Residing on the Southern California coast, young songwriter William Alexander infuses sound and culture and turns them into compact pop gems. For years he has been developing an extensive song catalogue as sun-streaked and sugary as his SoCal peers but with a relaxed modernity that is distinctly his own. Now with the help of east-coast indie upstart Yellow K Records, Alexander will finally share his recordings. His debut album, Strangest Things, is available on vinyl for the first time!
After sorting through a pile of micro cassette recordings he’d made over the last handful of years, Tony Ruland (The Lonely Forest) decided it was finally time to do something with them. He needed some help, so he called up Erik Walters (Silver Torches) and Kyle Holland (Cumulus), and thus, the core of Soft Sleep was born. The project will feature many guest appearances from past bandmates and touring friends alike – a revolving door!
The Soft Sleep EP includes two of the first completed tracks from the project. Featuring Chris Walla (Death Cab For Cutie) making bass, mellotron, and vocal contributions. This first release from Soft Sleep is divided into 200 clear and 300 pink 7″ vinyl records, and will be available for a limited time from Rocket Heart Records.
Mittenfields‘ new album Optimists is out on vinyl now! Recorded and mixed by Eamonn Aiken at The Bastille, produced by Mittenfields & Eamonn Aiken, mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering, and cover photo by Gilberto Cazares.
Combining a densely layered three‐guitar attack with raw, nervy vocals, Mittenfields have drawn comparisons to some of the best indie rock acts of the 1990s. Far from an exercise in pure nostalgia, however, the DC‐based ensemble has crafted its own unique sound combining elements of indie rock, shoegaze and noise pop.
Nick Ferrio is a Canadian songwriter working in country and folk music. His sophomore album, entitled Amongst the Coyotes and Birdsongs examines the ferociousness of love.
Amongst the Coyotes and Birdsongs is a subtle, understated and confident collection of songs. Recorded partially in Sackville, NB and partially in Toronto, ON with producer Gavin Gardiner (The Wooden Sky), the album features collaborations with Julie Doiron, Tamara Lindeman (The Weather Station), Steve Lambke (Constantines), Ian Kehoe (Marine Dreams) and Evening Hymns. Building on his previous releases Introducing Nick Ferrio & His Feelings and Half the Time, Ferrio has come into his own with Amongst the Coyotes and Birdsongs, offering catchy and sophisticated songs, and claiming his place as one of Canada’s best kept secrets.
You are probably wondering, “Who are these dudes and why are they bothering me?” If you know about Mexican Cheerleader, The Mashers, Lynyrd’s Innards, Apocalypse Hoboken, The Arrivals and countless other offshoots, chances are pretty good these are dudes you know. 5 dudes to be exact. 5 very good looking dudes.
The new LP – Untitled (In The Original It’s Red) will be available for a very limited time on vinyl in June 2015. Be sure to watch The Mons for pre-order info soon.
The one and only album by Dino & Montevideo Blues (Macondo GAM 551, 1972) deserves to be a serious contender as one of the most important, and as it happens, most grooving, records ever released in Uruguay. But there is another reason that the album has attained exalted status: the incisive power of the lyrics, which are all the more impressive considering the national turmoil out of which they were created. Montevideo Blues was founded by Uruguayan song-writing legend Gastón “Dino” Ciarlo as a way to fuse the rawness of rock music with obscure native Uruguayan rhythms like malambo, milonga and chamarrita—a logical direction to pursue after Dino had attempted pop/candombe fusions in his solo recordings.
Welshly Arms combines their love of blues with rhythm and soul & good ol’ rock and roll, to create a fresh throwback sound that represents their Midwestern roots. Comprised of Sam Getz (vocals/guitar), Brett Lindemann (keys/vocals), Jimmy Weaver (bass/vocals), and Mikey Gould (drums), Cleveland-based Welshly Arms pays homage to many of their collective musical influences. Listen to “The Touch” or “Two Seconds Too Late” from their debut E.P. Welcome, and you just might hear a little Jimi Hendrix, The Temptations, Otis Redding, or Howlin Wolf. Grab their new self-titled LP now!
Catch them at House of Blues in Cleveland on Saturday, May 9!
Ten years ago, in the middle of freezing Chicago blizzard, Chris Mills got together with seventeen of the best musicians he could find to make his fourth album, The Wall to Wall Sessions.
They recorded and mixed the whole album, completely live to tape, the way a lot of Chris’s favorite records were made years ago – no overdubs, no computers, no nonsense.
His co-producer and arranger David Nagler created beautiful orchestral scores for all ten songs that were then played live by Chris’s crack, seventeen piece City That Works band, while engineer Dan Dietrich captured it all in living stereo on a Studer 1/4 inch 2-track tape machine. It was a big undertaking, but what they ended up with was (in Chris’s opinion) one of the best things he had ever done.
The only problem was, even with all of that old-school analog production, the final product ended up in the computer anyway – mastered digitally and then released on CD.
Until now. The 10th Anniversary release of The Wall to Wall Sessions is available very soon on vinyl for the first time ever – newly remastered completely in analog.
An indie rock supergroup of sorts, Camerado’s origins go back nearly six years, when Undertow Music Collective co-founder Mark Ray began writing a new batch of songs after moving to Portland, Oregon from the midwest.
Inspired by the untimely passing of his father and his family’s subsequent journey westward, Ray completed demos of the songs in 2010, sharing them with friend and frequent collaborator, and revered Denton, Texas drummer/producer Matt Pence (Centro-matic, Justin Townes Earl, Midlake), who felt the tracks should be realized as a proper album. Aided by Portland producer/musician John Askew (The Dodos, Richmond Fontaine, Neko Case), the self-titled record was completed in Fall of 2014.
Shimmering with plaintive, pastoral textures, the eponymous album reveals Ray’s love of seminal early 70s work by ELO, Badfinger, and Pink Floyd fused with a lean, Pacific Northwest indie sensibility.
