MATT KIVEL - 'DAYS OF BEING WILD'

Formats

• WOODSIST074 - LP

  655035047416

• WOODSIST074CD - CD

  655035047423

Details

Days of Being Wild was recorded over the course of six weeks in the summer of 2013 with Paul Oldham in a small detached shed in Los Angeles. The album art features original drawings by Max Markowitz. “I had worked with Paul on the last record I did, 2013’s Double Exposure, and I was lucky because he decided to move to LA right after that record was finished. My friend Brian Cosgrove has this house in the Echo Park hills, kind of a punk house where everyone who lives in it plays in bands. It’s got a front porch with a refrigerator on it and it’s got a one room shed in the back where bands rehearse. A lot of bands have rehearsed there over the years. Paul and I started meeting there over the summer and I would buy Paul beer. We drank whiskey on the first day, but I think we both got too drunk to do anything productive— well, at least I did, Paul’s from Kentucky, so he has an even higher threshold—so we switched to beer and things went smoothly from then on. I played most of the instruments, Paul played bass, and my friend David Kitz joined in on drums for two of the harder songs. Paul told me some great stories about all of the musicians he’s worked with over the years. He even told me the secret to I See a Darkness—Bunny Wailer’s ‘Blackheart Man.’ Supposedly he and Will were listening to that a lot when they made that record— one of my favorites. So, I started listening to it myself. It’s fantastic. “When I wrote these songs I was trying to do something that felt more social, something that reached out a little bit more to other people and that’s why there are more drums on it. People like to rock! I also wanted to use more electric guitar. I was listening to the radio a lot at this time. I was really sick of my record collection and I started listening to the classic rock stations and for the first time I really started enjoying that music—Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty, The Cars, Fleetwood Mac—I was really feeling that stuff. My friend Eric Deines told me that some of the songs feel like ‘super-minimal, outsider transmissions of “Jesse’s Girl”’ and I kind of like that. Todd Ledford from Olde English Spelling Bee was also very helpful after the recording was done. He was the first person I sent these songs to and he gave me a lot of good advice about mixing and recording and life. He thinks there are a few potential hits on this album … but which ones? I guess we’ll have to watch the Billboard charts to find out.” —Matt Kivel

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

SKYGREEN LEOPARDS - 'FAMILY CRIMES'

Formats

• WOODSIST073 - LP

  655035047317

• WOODSIST073CD - CD

  655035047324

Details

The Skygreen Leopards’ latest outing continues the group’s tradition of skewed sunshine pop with lyrics focused on the bummer side of the eternal rock ’n’ roll summer. Donovan Quinn (New Bums) and Glenn Donaldson sing and strum tales of real and imaginary companions, delivering impressionistic rants about losing love, getting high or feeling uncomfortable. They record and mix straight off a nice tape machine run by Jason Quever of Papercuts (who also plays in the band sometimes, along with Jasmyn Wong and Nick Marcantonio) and resist the temptation to use digital erasers, preferring to leave in the mistakes and rough edges. For those who have followed Skygreen Leopards since the psych CDR boom, came on board after their gnarled country opus Disciples of California, or are a newcomers to the Skygreen’s jangling world, Family Crimes is the perfect expression of their patented brand of blemished pop.

Tracks

1. Leave the Family
2. Love Is a Shadow
3. My Friends
4. WWIII Style
5. Is It Love, Love, Love?
6. Reno Wedding
7. It?s Not Love
8. Crying Green & Purple
9. Josephine
10. Mascara Priscilla
11. Selling T-Shirts
12. Garden Blue
13. Leave the Family Reprise
14. Suburban Bibles

Press

Audio & Video

BRIGITTE FONTAINE - 'S/T'

Formats

• SV043 - LP

  857176003430

Details

First time on vinyl. Never one to settle on a single musical style, Brigitte Fontaine followed up her debut, Est…Folle, and her astonishing collaboration with The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Comme à la Radio, with the most eclectic release of her lengthy career, 1972’s Brigitte Fontaine. It is telling that Fontaine chose an eponymous title for her third album, the sole release from her venerable ’70s catalogue attributed to her alone. Here the actress-cum-singer has finally arrived. From the introspective opening track, simply named “Brigitte,” seductive melodies perfectly hang above slithery bass lines and acoustic strumming. On “Moi Aussi,” a sparse and trance-like duet with long-time collaborator Areski, Fontaine muses, “They put me in a cage and after they told me ‘You fly down.’” Brigitte Fontaine is an unmatched European art-pop masterpiece anchored by both vocal and lyrical dexterity—in many ways, Fontaine’s most compelling work and an excellent entry point for those unfamiliar with this unique French icon.

Tracks

1. Brigitte
2. Pour Le Patron
3. Moi Aussi
4. Famille
5. L?Auberge
6. Premier Juillet
7. Le Dragon
8. Vingt Secondes
9. Eros
10. Une Minute Cinquante-Cinq
11. O? Vas-Tu Petit Gar?on
12. Marcelle
13. Merry-Go-Round

Press

Audio & Video