme of things. But looking at it from a different angle, his engagement with
state-of-art digital tech actually makes perfect sense. After all, Nineties lo-fi – the sound in which he and
Pavement were initially vaunted as leaders and pioneers – was nothing if not insistently sonic – it was all
about the grain of guitar textures, about gratuitously over-done treatments and ear-grabbing effects.
Noise for noise’s sake.
Selections:
1. Belziger Faceplant
2. A Bit Wilder
3. Viktor Borgia
4. Come Get Me
5. Forget Your Place
6. Rushing The Acid Frat
7. Love The Door
8. Bossviscerate
9. Ocean of Revenge
10. Grown Nothing
The fall - Bend Sinister 2 LP / 2 CD in stores March 15
Bend Sinister is The Fall’s ninth studio album, originally released in 1986. It was the last of three albums in a row produced by John Leckie and
was named after a dystopian novel by Vladimir Nabokov.
After the universal acclaim for the previous year’s This Nation’s Saving Grace, Bend Sinister often stands in its predecessor’s shadow. It is a
dark, brooding album made at the height of the group’s Beggars Banquet years and many people include this at the top of the list of favorite Fall
albums.
The album is newly transferred from analogue tapes with the double LP presented in a gatefold sleeve with inner bags and includes a replica
program for the Riverside production of ‘Hey Luciani!’
Double CD contains 6 unreleased songs, casebound, and includes a 24 page booklet with notes by Daryl Easlea.
“From Bend Sinister, “Mr. Pharmacist” is a lurching installment in pop music’s ongoing conversation with drug dealers, illicit and otherwise. Actually a cover of 1960s garage-rockers the Other Half, it’s also a demonstration of how the Fall’s relatively unchanging style could bolster other people’s songs.” – PITCHFORK
“Part musical hypnotist, part ranting madman, Smith was a singular figure in post-punk. His Mancunian accent, dry witticisms and plays on words were one of the Fall’s most constant characteristics. Their songs were odysseys into his ever-verbose psyche, marked by repetitive rhythms and melodies.” – ROLLING STONE
“At various points in the band’s four-decade career, the Fall might sound like punk, hard rock, psychedelia, funk, blues-rock, jazz-rock, electropop or sheer noise. “If it’s me and your granny on bongos, it’s the Fall,” Mr. Smith once declared. The BBC disc jockey John Peel, an early and steadfast supporter, said of the Fall that ‘they are always different, they are always the same.’” – THE NEW YORK TIMES
LP TRACK LISTING:
A1. R.O.D., A2. Dktr. Faustus, A3. Shoulder Pads 1#, A4. Mr. Pharmacist, A5. Gross Chapel – British Grenadiers
B1. U.S. 80’s – 90’s, B2. Terry Waite Sez, B3. Bournemouth Runner, B4. Riddler!, B5. Shoulder Pads 2#
C1. Living Too Late (From the Living Too Late single), C2. Hot Aftershave Bop (From the Living Too Late single), C3. Lucifer Over Lancashire (From the Mr.Pharmacist single), C4. Auto Tech Pilot (From the Mr.Pharmacist single)
D1. Hey! Luciani (from the Hey! Luciani single), D2. Entitled (from the Hey! Luciani single), D3. Shoulder Pads #1b (from the Hey! Luciani single)
D4. Living Too Long (From the Living Too Late single)
CD TRACK LISTING:
1-1. R.O.D., 1-2. Dktr. Faustus, 1-3. Shoulder Pads 1#, 1-4. Mr. Pharmacist, 1-5. Gross Chapel – British Grenadiers, 1-6. U.S. 80’s – 90’s, 1-7. Terry Waite Sez, 1-8. Bournemouth Runner, 1-9. Riddler!, 1-10. Shoulder Pads 2#
2-1. Living Too Late (Remastered/from the Living Too Late single), 2-2. Hot Aftershave Bop (Remastered/from the Living Too Late single), 2-3. Lucifer Over Lancashire (Remastered/from the Mr.Pharmacist single), 2-4. Auto Tech Pilot (Remastered/from the Mr.Pharmacist single), 2-5. Hey! Luciani (Remastered/from the Hey! Luciani single), 2-6. Entitled (Remastered/from the Hey! Luciani single), 2-7. Shoulder Pads #1b (Remastered/from the Hey! Luciani single), 2-8. Living Too Long (Remastered/from the Living Too Late single), 2-9. R. O. D (Peel Session, June 29 1986), 2-10. Gross Chapel – British Grenadiers (Peel Session, June 29 1986), 2-11. U. S. 80s – 90s (Peel Session, June 29 1986), 2-12. Hot Aftershave Bop (Peel Session, June 29 1986), 2.13. Luciani (Original version, previously unreleased), 2.14. DKTR. Faustus (Rough mix, previously unreleased), 2.15. Terry Waite Sez (Yellow 2 Mix, previously unreleased), 2.16. Lucifer Over Lancashire (Abbey Road Take 2, previously unreleased), 2.17. Entitled (Abbey Road Take 2, previously unreleased), 2.18. Town And Country Hobgoblins (Live, from the Bend Sinister cassette release)
Rema Rema - Fond Reflections 2 LP / 2 CD in stores March 1
40 years after disbanding comes Fond Reflections, the debut album that never was from cult 4AD band
Rema-Rema.
Rema-Rema featured former members of The Models and Siouxsie and The Banshees, and their
much-loved Wheel in the Roses EP (1980) was among the first records to be released on 4AD. Their
only contribution to the label’s storied history, they split-up before its release, going on to form or join
bands as diverse as Renegade Soundwave, The Wolfgang Press, Mass, and Adam and the Ants.
The debut album that never was, Fond Reflections, comes almost forty years after their debut EP and
has been culled from the band’s rich archive of reel-to-reel and cassette recordings, with member Gary
Asquith and mixing engineer Takatsuna Mukai painstakingly working on them to make this collection as
cohesive as possible. The ten tracks pretty much reflect the band’s live set and is the closest to what
their debut album could have sounded like. Worth noting too that although all their 1980 EP tracks are
present on this album, they are different recordings.
The CD edition comes with a second disc entitled Extended Wheel in the Roses. As its title suggests,
it’s the four EP tracks as they were plus ‘Entry’ (taken from the same studio session as the EP’s A-side of
‘Feedback Song’ and ‘Rema-Rema’) and ‘No Applause’ and ‘Murdermuzic’, two more tracks recorded at
the same Albany Empire, London show in 1979 as the EP’s B-side, ‘Instrumental’ and ‘Fond Affections’.
Double LP is pressed on black vinyl and presented in a gatefold sleeve with a download card.
2 CD comes in a slipcase with a Fond Reflections album plus a 24 page booklet.
The band consisted of Gary Asquith (guitar/vocals), Marco Pirroni (guitar), Mick Allen (bass/vocals),
Mark Cox (keyboards) and Max (drums). Their sole EP, Wheel In The Roses, featured one side of studio
recordings and another of live material. Their songs ‘Fond Affections’ and ‘Rema-Rema’ were later
covered by This Mortal Coil and Big Black respectively.
Rema-Rema split up shortly after the EP’s release in April 1980. Pirroni later hit the big time with Adam
And The Ants. Asquith, Allen and Cox formed the short-lived Mass with Danny Briottet. Asquith then
moved on to Renegade Soundwave, while Cox and Allen stayed with 4AD as part of The Wolfgang
Press. Drummer Max, aka Dorothy,eventually joined Psychic TV full time.
“An intriguingly overlooked piece of the 80s underground rock puzzle, fitting somewhere between British
post-punk and American noise-rock, yet with an atmospheric slant that’s largely their own.” – Tiny Mix
Tapes
LP Selections:
A1 Feedback Song
(Halligans Live Rehearsal Version)
A2 Rema-Rema
(Halligans Live Rehearsal Version)
B1 Gallery / Oh Rock ‘n’ Roll
B2 Lost My Way
B3 Short Stories
C1 International Scale
C2 Fond Aff ections
(Portobello Road Version)
C3 Why Ask Why
D1 Instrumental
(Halligans Live Rehearsal Version)
D2 Entry
(Halligans Live Rehearsal Version)
CD Selections:
Disc One: Fond Reflections
1 Feedback Song
(Halligans Live Rehearsal Version)
2 Rema-Rema
(Halligans Live Rehearsal Version)
3 Gallery / Oh Rock ‘n’ Roll
4 Lost My Way
5 Short Stories
6 International Scale
7 Fond Aff ections
(Portobello Road Version)
8 Why Ask Why
9 Instrumental
(Halligans Live Rehearsal Version)
10 Entry
(Halligans Live Rehearsal Version)
Disc Two: Extended Wheel in the
Roses
1 Feedback Song
2 Rema-Rema
3 Entry
4 Instrumental
5 Fond Aff ections
6 No Applause
7 Murdermuzic
METHYL ETHEL - TRIAGE CD / LP IN STORES FEB 15, 2019
Methyl Ethel have announced their new album, Triage, available on February 15th, 2019.
Triage marks the Perth, Australia band’s third studio album. It was written, produced and performed by
lead singer Jake Webb, mixed by Marta Salogni and mastered by Heba Kadry. Recorded in Webb’s
home studio in West Perth.
With his thirtieth birthday, and the ceremonial cap on three records and three EP’s, Webb felt a sense
of closure in the making of Triage. Methyl Ethel has always been a surrealist outfit – a dark and obscured
expression of life set to the backdrop of dream pop hooks. But Triage is a more reflective album – one
that explores the notion of coming of age, only to reference it for the snapshots and passing memories
that it has become.
To coincide with Triage, Methyl Ethel will play a handful of Australian, UK and North American headline
shows in 2019, including March 27th in Toronto (The Garrison).
They have also shared a single ‘Real Tight’ and its accompanying video, directed by Matt Sav.
“Is this real life?” sings METHYL ETHEL’s Jake Webb on ‘Real Tight,’ the self-proclaimed “surrealist
love song” from his new album Triage. Over a propulsive rhythm and angular guitars, the song folds in on
itself as Jake acts out the blurred edges of his dreams in vivid hues. “For as long as I’ve made music I’ve
also poured myself into the songs. But in pieces, fragments. Like in dreams.”
“(Jake Webb) is a loan glam rock astronaut floating deep into the outer reaches of his own mind.”
Rolling Stone
Methyl Ethel has always been an expression of the subconscious. Born in the heat of the Australian
summer, the early recordings were built from the ground up in various bedrooms and friends’ studios; the
same spaces Jake returned to for Triage, the third album in a triptych he started with Oh Inhuman
Spectacle (2015) and continued with Everything Is Forgotten (2017), which was named Best Independent
Album by AIR, the Australian Independent Record Labels Association. Triage is like experiencing youth
as a fever dream. Drawing from experiences that have been erased with time. As ever, the songs feel like
“real life” even if their author has put their authenticity into question in the past. “The first couple of
records I wrote from a personal experience, then obscured it; that’s how I write songs”, he explains, “My
go-to thing is really to write about an abstract emotional experience while being ultra-personal.” This
delicate balance of internal revelations played off against calculated ambiguity, has struck a nerve as
Jake’s lyrics are sung back at him by audiences around the globe. They are precise enough to be
authentic, and hazy enough to be anyone’s, a universality that is echoed when Jake touches on the
themes of Triage. “It’s about love, about mental health, about people and relationships. Isn’t everything?”
At the end of the Everything Is Forgotten album cycle, Jake returned to Western Australia and to a
routine of working in his home studio from 9 to 5 every day. It was the same process that birthed his
earliest recorded works. “I got obsessed with a lot of theory, essentially trying to discover how songs
work,” he says. This scholarly approach has resulted in a succinct record dripping in aesthetics, as Jake
subverts pop music across its many styles. ‘All The Elements’ takes the ready-to-wear sonics of
Everything Is Forgotten and brings in a lumbering new wave groove. ‘Trip The Mains’ has the fizzy thrill of
The Cure’s ‘Let’s Go To Bed’ coupled with the melting synths of David Bowie’s ‘Ashes to Ashes’. “I must
admit I was only listening to ‘Scary Monsters’ and The Cure at that stage. All you have to do is put in
some chimes and make the 16th note hi-hat,” Jake explains. Keyboard-driven first single “Scream Whole”
marries the incongruous, drawing from Sibelius’ piano work and Venezuelan producer Arca, “I designed
quite a few of my own soft synth sounds across the album in a similar way”, and rhythms that are a blend
of “classic drum machines and actual playing, so they hint at the 80’s”. The aforementioned ‘Real Tight’ is
so infectious that it takes several listens to realise there isn’t a chorus. It is the same hypnotism that bred
‘Ubu’, the second single from Everything Is Forgotten, which hit #4 in the 2017 triple j Hottest 100 and is
now an ARIA accredited Gold single. Across Triage, Jake draws from a love of soundtracks and the
process of “making songs big though composition, rather than volume.
Selections:
A1 Ruiner
A2 Scream Whole
A3 All The Elements
A4 Trip The Mains
B1 Post-Blue
B2 Real Tight
B3 Hip Horror
B4 What About The 37 º?
B5 No Fighting
Gary Numan - I, Assassin Green Vinyl LP in stores Mar 1
Originally released in 1982, I, Assassin is Gary Numan’s sixth studio album and fourth under his own
name. Restored from the original analogue tapes, presented on HD audio, this UK import reissue is
pressed on dark green vinyl.
Combining fretless bass with heavy rock drumming, Numan further refined his dark, sparse, funkyelectro
style, mixing it with impenetrable, slurred vocals.
Numan recorded and wrote most of the music between January and March 1982, following his
infamous round-the-world trip in a light aircraft and a near-death crash onto a British road while copiloting
a spiralling Cessna.
Three of the album’s songs made it into the UK top 20. According to Numan, who was still only 24-
years-old at the time, “the round-the-world flight, the plane crash, these were big things that helped me
shape a new opinion of myself. Those experiences gave me a self-confidence, a genuine strength that I
hadn’t had before.”
Twenty years later, the singer enthused, “I still think it’s one of the best albums I’ve made.” I, Assassin’s
heavily percussive approach led to several tracks becoming unexpected intruders on American
dancefloors, notably the 12” single of “Music For Chameleons” and a specially remixed U.S. version of
“White Boys And Heroes.”
Electro pioneer Afrika Bambaataa enthused about Numan’s style in this era: “Kraftwerk and Gary
Numan were special to me because they made funk music. It’s all related – Sly Stone, James Brown,
George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Kraftwerk and Gary Numan. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s Gary had the
rhythms that DJs wanted to get hold of and people waited for his records on the dance floor.”
I, Assassin stands out as a record fiercely propelled by powerful rhythms in songs laced with an earthy
cynicism.
“There are still people trying to work out what a genius Gary Numan is.” – Prince
“I was always impressed by the way Gary Numan found his own voice–and it was unusual–but it was
unmistakably him and boldly him. I see me doing what I learned from him.” – Trent Reznor, Nine Inch
Nails
“Gary Numan proves music has always been really inventive for the masses.” – Lady Gaga
After the spare and lengthy reflections and dislocated experiments of his excellent Dance album, Gary
Numan made a return to a more focused approach with I, Assassin, which turned out to be his last truly
great album for many years. Much of what would characterize his later music in the ’80s did start to show
up here, to be sure, but instead of the formless flailing all too apparent on Warriors, and especially on
Berserker, Numan’s work here with modern electronic funk combines his early rigor and to-the-point
rhythms with a deft, creative hand in the arrangements. “White Boys and Heroes,” the brilliant opening
number, remains one of his best singles, featuring fretless bass work from Pino Palladino (long before
both it and him had turned into rent-a-clichés), and set against droning, distorted vocals and doom-laden
keyboards. The vaguely Asian (or at least the group Japan)-inspired textures of Dance linger on in songs
like “A Dream of Siam” and the title track (the latter possessing a captivating hollow-drum-punch
introduction), while one of Numan’s most randomly entertaining songs pops up with “The 1930s Rust.” It’s
a suave finger-snapping number that even features harmonica, but somehow Numan’s ear for to-thepoint
rhythm and strange futurism still comes through. Perhaps the most underrated song remains the
sharp hipshaker “War Songs” — U2 may never want to admit it, but “Numb” takes more than a little from
the distorted up-and-down introductory guitar clips.
PicaPica Cast In Stone Limited Edition 12" in stores Feb. 15
PicaPica first appeared on the scene with their debut EP ‘Spring & Shade’ back in 2016 and are now
returning with a new limited edition 12” featuring delicate yet empowering new track ‘Cast in Stone’. The
track is a song of two halves, it playfully marks the emotionally turbulent waxing and waning of love, of
both its bonds and disaffection.
It also features two remixes from Seb Rochford – best known for drumming with the legendary Patti
Smith – who has also performed on PicaPica’s upcoming debut album.
PicaPica features the vocal interplay of Josienne Clarke and Samantha Whates, dual front women who
create powerful harmonies atop layers of texture created by Adam Beattie & Sonny Johns, a tiding of
magpies picking shiny moments of tone and timbre from 60s west coast, sunshine pop and indie folk.
Josienne and Samantha met on the London acoustic music scene several years ago and immediately
shared a love of singing and writing. They have been unofficially collaborating for years, often singing
backing vocals for each other’s projects or just singing harmonies together for the pure enjoyment of it.
The other half of PicaPica aka Adam Beattie, Scotland’s king of soft-spoken chanson, brings gently
morphing textures and detailed guitar playing to every bar, while Sonny Johns – a Grammy, Mercury and
MOBO-nominated producer/engineer. Sonny’s bass playing and production give PicaPica’s otherworldly
compositions a seriously grounded sound.
Samantha and Josienne have been bumping into each other on London’s cosy folk circuit for some time
now. Both masters of sepia-tinged storytelling and whimsical acoustics, it was only a matter of time
before they made the leap from stage-sharing to songwriting. Working together as PicaPica for the last
couple of years, their ideas have gently percolated around a love of transcendental melodies and earthy
music. Away from the limelight, they’ve filtered sixties’ West Coast pop, soaring indie and pastoral English
folk into a stark musical template that packs a hefty emotional wallop.
Coming at the same song from different angles, their voices weave in and out of each other, harmonies
and melodies curling round Adam and Sonny’s backing like a warm hug.
Now signed to Rough Trade, PicaPica are preparing to take flight in 2018, with live dates and an album
on the way – all preceded by the stellar four-track EP Spring & Shade on 8 December.
Be sure to hunt it down and keep hold of it tight – it’s a real gem.
Selections:
A. Cast In Stone
B1. Cast In Sea
B2. Overcast
BOWERY ELECTRIC - LUSHLIFE LP IN STORES FEB. 1
Bowery Electric’s third release, LushLife, has not been available on vinyl since it’s release. Beautifully
mastered at Metropolis Studios by John Davis, the album is available once again from Beggars Arkive
worldwide February 1, 2019.
Originally released in early 2000 by Beggars Banquet, Lushlife peaked at No. 14 on the CMJ Top 200
chart and No. 11 on the Core Radio chart. Nearly two years in the making, Lushlife, in what would
become the band’s final album, took even greater strides forward from previous releases.
The album teems with atomized sounds, each one opening a portal in the mix, importing a haze of
space and history, evoking the distant buzz of the city beyond the studio.
Throughout, gilded strings build, sway and exhale, plugging the music into the sumptuous melancholy
of Philly soul, the emotive Mancini-inspired arrangements of Gaye and Mayfield and the edgy soundtrack
scores of David Shire. Yet with all the experiment and variation, Lushlife is actually quite a deliberate and
enticing affair for the ear and mind.
Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener met while working at Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine
and formed Bowery Electric in late 1993. The band earned critical acclaim for experimentation across
genres, mixing elements of ambient, drone, electronic, experimental, IDM, minimal and rock music with
’70’s soul soundtracks, disco, drum and bass, dub and hip hop. Their self-titled debut was named by
Pitchfork as one of the best shoegaze albums of all time. Their second album Beat was praised by The
Wire as “genre-defining”. On Lushlife the touchstone is trip-hop – but set in Brooklyn and through the
Bowery Electric filter. The beats are lithe, crisp and deep and lines are perpetually blurred between
samples (of which there are more than 75) and live instruments.
Following the Lushlife tour in 2000 the band went on hiatus. Chandler studied composition privately with
La Monte Young and Pauline Oliveros and at The Juilliard School and Goldsmiths College and worked for
Philip Glass. He returned in 2009 with “Everybody Here Is Fine” commissioned for Make Music New
York. Recent works include “Music for Rock Ensemble” commissioned for 50 Years of Minimalism and
The Tuning of the World, a 24-hour sustained tone composition. His current band is London-based
alternative / electronic duo Happy Families.
Schwendener released the solo electronica album Sola in 2003 on Instinct Records and is now a highly
regarded art critic on staff at the New York Times. She is also a visiting professor at New York University
and a critic in photography at the Yale University School of Art.
“A morphine drip of an album.” – Austin Chronicle
“With impossibly crisp beats and Schwendener’s gauzy tease of a voice (think Georgia Hubley on
Prozac), the two create the impression that they can see in the dark, and use their music to assure us
that it’s not so bad in the shadows.” – CMJ
“The duo seems to thrive on the thought that opposites attract – bleeding Erik B. & Rakim-flavoured beats
into Nick Drake samples into Massive Attack-etched symphonic swirls into Cocteau Twins-hued
melancholia.” – Billboard Critic’s Choice
Manhattan-based drone-rock duo Bowery Electric comprised vocalist/guitarist Lawrence Chandler, a
former protégé of minimalist composer LaMonte Young, and vocalist/bassist Martha Schwendener.
Originally a three-piece rounded out by a series of drummers, Bowery Electric bowed in 1994 with a
double 7” on their self-owned Hi-Fidelity Recordings which helped land them on the indie label Kranky,
which issued their self-titled debut LP in 1995. With 1996’s Beat, the duo’s swirling, chaotic sound began
to incorporate elements of the electronica movement; a subsequent series of 12” remixes by the likes of
Disjecta, CHASM, and Immersion further solidified their new affiliation with electronic music, as did
1997’s remix collection Vertigo. The long-awaited Lushlife finally appeared in early 2000.
Selections:
Side A
Floating World
Lushlife
Shook Ones
Psalms of Survival
Soul City
Side B
Freedom Fighter
Saved
Deep Blue
After Landing
Passages
deerhunter - Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? grey vinyl LP / CD in stores Jan 18
Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? is the new album from Atlanta’s Deerhunter. It follow’s 2015’s Fading Frontier and is preceded by the lead single, Death in Midsummer and the accompanying loosely Western-themed video, which features Bradford Cox wandering around a ghost town. Album producer Cate Le Bon contributes the harpsichord that dominates the track.
As thrilling and unpredictable as anything in Deerhunter’s near 15-year career, Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? was recorded in several strategic geographic points across North America and produced by the band, Cate LeBon, Ben H. Allen III and Ben Etter.
Forgetting the questions and making up unrelated answers, Deerhunter’s eighth LP is a science fiction album about the present. Exhausted with the toxic concept of nostalgia, they reinvent their approach to microphones, the drum kit, the harpsichord, the electro mechanical and synthetic sounds of keyboards. Whatever guitars are left are pure chrome, plugged straight into the mixing desk with no amplifier or vintage warmth.
The album will be supported by a world tour that has the band returning to Canada February 21 at Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall and February 22 at Le National in Montréal.
How do you describe an album out of time, concerned with the disappearance of culture, of humanity, of nature, of logic and emotion? Why make this album in an era when attention spans have been reduced to next to nothing, and the tactile grains of making music have been further reduced to algorithms and projected playlist placement. Why wake up in the morning? Why hasn’t everything already disappeared?
Deerhunter’s eighth LP forgets the questions and makes up unrelated answers. It gets up, walks around, it records itself in several strategic geographic points across North America. It comes home, restructures itself and goes back to bed to avoid the bad news.
From the opening harpsichord and piano figures of ‘Death in Midsummer’, it is impossible to tell where the record came from. Is ‘No One’s Sleeping’ an outtake of an aborted Kinks recording session in 1977 Berlin with Eno producing? No. That is nostalgia. If there is one thing Deerhunter are making clear it is that they have exhausted themselves with that toxic concept.
Selections:
Death in Midsummer
No One’s Sleeping
Greenpoint Gothic
Element
What Happens to People
Detournement
Futurism
Tarnung
Plains
Nocturne
BEIRUT - GALLIPOLI Green Vinyl / Standard Black Vinyl / CD IN STORES FEB 1
Zach Condon, the mastermind behind Beirut, releases his fifth studio album Gallipoli on February 1st
2019 through 4AD.
The 12-track Gallipoli started life when Zach Condon returned to his old Farinas organ, the same one
he used to write his first two albums, Gulag Oresteia (2006) and The Flying Club Cup (2007).
After stints writing and recording in both New York and Berlin, with time for Zach to recover from a
broken arm factored in, band plus producer Gabe Wax (Speedy Ortiz, Soccer Mommy, Adrianne Lenker /
Big Thief) headed to Puglia in Italy to finish the album.
With the remote rural setting “the right amount of isolated”, an intense month of 12 to 16-hour days in
the studio with day trips around the coastline followed. Inspired by the surroundings, Gallipoli is
unintentionally more visceral than Beirut’s more recent albums, alive with an energy that is further
enhanced by every creak and groan of their instruments, every detuned note, and all amp buzz and
technical malfunction being left in the cracks of the songs.
Gallipoli’s title track is a cathartic embrace of old and new. Condon says, “We stumbled into the
medieval-fortressed island town of Gallipoli one night and followed a brass band procession fronted by
priests carrying a statue of the town’s saint through the winding narrow streets behind what seemed like
the entire town. The next day I wrote the song entirely in one sitting, pausing only to eat.”
Beirut hit the road with confirmed Canadian shows February 18th Montreal (Metropolis), Toronto on the
19th (Sony Centre). and Vancouver on February 26th at The Orpheum.
“Gallipoli started, in my mind, when I finally had my old Farinas organ shipped to New York from my
parent’s home in Santa Fe, NM. I acquired the organ from my first job at the CAM; the local foreign film
theater and gallery space. Most of my first record (Gulag Oresteia, 2006) and large parts of my second
record (The Flying Club Cup, 2007) were written entirely on this organ as well, I started writing the first
songs of Gallipoli on that organ sometime in late 2016, as the winter started.
Soon songs began to take shape in quick and inspiring ways and I booked a three-week session at a
fairly new start-up studio in Chelsea Manhattan, called Relic Room in the deep winter of that year. I
brought in Gabe Wax, the producer of No, who I felt shared a similar vision sonically as I do, and who I
knew was as game as I was to push every sound to its near-breaking point. With the main instruments
recorded, with the help of my bandmaster Nick Peterec and Paul Collins on drums and bass, we
proceeded to channel every note played through a series of broken amplifiers, PA systems, space
echoes and tape machines, sometimes leaving a modular swath looping in the live room at volumes so
loud we had to wear headphones as earmuffs while running into the room to make adjustments to the
amplifiers. At some point I realized Gallipoli was done and flew Gabe Wax into Berlin for a final mixing session at
Voix Ton studios. After the Voix Ton session I mastered the record with Francesco at Calyx, not far from
my own apartment in Berlin.” – Zach Condon
“Recorded with Paul Collins on bass and Nick Peterec on percussion, the new album’s title track is a
huge, bouncing parade of organ and horn that’s both triumphant and understated.” – NOR
“Gallipoli is very much in the lineage of Zach Condon’s formative work, driven by an anthemia brass
theme and folk percussion.” – Spin
Selections:
A1 When I Die
A2 Gallipoli
A3 Varieties of Exile
A4 On Mainau Island
A5 I Giardini
A6 Gauze für Zah
B1 Corfu
B2 Landslide
B3 Family Curse
B4 Light in the Atoll
B5 We Never Lived Here
B6 Fin
