studious patrons of a specific corner of the internet may already be familiar with Sarah Beth Tomberlin’s stirring At Weddings , released under her own surname last year. the substance and weight of that album appropriately drew the interest of Saddle Creek Records, who will reissue At Weddings, containing three brand-new songs, on august 10th.
as an introduction (or re-introduction), Tomberlin has shared a new music video for her standout cut “Self-Help,” its meditative, metallic timbre supplemented by hazy footage of Tomberlin taking in an aquarium. the recurring jellyfish feel like a subtle nod to references of electrocution and overall pain, concepts Tomberlin sifts through with devastating turns of phrase.
Because the music is beautiful to me. Reminds me of Honey Tongue quite a bit, yet it is still a unique acoustic experience that rewards from repeated listening from beginning to end. I am basing my review on the White label that Joyful Noise Recordings released which contained several of the songs on this release.
On her deeply moving debut album At Weddings, Sarah Beth Tomberlin writes with the clarity and wisdom of an artist well beyond her years. Immeasurable space circulates within the album’s ten songs, which set Tomberlin’s searching voice against lush backdrops of piano and guitar. Like Julien Baker and Sufjan Stevens, she has a knack for transforming the personal into parable.
Sarah Beth comments, When I wrote a lot of these songs I never thought they would leave my bedroom. These songs are personal, but I think their themes are easily felt from person to person. I hope these songs can be there for you like they were for me when I was writing them. I am extremely excited to finally be able to share this record with you. My first full length record, ‘At Weddings,’ will be out on Saddle Creek Records on 8/10/18.
Credits: Music + lyrics by Sarah Beth Tomberlin Sarah Beth Tomberlin – guitar, Wurlitzer, vocals Owen Pallett – guitar, Prophet 6, and background vocals
Produced, recorded, and mixed by Owen Pallett at M’s House + Owen’s House
Philadelphia’s Hop Along will release their third studio album “Bark Your Head Off, Dog” on April 6th! Available on black vinyl, and a tri-color striped vinyl that is limited to 750 copies and sold exclusively on the Saddle Creek Store. The formidable 9-song collection is the band’s strongest and most cohesive album to date. Crafted by Frances Quinlan (songwriter, lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist), Tyler Long (bass), Joe Reinhart (guitar), and Mark Quinlan (drums), the album considers what it’s like to cast off longheld and misguided perceptions, yet without the assurance of knowing what new ones will replace them. Quinlan has been meditating a lot on power.
In this particular moment in history, this thought begs a greater question: what do we do with power and the men who so freely brandish it? “So strange to be shaped by such strange men” is a line that repeats on more than one song on the album. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. That I just deferred to men throughout my life,” Quinlan says. “But by thinking you’re powerless, you’re really robbing yourself. I’m at a point in my life where I’m saying instead, ‘Well, what can I do?’
On album opener, “How Simple,”Quinlan wrangles with what it’s like to learn about yourself—which can get ugly. Quinlan explains, “People romanticize the idea of finding themselves, but when they do, at least in my experience, it can be really difficult. You see how you fail others and how others fail you.” Offering fans a classic dose of Hop Along’s searing songwriting and unabashed honesty.
Self-produced and recorded at The Headroom in Philadelphia by Reinhart and Kyle Pulley,Bark Your Head Off, Dog features the familiar sounds that have always made the band allergic to genre: grunge, folk, punk, and power pop all appear, with inspiration from ELO to Elvis Costello to ‘70s girl group vocal arrangements.
This time around, they’ve added strings, more intricate rhythms, lush harmonies (featuring Thin Lips’ Chrissy Tashjian), along with a momentary visit with a vocoder. In more than one place, Mark Quinlan drums like he’s at a disco with Built to Spill. Bark Your Head Off, Dog is, without question, Hop Along’s most dynamic and textured record yet.
Throughout the album, one gets the sense that Quinlan is wandering in the thicket of a forest—a state of being that will feel familiar to longtime listeners—and on this outing, she hasn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs behind her. The album’s artwork, which Quinlan painted herself, invites the listener into that forest, as well. The record calls upon references that Quinlan has woven throughout all of the band’s albums: the wild presence of animals (rabbits, foxes, dogs, and blue jays all appear on this record) and historical touchstones (from a podcast on World War I to books by Karl Ove Knausgaard). Hop Along’s songs continue to reveal the curiosities nesting in Quinlan’s mind.
“If Philadelphia is the capital of indie rock, then Hop Along sits at the table with its top leaders. […] Quinlan’s gripping vocals, an earworm of a chorus, and an unexpectedly dreamy violin outro. “How Simple” may leave you feeling a touch of whiplash, but the ride is undeniably fun.”
– Pitchfork,
Best New Track“ …with some extra touches like layered vocal tracks and a touching string outro, [“How Simple”] is a song that hits all the emotions that Quinlan can reach in one breath.”
– Esquire
“How Simple” is easily one of Hop Along’s poppiest moments, and as the two parties at the center of the song try to make sense of their confused situation, the answer comes in a glorious gang vocal you can’t help but sing along to: “Don’t worry, we will both find out, just not together.”
– NPR
New album “Bark Your Head Off, Dog” out April 6th!
Young Jesus, are a indie rock band born in Chicago and now residing in Los Angeles, they have just signed with Saddle Creek Records with an album release due February 2018. Their lead single is nearly 10 minute track that wanders all over the place. Herre’s a little something about the band.
Young Jesus, looks to communicate the tensions between proximity and distance, chaos and order. On their upcoming debut record S/T, released by Saddle Creek, the band focuses on seemingly small moments in everyday life: phone calls with Mom, landscapes along the highway, crows in a tree. Yet with time these strange intimacies add up to a life. A life full of anxiety, confusion, sadness, joy, boredom, and ultimately wonder.
Band Members
John Rossiter (Guitar/Vox)
Kern Haug (Drums)
Marcel Borbon (Bass)
Eric Shevrin (Keys/Vox)
For Twinsmith, the occasion to make a third album came with an opportunity to distill their process down to its essential parts, and to re-focus the band’s perspective in order to fully embrace their sound. Longtime friends Jordan Smith and Matt Regner had written a pair of records as Twinsmith, starting with 2013’s self-titled debut and then 2015’s “Alligator Years” which earned lots of press attention . While the lineup would grow to include bassist Bill Sharp and other hired guns to round out the stage, the songwriting core learned to vary their approach while relying on each other to push the plot forward. Starting as DIY tinkerers in a basement, Smith and Regner would evolve their sound from hazy surf rock to a fuller, more dynamic guitar-and-keys pop appeal, making good use of the perks like recording studios and engineers that often come with progress. But as it came time to begin again for a new album, they found themselves looking back to the beginning, stripping back their process and recording in the dining room of their house using old synths and ‘80s drum machines.
Produced by friend and Omaha neighbor Graham Ulicny (Reptar, The Faint), this limitation on personnel would remain the only thing strict during the process. By removing distractions and relying on their own prowess, as well as pealing back the sound to create shorter, more direct songs, Twinsmith found that this laid back approach allowed them to focus on the same goals and to create something entirely for themselves. “The main goal was to make something a bit more personal to us,” Smith says. “The last album was kind of in-your-face pop music and that’s why we made this so short and sweet; we wanted listeners to hear the small, distinct sounds we were working on. Because there were only a few people involved, we could make our decisions more directly. We wanted to make something we could use to relate to a bigger mass and bring people back.”
Stripping the words, the music, and the players down to their raw parts, Twinsmith have created a work of con dent determination. Melodies soar and rhythms sway, the beats pulse with a laid back but urgent immediacy, and the simplicity of it all stitches the songs together in its mysterious way. From the simple three-color design of the cover to the process that created the sounds underneath, “Stay Cool” rewards with its ability to connect.
To open the fourth season of the Gladden House Sessions, Big Thief’s lead singer and songwriter AdrianneLenker stopped by to perform an intimate and haunting solo set in the early evening of that Thursday. The intense and soft-spoken Lenker, armed only with an acoustic guitar, captivated the festival goers in attendance with a curated selection of songs.
Lenker opened with a gorgeous rendition of the title track from Capacity (Saddle Creek). Her second song was an unexpected treat; an unreleased, and hereto yet to be recorded, song that she has rarely performed. This new track was a delight to the many fans of Lenker’s enthralling approach to performance. Lenker closed the set with another track off of “Capacity”, the album opener “Pretty Things.”
In December 2016, after her fall solo tour, the Mynabirds lead singer Laura Burhenn went to Nashville to record a song called “Wild Hearts” with her friend Patrick Damphier, who divulged that he was getting kicked out of his studio because of gentrification. “It felt like a metaphor after the presidential election … like we were all getting pushed out of the place where we felt safe, where we thought we’d be forever,” Burhenn says.
At a time where horrifying news seemed to be taking over the world, her need for a new album felt immediate. The emotional rollercoaster that she and the rest of the nation was going through spurred The Mynabirds‘ fourth record, Be Here Now, which arrives in full on August. 25th, after being released over the course of the summer on a trio of three-song EPs.
At the heart of Burhenn’s belief system is Buddhism, which fueled The Mynabirds’ new album. In the distress caused by the election, she looked to the religion for guidance, comfort and peace of mind. The idea of shenpa — a Buddhist term for shutting down in the face of high emotions — is what inspired Be Here Now. Instead of running away from unwanted feelings, Burhenn found herself focusing on mindfulness and being present, even in a moment of discomfort — which is why she borrowed the title of spiritual teacher Ram Dass’ book Be Here Nowfor her band’s latest body of work.
In crafting the nine songs from The Mynabirds’ forthcoming record, Burhenn felt as if she was a reporter doing “emotional journalism.” “I was trying to make a record at a very specific time and place, and I was trying to make a record of how people were feeling,” she explains of Be Here Now, which was recorded in the two weeks following Trump’s inauguration and the massive Women’s March in January. “I felt like I was observing.”
In a lot of ways, Be Here Now takes cues from the band’s 2012 politically charged record, Generals, but has the added effect of more analog instrumentation. The live moments weren’t overwrought, and there was no time to overthink anything. Burhenn wasn’t trying to make the album be anything in particular, which made the record emotionally raw. “It felt like singing a collective catharsis,” she explains.
The decision to put out a first single wasn’t an easy one, but The Mynabirds landed on the glimmering love song “Cocoon.”, “It’s about being in the middle of all of the political tumult, wanting to turn off the news and be surrounded by love and hope,” Burhenn explains.
In a broader sense, the track is about connecting with people — something inspired by Kimya Dawson’s essay on safe spaces following the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland. Though the Ghost Ship proved to be unsafe in other ways, it was also a sanctuary for artists and the LGBTQ community.
The Mynabirds‘ Be Here Nowis available Saddle Creek Records.
Desaparecidos is a 5-piece rock band fronted by Bright Eyes singer/songwriter Conor Oberst (vocals, guitar) and featuring Denver Dalley (guitar), Landon Hedges (bass, vocals), Ian McElroy (keyboards), and Matt Baum (drums). Matt and Ian are familiar to many of you from the various incarnations of Bright Eyes‘ touring band of which they played in.
Conor Oberst may be better known for his confessional song writing and storytelling, but Desaparecidos is nothing of the sort. Indeed, similar vocal melodies and song structure are present, but the guitars are loud and distorted, the bass is pounding, and the drums and keyboards round out this hi-energy, pop-rock band without the lyrical focus of personal relationships. Oberst screams out observational commentary about urban development, the sacrifice of human value for the dollar bill, and the new American Dream.
2022 finds us releasing the 20th Anniversary Edition of Desaparecidos’ “Read Music/Speak Spanish” into a world in which the dread and disenfranchisement detailed throughout the album feel as pertinent today as they did then. The characters and settings may have changed, but the startling narrative has not.
In late 2001, Conor Oberst, Denver Dalley, Landon Hedges, Ian McElroy, and Matt Baum spent a week at Presto! Recording Studio in Lincoln, NE recording a punk album. That debut album, released in the post-9/11 fog of early 2002, screamed out observational commentary on urban development, the sacrifice of human value for the dollar bill, and the new American Dream in a way that felt distinctly out of sync with the hyper-patriotic atmosphere of peak G.W. Bush-era America.
The band toured, got a bit of attention, and then went their separate ways for a long spell. In the ensuing years, Read Music/Speak Spanish gained cult status and became one of the most beloved and meaningful documents of the era, capturing the alienation that those who had seen through the fog of war for $$$$ experienced at the time.
20 years on, those feelings are just as, if not more, relevant than they were in that moment. America has mutated into a new confused version of itself, in many ways unimaginable two decades ago. Yet, the fear and disgust voiced on Read Music/Speak Spanish now sound more prophetic than paranoid, making the album’s message as necessary as ever.
Setting out to capture the rawness of the band, the record was recorded over one week at Presto! Recording Studio in Lincoln with producer Mike Mogis. Bright Eyes fans will love it, but it’ll also appeal to anyone who’s ever dug At The Drive In, The Pixies, Weezer, Dinosaur Jr., etc.
This album was originally released February 11th, 2002
It would have been natural for Big Thief’s second album,“Capacity” to expand on the richness of the previous collection “Masterpiece” by bathing the band’s new songs in lavish production. But if anything, Capacity takes Lenker to quieter and more private places, with an inward-facing sound to match her ever richer, altogether more intimate storytelling.
These are songs lush with detail, dotted with matter-of-factly dispensed places and proper names (Evelyn, Andrew, Mary, Haley), and yet they’re also abstract enough to retain an undercurrent of mystery. “Shark Smile” paints a vivid picture of a doomed drive, but instead of indulging in road-song clichés, Lenker prefers to linger on illuminative details “the money pile on the dashboard, fluttering” en route to a trip’s bad end. In “Watering,”“Mythological Beauty” and elsewhere, “Capacity’s” flashes of violence are rendered in bloody poetry, leaving the album’s back half to do the business of healing and adjusting.
There, “Capacity” takes several stunningly warm turns most notably in the song “Mary,” a love song to an enduring friendship. At five and a half minutes, it unfolds deliberately until a dense cluster of evocative words comes spilling out:
“What did you tell me, Mary / When you were there, so sweet and very / Full of field and stars you carried, all of time / Oh, and heavens, when you looked at me / Your eyes were like machinery / Your hands were making artifacts in the corner of my mind.”
Capacity spends a lot of time ruminating on scars — how they’re made, how they fade, how we learn to wear them comfortably. Which in turn makes “Mary,” and by extension the album, all the more cathartic in its soft celebration.
Big Thief – Mary
From the upcoming album “Capacity” – Out June 9th, 2017!
We are excited to announce Big Thief’s highly anticipated second album,“Capacity”, will be out June 9th. The trails that the band takes us down on Capacity are overgrown with a wilderness of souls. These are carnivorous stories, with pangs of sadness and joy. Songwriter Adrianne Lenker shows us the gentle side of being ripped open, and then recounts the second act of pulling oneself back together to prepare for it all to happen again.
The first song to be shared (which will also be available on Record Store Day as a 7″ Vinyl single b/w non-album track “Breathe in My Lungs”) is the utterly captivating and semi-autobiographical “Mythological Beauty” (learn more about the song via her interview with NPR Music’s Bob Boilen on All Songs Considered.
The video for “Mythological Beauty” features a cameo by Lenker’s mother (who also graced the cover of Masterpiece). The gorgeous video, directed by Vanessa Haddad and Adam Gundersheimer, leaves itself open to interpretation as it follows a resolute woman played by Adrianne carrying a stricken man played by Buck Meek through the woods.
Big Thief – Mythological Beauty
From the upcoming album Capacity – Out 6/9/17!
The Fat Angel Sings 