BEIRUT - 'MARCH OF THE ZAPOTEC'

Formats

• POMP01CD - 2xCDs

  823566487722

Details

After the widely acclaimed 2007 album The Flying Club Cup, which hit many album of the year lists including the NME, Uncut, Q, The Sun and The Telegraph, the extremely talented young songwriter and musician Zach Condon returned with his third record under the guise of Beirut. The full-length album entitled March Of The Zapotec is comprised of two EPs. The first, and album namesake, is a foray into Mexican folk music with the help of an obscure small-town Mexican funeral band. The second is Holland, a bedroom electro-synth pop wonder, originally an idea for Zach's previous incarnation before Beirut, when he went by the name of Realpeople. For the past year, Beirut has alternated between touring and writing new material, Zach recording in any style that struck his fancy. Some early discussions about doing some soundtrack recording for a film being shot in Mexico morphed into a new idea? What about hiring a local Mexican band to help record some songs based on new material? After finding the band through a friend's mother, hiring a translator, and catching a plane down to Oaxaca, Zach made his way out to the tiny weaver village of Teotitlan del Valle, where he met the nineteen members of The Jimenez Band.

Tracks

MARCH OF THE ZAPOTEC (DISC 1)
1 El Zocalo
2 La Llorona
3 My Wife
4 The Akara
5 On A Bayonet
6 The Shrew

REALPEOPLE: HOLLAND (DISC 2)
1 My Night With A Prostitute From Marseille
2 My Wife, Lost in The Wild
3 Venice
4 The Concubine
5 No Dice

Press

Audio & Video

BOSTON SPACESHIPS - 'PLANETS ARE BLASTED'

Formats

• GBV05 - LP

  655035080512

• GBV05CD - CD

  655035080529

Details

Following a four-star review in Mojo and a successful whirlwind US tour, Boston Spaceships return to Earth just five months later with their sophomore album! Chris Slusarenko (Guided By Voices, Sprinkler) and John Moen (Decemberists, Elliott Smith) have never been so impressive. Robert Pollard himself was sequestered in Dayton, Ohio for nearly two years without touring, concentrating on his songwriting and artwork. The trio's efforts are readily apparent on The Planets Are Blasted. This nuanced and transcendent rock album culminates with four of Pollard's best songs yet. The majestic and metaphorical "Queen of Stormy Weather," who threatens to "pee on my parade," is followed by "The Town That's After Me," which combines acoustic, electric guitar and strings to stunning effect. "Sight on Sight," a four-minute mini-epic, detours to otherworldly chants, echoes and drones, sitars, handrums, and tambourines, but rocks like heck, and the verse of "Heavy Crown" is melodically reminiscent of the Guided By Voices hit "Everywhere With Helicopter," but Pollard ups the ante with an even better chorus and then goes over the top with a still catchier refrain. Another Pollard classic!!

Tracks

1. Canned Food Demons
2. Dorothy?s a Planet
3. Tattoo Mission
4. Keep Me Down
5. Big O Gets an Earful
6. Catherine from Mid-October
7. Headache Revolution
8. Slyph
9. UFO Love Letters
10. Lake of Fire
11. Queen of Stormy Weather
12. The Town That?s After Me
13. Sight on Sight
14. Heavy Crown

Press

MOJO, Uncut, Sunday Times, Plan B, fingers crossed for some Guardian action also.....

Audio & Video

COLOSSAL YES - 'CHARLEMAGNE'S BIG THAW'

Formats

• BING064 - LP

  660197006416

• BING064CD - CD

  600197006429

Details

After Comets on Fire played Auckland, Utrillo Kushner met one of his idols, the legendary DIY producer and songwriter Chris Knox. The following day Knox invited Kushner and his bandmates over to his house for conversation and beers. The afternoon was spent in the kitchen (Knox was baking a cake for The Clean's Bangers and Mash anniversary tour) drinking while Knox spun stories of the New Zealand music underground of yore. From this experience, Kushner conceived of the initial idea for the second Colossal Yes album. Inspired by the Kiwi indie-pop formulas of Tall Dwarfs, The Clean, and The Verlaines, Kushner set out to write his own songs using piano as the main instrument. It was a reawakening of the pop aesthetic done Piano Man style. Recording of the basic tracks started in the summer of 2007 with Kelley Stoltz producing and Kevin Ink engineering. Songs were then fine-tuned over a series of nighttime and weekend sessions with Matt Waters in early 2008. Finally, they were mixed with Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) and Waters almost a year from the starting point. The end result is unique yet similar to the epic pop bands of the past. Charlemagne's Big Thaw combines simple melodies and basic structures with lyrical territories such as expired youth, grand betrayals, overdrawn faculties, and dissolving empires. In this regard, Kushner pays respect to songwriters like Robyn Hitchcock, Dan Bejar of Destroyer, and Alex Chilton while also incorporating the honesty of Graham Nash's Songs for Beginners, the romanticism of Nikki Sudden's Waiting on Egypt, and the sonic merriment of Thunderclap Newman's Hollywood Dream. LP came out last year,...CD now coming in..

Features contributions from Kelley Stoltz, Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance, Comets on Fire), Noel Harmonson (Comets on Fire) Ben Flashman (Comets on Fire), Eli Eckert (Drunk Horse), Garett Goddard (The Cuts, Howlin Rain)

Tracks

1. The Fraudulent Singer
2. A Ballad Is the Air That You Breathe
3. Charlemagne?s Big Thaw 4. Permafrost Drip
5. They Feast on Us / We Feed on Them
6. Marble Moments 7. Economy of Turquoise
8. Nothing But Tar & Feathers
9. Outskirts of Radiant 10. Smoldering Steeps

Press

tbc

Audio & Video

ADAM LIPMAN - 'FROM YOUR MOUTH TO GOD'S EARS'

Formats

• SHR155 - CD

  759718115529

Details

A concept album that feasts on its own allusions, Adam Lipman's From Your Mouth to God's Ears was recorded in a house in Salt Lake City, Utah, under the shadow of the Mormon Temple. The recording session had two sides to the battle: those who had left the church, and those who had remained a part of the church. Lipman was in the middle of it all; wrestling with the warring factions of belief, compelling them to yield to the songs above all else, as he himself wrestled with God to gain his royal life, demanding the differences to be set aside for the recording session, submitting to nothing but songcraft and his unwavering totalitarian ego. The lyrics reference French director Maurice Pialat's masterpiece, A Nos Amours, Chaucer's The Epic Dandelion, and the sickeningly familiar elements of the common neurotic's daily life. The music, tailored with patience and diligence, sounds both harshly anachronistic and thoroughly, unrelentingly modern. A traditional assortment of organ, piano, drums, guitar, and bass belies the rather unconventional tone and structure of these songs. Spencer Kingman, who recorded the fantastic Spenking (Marriage Records), plays piano and sings on the record. Ruth Allison Dana, "Beautiful" Johnny, and Isaac Howard all put in playing duties as well. Lipman has toured with a plethora of different musical acts (Little Wings, The Blow, tropical hip-hop group Quem Quaeritis) and has shared bills with Ponytail, Viking Moses, and Yacht, among others.

Tracks

1. Her Life Under Our Roof
2. Some Faces
3. To Our Loves
4. Painting on Wood
5. The Pleasure to Lean
6. Here, By Love, I Mean Reciprocal Torture
7. Both Sundays
8. Leave Me Alone
9. On Knees in Pairs
10. A Pleasant Condescending
11. Love Is Lord

Press

N/A

Audio & Video

AXEMEN - 'BIG CHEAP MOTEL'

Formats

• SB115 - LP

  N/A

Details

Siltbreeze joins Sleek Bott Industries for a series of vinyl-only releases from New Zealand's legendary Axemen. (Little) Stevie McCabe, Bob Brannigan and Stu Kawowski have recorded decade's worth of priceless tuneage, some of which, it only seems fair, should finally see the light on a format suited to their chutzpah. The first one out of the gate is the trio's 1983 Big Cheap Motel, their difficult third album, their protest album (following the blistering, insane, and completely live debut Equinox and the studio / live tribute to punk-dub-beer-noise-cubism, Mick's Dancefloor (Mix)). Rarely heard outside the Southern Hemisphere, this montage of rough-and-ready live performances and Peterboro Studio recordings teeters on the precipice of chaotic genius alongside such stalwarts as Alternative TV / Hear & Now's What You See Is What You Are and 1/2 Japanese's Loud. Says McCabe, "Bob and myself went down to check out the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, the scene of the summertime concert-in-the-park series of free outdoor events sponsored by the local council and Big M milk drinks, only to find the park plastered with billboard-sized posters of scantily clad young ladies advertising the sponsor's wares. We immediately scrapped our set list-which extolled the joy of festivals and praised the council and Big M milk drinks as worthy town governors and milk-based food products, respectively-and replaced them with a set of 'protest' songs about the travesty, which were performed at the event, to the mild annoyance of the council and the sponsors. Following this brutal coming of age and awakening to the influence and power of advertising, The Axemen swore to use advertising to its full extent in future, but only for good (e.g. promotion of The Axemen), never for evil (anything else)." Not exactly a Crass concert, but, hey, be careful what you wish for. Comes with a reproduction of original insert and original cover design, in a one-time edition of 500.

Tracks

1. Big Fat ?M?
2. Big Fat ?M?
3. Scanty-Town Ride
4. The Angel Must Be a Centrefold!
5. Big Cheap Motel
6. Stoopid Symbol of Woman-Hate
7. Just a Pollutant
8. The Pornographic Milk Drink
9. Can?t Stand Up For 40-Inch Busts
10. We Love You
11. M Doesn?t Stand For Mother

Press

N/A

Audio & Video