This Wednesday, May 23rd, MAN MAN celebrates the return home from their US tour w/ indie-rock icons Modest Mouse!
To kickoff the festivities, our good friends @ New York Magazine and Drillteam / Insound are throwing a very special Secret Kitchen dinner party w/ MAN MAN hosted by the one and only Isa Chandra Moskowitz (The Post Punk Kitchen)
details include:
date and time: Wednesday, May 23rd - 7:30 - 11pm
location: SECRET! will be announced Tomorrow, May 22nd.
price:
$35 tickets are completely SOLD OUT, however $10 tickets for the MAN MAN live performance and open bar are still available.
*note: if you are press, there is guestlist availability for the MAN MAN live performance and open bar only, if you'd like to be on the guestlist, please respond to this email.
to rsvp for the MAN MAN performance and open bar, visit:
www.nymag.com/nyxny
for more information, visit
www.wearemanman.com
www.myspace.com/wearemanman
www.nymag.com
www.theppk.com
THE FLESH
Kickoff West Coast Tour Tonight * Announce More European Dates w/ TED LEO and THE GOSSIP!
Stream New Album "Firetower" out now on Gern Blandsten!
“"Dirty, sexy, sinister, and above all, fun." – Filter Magazine
"Part karaoke-ready, part darkwave operatic--big and bold and splashy." - XLR8R Magazine
“A fearless quartet...a New World Order in music that dares its competitors to keep up with the times.” - Blogcritics.com
“The Flesh has produced a distinct sound...both beautifully soulful, funky, and a bit creepy.” - CNN.com
On The Flesh’s new LP Firetower, this “fearless quartet” expands on and experiments with its sound, for an addictive set of alluring art-pop anthems: Switching up the boy/girl vocal attack of their debut, it spotlights the passionate vocals of keyboardist Gabriella Zappia; building beyond the signature “punk-goes-R&B” sound of their early work, it adds driving, melodic punk (a la The Pretenders), sly rhythmic changeups and key changes, searing guitars, and sweeping pop melodies. Tied together with an elliptical narrative thread of illicit love, Firetower’s delightfully diverse 11 songs trace an emotional journey through innocence and towards experience, for the band’s most direct, compelling work to date.
When the band previewed some of the new songs on a short American tour in late '06, CITYBEAT’s Mike Breen wrote: “The evolution of their sound is far from over and crossover success may be imminent,” praising the title track as “classic, dramatic Pop” with “sweeping strings” and “hip hop-ready beats,” and The Cradle, the Brothel, and the Bible School as a “sensual, propulsive, sure-fire hit in the waiting.”
The album opens with the rousing, guitar-driven, one-two punch of The Truant, and The Cradle, the Brothel and the Bible School, whose driving riffs and soaring vocals evoke an innocent yearning for love and escape. Well-placed, off-kilter time signatures give the latter track a glorious lift.
As the album continues, a dark undercurrent begins to emerge beneath the catchy melodies. At once romantic and foreboding, Firetower is a tail of illicit seduction set to a string-laden, pulsing pop track. The driving, dual-vocal anthem World to Come runs together romantic obsession with cult fanaticism, while the escapist In Paradise evokes The Flesh’s early work, with skittering R&B beats and throbbing punk choruses.
Compulsion pairs a Rick James groove with Lynchian atmospherics and sticky pop melodies, while Justice fuses drummer Pete Angevine’s dub beats to doom-laden strings (conducted by bassist Jason Binnick). The driving goth-punk of Loyale leads into the breathless Kelis-meets-Misfits groove of Morning Sickness and the triumphant, avant-garage of Hydra & Hercules. The wistful, unadorned ballad Cross the Ocean brings the record to a poignant close.
History, Releases, and Production Details
The Flesh split their time between Brooklyn and Philadelphia. The band formed in New York City in 2002 after newly relocated Texas native Gabriella Zappia caught New Yorker Nat Halpern and Philadelphians Pete Angevine and Jason Binnick, performing in an early incarnation of the band at a local underground club. They have released 2 EPs and a debut LP, praised in the pages of such publications as SPIN, the Village Voice, and Vice Magazine.
From 2004-2006, THE FLESH toured the United States and Europe, appearing w/ Death from Above 1979, Hot Hot Heat, Man Man, IQU, The Dirtbombs, Oxford Collapse, Suicide, Glass Candy, Xiu Xiu, These Arms Are Snakes, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Dresden Dolls, Tom Tom Club, and many more.
Upon returning home from a European tour in 2006, The Flesh began work on Firetower. Their only plan going into the sessions, Halpern says, was “to do things that would be fresh and new for us.” They worked with co-producer, engineer, and longtime friend Chris Sanchez at Studio Sanchez Dos in Bridgeport, CT, where they experimented with new approaches: Gabriella sang and layered lead vocals, Nat and Pete utilized increased multi-track capacity for guitar and percussion overdubs, and Jason brought up some classical musician friends, leading them through string and horn arrangements on several songs.
Firetower was then mixed by the band’s good friend Joel Hamilton (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Book of Knots, Beauty Pill) at Studio G in Brooklyn NY, and mastered by Fred Kevorkian at Absolute Audio in New York, NY.
The Flesh is:
Pete Angevine: Drums, percussion
Jason Binnick: Bass
Nat Halpern: Guitar, vocals
Gabriella Zappia: Vocals, keyboards
"Firetower" Tracklisting
1. Truant
2. Cradle, The Brothel, And The Bible School
3. Firetower
4. World To Come
5. In Paradise
6. Compulsion
7. Justice
8. Loyale
9. Morning Sickness
10. Hydra And Hercules
11. Cross The Ocean
The Flesh Live!
USA:
May 21 2007 Spaceland Los Angeles, California
May 22 2007 Safari Sam's - ALL AGES! hollywood, California
May 23 2007 Club Moscow @ Boardner's LA, California
May 24 2007 The Uptown Nightclub w/Bellavista (ex-Vue) and the Front Oakland, California
May 25 2007 Beauty Bar San Diego, California
May 26 2007 Beauty Bar w/Andy Rourke (Smiths!) Las Vegas
May 30 2007 Johnny Brenda's w/ Radio 4 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Jun 1 2007 Pullout Method Party @ Club Midway New York, New York
Europe
Jun 5 2007 Club Fandango @ Dublin Castle London, London and South East
Jun 6 2007 The Windmill London
Jun 7 2007 The Metro London
Jun 8 2007 Hello Mr Fastlane @ The Macbeth London, London and South East
Jun 9 2007 Club Motherfucker @ Bardens Bourdoir in Dalston London, London and South East
Europe w/ Ted Leo!
Jun 10 2007 Chelsea w/ Ted Leo Wien
Jun 11 2007 Weekender w/ Ted Leo Innsbruck
Jun 12 2007 Feierwerk w/ Ted Leo München
Jun 13 2007 Schocken w/ Ted Leo Stuttgart
Jun 14 2007 K4 w/ Ted Leo Nurnberg
Jun 15 2007 Gebäude 9 w/ Ted Leo Köln
Jun 16 2007 Das Haus w/ Ted Leo Ludwigshafen
Jun 17 2007 Schlachthof w/ Ted Leo Wiesbaden
Jun 18 2007 Magnet w/ Ted Leo Berlin
Jun 19 2007 Molotow w/ Ted Leo Hamburg
Jun 20 2007 Gleis 22 w/ Ted Leo Münster
Jun 24 2007 Kleiner Club Garage w/ Ted Leo Saarbrücken
Jun 25 2007 TBA Paris
w/ The Gossip!
Jun 26 2007 VK w/ The Gossip Bruxelles
Jun 27 2007 Melkweg w/ The Gossip Amsterdam
For more information, visit:
www.putontheflesh.com
www.myspace.com/theflesh
www.gernblandsten.com
OXBOW
Announce European Tour w/ ISIS * Stream "The Narcotic Story" out June 5th on Hydra Head!
Oxbow is expression in its purest form; they bring it in and spew it out—they are the great leveler. Unrepentant fury tempered with unparalleled musicianship. There has never been a band with will to form like this and within that will; there can only be one. Anybody who's been in the midst of an Oxbow performance knows the fear. If you embrace it you will be rewarded, if you deny it you better get your ass out of the room. - Scott Kelly/Neurosis
The malls whisper. The halls whisper. The phone rings. And you are mocked and shamed while walls shiver down like wet sand and it is noticed like you are noticed, which is to say: not at all. And through all of their glass, steel and formless cold you move like it moves, along and alone, and you sleep while standing and you stand while waiting for buses and cars and in clubs at bars.
And then there is change. Crystalline change.
And between spaces and for spaces of the full measure of IT ALL what was big becomes small and what's small becomes animal grand until it's you, and handfuls of you, running into the always firing sun: a love that spells its name along the frame of everything that's broken. For good. For ever. And so it goes that OXBOW'S THE NARCOTIC STORY, co-produced by Grammy-winning producer-mixer JOE CHICCARELLI [FRANK ZAPPA, AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB, THE SHINS, THE RACONTEURS] is the sixth chambered installment of a suicide that plays itself out on the hustings of a substanced and principled addiction to failure while the band plays on.
From their previous time and tutelage with the estimable STEVE ALBINI, seven records, multiple tours of Europe, Asia, and the United States, a documentary film [MUSIC FOR ADULTS], TV appearances [ViVA TV] and collaborations with a raft of luminaries of stage and screen - MARIANNE FAITHFULL, LYDIA LUNCH, JARBOE, KLAUS FLOURIDE, RICHARD KERN-OXBOW and their penchant for plumb lines of catastrophe direct THE NARCOTIC STORY, the first in a triptych [to later include both a film and a soundtrack] of successful [and beautiful] ruin.
PAST stage performances have included outings with CASPAR & PETER BROTZMANN, THE MELVINS, JESU, BIG BUSINESS, JESUS LIZARD, THE BOREDOMS, KING DIAMOND, ORANJ SYMPHONETTE, GENGHIS TRON, YAKUZA, NEUROSIS, ZENI GEVA, SHELLAC, BORIS, THE RUINS, THE UNSANE, CONVERGE, DEERHOOF, SAHARA HOTNIGHTS, ZU, ARAB ON RADAR, SIX FINGERED SATELLITE, PELICAN, and more.
OXBOW [and OXBOW's acoustic duo LOVE'S HOLIDAY] is touring Europe with ISIS from May 24th to June 22, 2007. With additional outings July 2nd in London and July 15th in Birmingham, England for the Supersonic Festival. U.S shows will be announced subsequent to their return.
OXBOW's vocalist EUGENE ROBINSON's book Fight: Or, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking [Harper Collins] is scheduled for a fall release and will also be followed by a spoken word tour.
More facts:
There is nothing contrived in the Oxbow oeuvre. And after the blood, sweat, tears, brilliance, and panache of their previous records, Narcotic Story IS an absolute tour de force—the kind of music and narrative (it follows the drugridden tales of Eugene’s alter ego, Frank) that can only be crafted from REAL experience and passion. This record has rampant blues hooks, serpentine vocals, and deep rhythm all over. Strap on. Sink in.
This is the first proper new full length for Oxbow on Hydra Head, following 2006’s audio and visual retrospective Love That’s Last: A Wholly Hypnographic and Disturbing Work Regarding Oxbow. This is a record that solidifies what we’ve referred to in our office as “the most important band in the world”. It’s going to be impossible to look past what is surely one of the last bastions of true music and performance, i.e. fucking art.
The Oxbow performance, as a recent SXSW stand-off reminds us, continues to engage and challenge like no other. Prepare to see Oxbow tour a ton for this new platter. They’re already confirmed as main support for ISIS in Europe.
Words on Oxbow:
I've been cheered by Oxbow's career trajectory. - King Coffee, Butthole Surfers
What is it about Oxbow that strikes fear into the hearts of men, women, and children of all ilk and denomination? The band’s awe-inspiring predatory squall? Their lengthy history of confrontational live shows? Is it the fact that frontman Eugene Robinsonhas electrical tape over his ears and will stomp the tar out of you (gladly) if only you’d ask (or get too close)? Only the members of a band with albums entitled Fuckfest, King of the Jews (featuring a picture of Sammy Davis, Jr. on the cover) and The Balls in the Great Meatgrinder Collection would know. – DECIBEL MAGAZINE
Oxbow's compelling, ugly vision of hardcore inhabits the slow burning afterglow of some unspecified catastrophe... the band's commitment to only the most tormented musical expression produces no end of astonishing twists. - THE WIRE MAGAZINE
Rarely have I been so thoroughly seduced after an adverse reaction, and rarely have I been so driven to get up and thrash around and feel the blood pulse through my veins. - PITCHFORKMEDIA.COM
Eugene Robinson should have a phobia named after him: fear of hulking bodybuilders trained in mixed martial arts fighting with a thing for exhibitionism who front bands that play savage, jet engine-loud pummel-core and also dabble in porn and journalism. – SF WEEKLY
If you haven't been infected with the band's innovative approach to exorcising rhythmic demons, check out the boys' eerie aesthetic on their latest CD – XLR8R MAGAZINE
Known for frontman Eugene Robinson’s penchant for disrobing onstage as much as the band’s bombastic caterwauls of post-grunge dissonance, this album (five years since their last album, An Evil Heat) will loose the dam of confused ill will that’s likely been brewing inside the band – CMJ
A lot of bands bill their records as therapy, but Oxbow bleeds authenticity in a way most hardcore bands can only dream of. The band called Oxbow is a raw nerve in today's bland landscape of supposedly alternative music; you owe it to yourself to descend into their world. – SCENE POINT BLANK
Stream "The Narcotic Story" HERE!
Tracklist for The Narcotic Story:
(intro) (0:42)
Geometry of Business (4:11)
Time Gentlemen Time (4:52)
Down A Stair Backward (5:00)
She's A Find (8:47)
Frankly Frank (4:46)
A Winner Every Time (4:52)
Frank's Frolic (6:24)
It's the Giving, Not the Taking (6:01)
OXBOW European Tour w/ ISIS!
May 24 2007 Oran Mor Glasgow #
May 25 2007 Brickyard Carlisle #
May 27 2007 Bierkeller Bristol #
May 28 2007 Barfly Birmingham #
May 29 2007 Concorde 2 Brighton #
May 30 2007 Le Grand Mix Tourcoing #
May 31 2007 Ancienne Beligique Brussels #
Jun 1 2007 Moloko Geneva #
Jun 2 2007 Sonic Lyons #
Jun 3 2007 L'Embobineuse Marseilles #
Jun 4 2007 Le Rockstore Montpellier *
Jun 5 2007 Transilvania Live Club milan, Milano *
Jun 6 2007 Circolo Degli Artisti Rome, Roma *
Jun 7 2007 New Estragon Bologna, Bologna *
Jun 8 2007 Kilbi Festival Dudingen *
Jun 9 2007 Hirscheneck Basel
Jun 10 2007 La Locomotive Paris *
Jun 11 2007 Paradiso Amsterdam *
Jun 12 2007 Stollwerck Koln *
Jun 13 2007 Postbahnhof Berlin, Berlin *
Jun 14 2007 AN Club Athens *
Jun 16 2007 FLUC Vienna #
Jun 17 2007 Mediapark Ljubljana #
Jun 19 2007 Firlej Wroclaw #
Jun 20 2007 Progresia Warsaw #
Jun 22 2007 Palace Akropolis Prague *
Jul 2 2007 Koko London, London and South East *
Jul 14 2007 Supersonic Festival Birmingham #
Jul 16 2007 The Spitz London #
* = OXBOW (full band)
# = LOVE'S HOLIDAY (OXBOW'S ACOUSTIC DUO)
"We all get exactly what we fucking deserve." - Eugene Robinson
For more information, visit:
www.theoxbow.com
www.myspace.com/theoxbow
www.hydrahead.com
www.hydraheadlines.blogspot.com
ALSO COMING SOON ON HYDRA HEAD:
"Dödsvisioner"
(May 22nd, 2007)
Bergraven's main man, Pär, turns the traditional blast-and-flay aesthetic of “frostbitten grimness” on its ear and comes at us with sweeping riff dirges, winding cinematic passages, melodic guitar interludes, tortured-yet-vaguely-authoritarian & Germanic vocal overtones and—get this—ambient pedal steel excursions. All of which is enough to make your fucking head spin, especially if you (like us) are down with weirdness that transcends weirdness-merely-for-the-sake-of-beingweird and comes out on the other side looking like a total fucking destroyer. What we’re saying is this: Dödsvisioner is not your typical black metal experience, and Bergraven is not your standard Swedish killing machine.
Bergraven’s Dödsvisioner is Hydra Head's second collaborative work with Sweden's Total Holocaust Records. Rife with complex dirge riffage, bleak and haunting melodies, and traditiondefying rhythms, this black metal record is as torturous as it is wholly engaging. File in line with other black metal visionaries like Deathspell Omega, Ondskapt, and Leviathan. You may not yet have heard of Bergraven, but we guarantee you Dödsvisioner is already of the elite.
Stream "Dödsvisioner" HERE!
Tracklisting for Dödsvisioner
Döende (8:46)
Av saknad släcker jag ljuset (1:56)
Ondkall (8:03)
Känsla av livets nästa skede (7:08)
Den svarta angstens essens (6:54)
Det man med själen... (6:27)
Ekot av bikt (6:38)
Döende (en avslutning) (8:52)
For more information, visit:
www.myspace.com/bergraven
www.hydrahead.com
www.hydraheadlines.blogspot.com
and:
July 10th: BOTCH "American Nervoso" Re-release
July 24th: DALEK “Deadverse Massive Vol. 1: Dälek Rarities 1999-2006”
Announces "A New Beat From A Dead Heart" out June 26th on Deathwish!
If you look up the number 108 on Wikipedia, you'll learn the following:
One hundred [and] eight is an abundant number and a semiperfect number. It is a tetranacci number. It is the hyperfactorial of 3 since it is of the form . 108 is a number that is divisible by the value of its φ function, which is 36. 108 is also divisible by the total number of its divisors (12), hence it is a refactorable number. In normal space, the interior angles of an equilateral pentagon measure 108 degrees each. In Dharmic traditions Hindu deities have 108 names. Recital of these names, often accompanied by counting of 108-beaded Mala, is considered sacred and often done during religious ceremonies. The recital is called namajapa. Siva Nataraja dances his cosmic dance in 108 poses. The number of sins in Tibetan Buddhism is 108. Chinese astrology and Tao philosophy holds that there are 108 sacred stars.
However, if reading carefully, one would notice that 108 is also a California based Hare Krishna, hardcore punk band.
108 makes no mistake about the significance of their namesake. Frontman and lyricist Robert Fish/Rasaraja Dasa was practicing straight edge, vegetariansim and Gaudiya Vaisnavism while skating to punk and hardcore shows in NYC at the age of 13. Guitarist and mighty axe-thrower Vic Dicara (also formerly of legendary hardcore bands Beyond w/ Tom Capone of Bold and Quicksand, and Inside Out fronted by Zach De La Rocha now of Rage Against The Machine) actively practices Hinduism, as does earth-shaking bassist Trivikrama dasa (Tim Cohen), and newest member to the band, Tom Hogan, practices the art of pounding the hell out of his drumkit to round out the true tour de force that is 108.
108 formed in 1992 as a result of the legendary local New York City punk and hardcore scene of the 80’s and early 90’s, and have themselves become legends in their own right. Thanks to a collection of groundbreaking releases, most notably 1995’s “Songs of Separation” (an album whose sheer brutality and technical song-writing and musicianship, especially for it’s time, laid the groundwork for some of the heaviest and most technical bands soon to follow). The album’s landmark song “Deathbed” is still touted by many as one of the greatest hardcore anthems of our time.
Now, after a not so brief hiatus (1996 – 2005), the band is back with their first studio album in over a decade (Equal Vision Records recently issued a 37 song discography of the band’s history to this point), and it sounds like they haven’t missed a beat. "A New Beat From A Dead Heart" was recorded and engineered by Kurt Ballou (Converge) at Godcity Studios. With the opening bass line of "Declarations On A Grave", 108 transports listeners to a new aural plane with it's jarring grit and intensity. Standout track "Three Hundred Liars" is as musically infectious as they come, pulsing and writhing through it's many sonic twists and turns. And elsewhere on the album "Angel Strike Man" soars with a Bad Brains-esque white hot anger while "The Sad Truth" cuts deep with repetition and poignant poetic vocal styling. These, along with the other songs on the album, are all sonically unique and spiritually invigorating. Redefining "heavy" with their controlled chaos, drive to enlighten, and will to inspire through sound, all of these qualities make "A New Beat From A Dead Heart" the kind of rare artistic achievement that few bands could ever attain.
108 will be performing in a city near you as they prepare for a full tour of the United States, but not before they destroy our lucky friends in Europe first (see full tour schedule below).
Stream 108 Player HERE!
Tracklist for "A New Beat From A Dead Heart"
1. Declarations on a Grave
2. Guilt
3. Angel Strike Man
4. Three Hundred Liars
5. Resurrect to Destroy
6. Martyr Complex
7. The Sad Truth
8. My Redemption
9. Bibles + Guns = The American Dream?
10. (IL)logical End
11. We Walk Through Walls
12. Our Kind
13. Repeat
108 Live!
USA
Jun 29 2007 Significant Fest @ 688 Clearwater, Florida
Jun 30 2007 Worcester Youth Center Worcester, Massachusetts
Jul 1 2007 538 Johnson Ave (Brooklyn, NY) Brooklyn, New York
Europe
Jul 3 2007 BeiChezHeinz Hanover
Jul 4 2007 Jubez Karlsruhe
Jul 5 2007 Wolfsburg, Germany @ Jugendhaus Ost Wolfsburg
Jul 6 2007 Leisnig, Germany Leisnig
Jul 7 2007 Muggefug Cottbus
Jul 8 2007 Matrix Bochum
Jul 9 2007 The Engine Room Brighton
Jul 10 2007 Music Box (Jilly's Rock World) Manchester
Jul 11 2007 The Electric Ballroom London
Jul 12 2007 Batofar Paris
Jul 13 2007 Winston Amsetrdam
Jul 14 2007 Dour Fest Dour
Jul 14 2007 Rock Herkfestival Herk-de-Stad
Jul 15 2007 La salle des fetes Imphy/Nevers
Jul 16 2007 Feierwerk, Sunny Red München
Jul 17 2007 Austria TBA Austria TBA
Jul 18 2007 Wein Arena Wein Arena
Jul 19 2007 Poland TBA Poland TBA
Jul 20 2007 Fluff Fest Plzen
Jul 21 2007 Italy TBA Italy TBA
Jul 28 2007 The Alpine (www.myspace.com/soundandfuryfestival) Ventura, California
+ US Tour TBA soon!
For more information, visit:
www.myspace.com/108music
www.weare108.com
www.deathwishinc.com
Announce US Dates with TED LEO / Stream Upcoming Album "Bazaar Bazaar" out May 22nd on Volcom!
"It sounded like Sloan gone psych. No, it sounded like Led Zeppelin gone pop. No, that's not quite it either. Black Sabbath meets The Beatles? In fact it's none of those, but the truth lies somewhere in the middle of those comparisons.” - Jim Kopeny (Chicagoist, Donewaiting, Tankboy)
"Like Led Zeppelin psychedelic blues, Black Sabbath's bag of riffs and a love for all things rockin' from the '60s and '70s... The band's debut is a freewheelin' ode to most of what's great about rock'n'roll." - Aversion.com
"The North Carolina-based group has released a surprisingly strong debut with Bazaar Bazaar, a chugging pop-rock (with emphasis on the latter) effort in a space where ELO, Wolfmother and Sweet coalesce." - The Houston Press
“Led by a pair of guitarists who seem, by sheer force, to be powering their amplifiers rather than the other way around, Birds of Avalon make thunderous, precise rock with enough proggy smarts to keep you on your toes.” Steve Haruch for the Nashville Scene
“A band capable of delivering three-minute rock bliss and expansive psychedelic workouts with equal chops.” – Salt Lake Tribune
After a 7-year stint in a prison van with the double drum, frenetic rock n’ roll assault known as The Cherry Valence, guitarists Cheetie Kumar and Paul Siler, felt a growing desire to move on. In a final whirlwind year that saw The Cherry Valence touring Europe multiple times, the couple, Kumar and Siler, got married and made the difficult decision to divorce their band.
Returning home hitched and band-less, they began late night clandestine meetings with neighbor and local crooner Craig Tilley (The Weather), where they hatched a plan to form Birds of Avalon and laid the foundation for what was to become the first batch of Birds Of Avalon songs. Still needing to round out their line up they snared their favorite area drummer Scott Nurkin (Dynamite Brothers) and soon added multi-instrumentalist and fanatical 4 tracker, David Mueller on bass.
With the release of their debut full length, Bazaar Bazaar, Birds Of Avalon have developed a unique psychedelic meets progressive sound that yields feelings that transcend the conventions of both. Skillfully channeling elements of a time in Rock since past, while maintaining their place in the lineage of North Carolinian independent rock heritage. Easily traversing an area between raw blues rock and atmospheric pysch-pop. Birds Of Avalon “can tear it up in a three-minute barn-burner or lure you into an extended psychedelic journey, wandering schizophrenically like a Brian May guitar solo,” so says Jens Lekman of Cincinnati City Beat.
Bazaar Bazaar is set for release on May 22nd on Volcom Entertainment and was recorded and produced by Mitch Easter (R.E.M., Let’s Active, Wilco), Greg Elkins and Brian Quast.
Watch Birds of Avalon shred HERE
BIRDS OF AVALON US Tour Dates:
w/The Fucking Champs!
5/23/2007 @ Caledonia Lounge - Athens, GA
5/24/2007 @ The EARL - East Atlanta, GA
5/25/2007 @ Bottletree Cafe - Birmingham, AL
5/26/2007 @ Hi Tone - Memphis, TN
5/27/2007 @ The Duck Room - St. Louis, MO
5/28/2007 @ The Picador - Iowa City, IA
5/29/2007 @ Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL
5/30/2007 @ Magic Stick - Detroit, MI
5/31/2007 @ Sneaky Dee's - Toronto, ON
6/01/2007 @ La Sala Rosa - Montreal, QC
6/02/2007 @ Wallingford American Legion Hall - Wallingford, CT
6/03/2007 @ Great Scotts - Allston, MA
6/04/2007 @ The Mercury Lounge - New York, NY
6/05/2007 @ Studio B - Brooklyn, NY
6/06/2007 @ Ottobar - Baltimore, MD
6/07/2007 @ Johnny Brenda's - Philadelphia, PA
6/08/2007 @ Satellite Ballroom - Charlottesville, VA
6/09/2007 @ The Poor House - Raleigh, NC
w/ Ted Leo!
8/05/2007 Covington KY @ Madison Theatre - The Sonic Muse Festival (Ted Leo, The Hold Steady, The Black Angels, and more)
8/06/2007 Nashville TN @ Exit In
8/07/2007 Birmingham AL @ Bottletree Lounge
8/08/2007 Roswell GA @ Whirlyball Atlanta (Chunklet Presents)
8/09/2007 Athens GA @ 40 Watt Club - Athens Popfest
8/10/2007 Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
8/11/2007 Towson MD @ Recher Theater
8/12/2007 - SECRET NYC SHOW!!!!
+ more TBA soon!
Stream "Bazaar Bazaar" HERE!
"Bazaar Bazaar" Tracklist:
1. Bicentennial Baby
2. Horse Called Dust
3. Instant Coma
4. Set You Free
5. Wanderlust
6. Taking Trains
7. Superpower
8. Where’s My Blood?
9. Turn Gold
10. Think
11. Lost Pages From the Robot Repair Manual
For more information, visit:
www.birdsofavalon.com
www.myspace.com/birdsofavalon
www.volcoment.com
LEWIS & CLARKE
Release "Blasts of Holy Birth" Today!
"Eight tracks of delicate beauty" - Pitchforkmedia.com
The songs of Lewis & Clarke are medicinal, meditative, and trance-inducing. They wind along lengthy lines of chamber folk, full of bows and bells, aphorisms and dreamy dreams. Both literally and figuratively, Blasts of Holy Birth (out May 10th on La Societe' Expeditionnaire.) is about being born and re-born.
Conducting the folds of nylon-string guitar, harp, keyboard, horns, strings, and drums, is Lou Rogai, the voice and vision, with arms of friends draped in the name Lewis & Clarke.
Rogai is a pastoralist, a rat-race expatriate, an old-soul musician who chose to live more deliberately with his family under the eaves of mountain trees in Pennsylvania's Delaware Water Gap. It is a community distant to the big city's pace, but close enough for gigs and recording sessions with his city-folk colleagues. Among them are Russell Higbee (harp, keys) of Man Man and Eve Miller of Rachel's (cello) who, too, embrace the exploration of sinewy eastern melody and unaffected compassion called Lewis & Clarke.
"A profound work of earthy, orchestrated new-folk, Blasts Of Holy Birth raises the bar for both listeners and players in search of evolution in roots-oriented music. Meshing gorgeously hushed melodies and plucked guitars with baroque string arrangements and ethereal pulses and surges, Lewis & Clarke ( a.k.a. Del. Water Gap's Lou Rogai) has crafted a transcendent work of epic proportions. Themed around the birthing experience, the album moves in tidal breaths through meditative and hazy soundscapes, delicate minimalism, and goose bump inducing chamber sections. An expose of grace, beauty, peril, triumph, and the interconnectivity of all things - musically and lyrically, it's really that good." -
Impose Magazine
In Delaware Water Gap, one can tune in to vibrations that only exist in certain areas. It is here that Rogai, with his wife, took to nest in an antiquated dwelling within earshot of an historic jazz landmark: tuned in, turned on, and just far enough away from the rattle of the rest of the world.
Blasts of Holy Birth was written not with the usual pen-in-hand love-lost scribbles that song scribes commonly sing; here are celebrations, hand-in-hand, of life's travails and joys!
Lewis & Clarke songs are long and unhurried life lessons, believed and still unveiling truths, to himself and his son, who was months away from LIFE: Day One while this album was being composed. The only piece here not written by Rogai, "Comfort Inn", is by his friend, Aaron Ross, the CA mountain dweller and singer of Hella. Ross was awaiting the birth of his daughter during same time that Rogai expected his son, and so it only fit that they share in each other's song.
Over the last few years, Lewis & Clarke have toured and performed with Isobel Campbell (Belle & Sebastian), Blur, Robyn Hitchcock, Joan of Arc, Okkervil River, Mi & L'au, The Black Swans and other contemporaries.
And as is the case with good artists and smart adults, it is through big change and artistic redemption that we re-learn who we really are. And as the meat of life is inseparable from the weight of song, Lewis & Clarke's heavy-duty beauty, Blasts of Holy Birth, is born.
More praise:
"Lewis & Clarke has carved out its own niche thanks to the lush arrangements of its debut, 2005's "Bare Bones and Branches." - Billboard Magazine
"A whisper of an album, lovely without being precious, moody without being beleaguering." - No Depression
"Lou Rogai, who records under the name Lewis & Clarke, artfully mixes his multi-layered vocal tracks with finger-picked acoustic guitar, Hammond organ, Rhodes piano, and lap steel." - Acoustic Guitar World
"A gifted newcomer" - Magnet
"The mystical side of (Lewis and Clarke) is heightening...thoughtful, lightly philosophical, exploratory folk with a rustic, natural-world mood." - Erasing Clouds
"Elements of eastern instrumentation blend with acoustic plucking, sounding at once exotic and accessible, � la Macha on morphine" - Stereogum
"This is an album you simply must own." - Smother.net
"A pure music experience that whispers half-remembered truths to the soul, as Rogai easily soars above so-called "acid folk"/"freak folk" conventions by exhibiting amazing clarity and a sense of spaciousness in his songs... striking in its authenticity and ability to convey empathy and even inspiration. It is gentle and wild, an abundant feast of simple fare that nourishes the heart." - The Morning Call
"Kaleidoscopic layering over sophisticated lines, the rosy folk songs within are tasteful, only bordering on sentimental, and graciously free of pretense...reverent, almost hymnal in quality." - The Aquarian Weekly
"An intelligent revelatory light into the heart of life and love" - Detroit Metro Times
Lewis & Clarke Live!
6/15 @ Prince George Ballroom (a benefit for Common Ground)
(15 East 27th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues)
Stream "Blasts" HERE!
"Blasts of Holy Birth" Tracklist:
1. Secret Of The Golden Flower
2. Blasts Of Holy Birth
3. Comfort Inn
4. Before It Breaks You
5. Black Doves
6. Crimson Carpets
7. We Think We Have Eyes
8. Be The Air We Breathe
For more information, visit:www.lewisandclarkemusic.com
www.la-soc.com
www.myspace.com/lewisclarke
www.myspace.com/lasoc
