DUNBARROW - 'DUNBARROW II'

Formats

• EZRDR092 - LP

  603111730219

• EZRDR092CD - CD

  603111730226

Details

There’s a hauntingly classic feel to Dunbarrow’s sound that gives it, in the band’s own words, “an eerie rawness.” It’s not raw in a lo-fi or distorted sense — far from it, the production is exceptionally clean and powerful. It’s the vibe to the music that has a dreamlike and ghostly quality, like a mysterious recording imprinted onto an old cassette tape. Dunbarrow’s pristine, unadorned sound shares the unpretentious brilliance of classic heavy progenitors jamming in basements and barns, before the big budgets and bloated habits diluted hard rock records into an echo chamber awash in reverb and layered in distant, screeching hobbits. “It’s a heavy sounding record without being just tons of over-distorted guitar tracks,” says guitarist Kenneth Lønning. “We’ve never been fascinated by that, and we’re trying to push in the other direction.” Its heft comes from the band’s use of space in their songs. Without the Haugesund, Norway quintet’s exceptional musicianship, such an intimate sound would be impossible. Drummer Pål Gunnar Dale sets the skeletal core with driving urgency and tastefully punctuating triplet fills, Bassist Sondre Berge Engedal slinks throughout with the limber bounce of John Paul Jones, while Lønning’s and Eirik Øvregård’s guitars weave dark, bluesy tapestries with emphasis on melodic chord structures without burying them in distortion or other effects. Vocalist Espen Andersen ties it all together with his warm, folky delivery that gives it all the feel of a bygone era of storytelling in song. “Maybe more than the previous record, this one is more vocal driven,” Lønning says. “But it still has those quirky transitions, eerie build ups, folk-inspired parts and the haunting solos.” Many of the album’s poetic lyrics were written by former bassist/vocalist Richard Chappell, whose writing personifies the group. Along with the album’s running theme of love and despair, is that of recognizing one’s own dark sides and developing your shadows into something you can control, inspired of the work by Carl Jung. Key to the band’s impressive sound is that the singer is also the recording and mixing engineer. Andersen also recorded the band’s excellent 2016 debut (formally released wordlwide by RidingEasy in late 2017), now with more studio experience for both Andersen and the band, Dunbarrow II is a truly refined experience. To further perfect their sound, the group teamed up with one of the most prominent producers in Norway, Christer Cederberg (Anathema, Tristania) for the first few days in order to get the sound just right. Then, Espen did the rest. The result is as eponymous and definitive as its title. 

Tracks

01. On Your Trail

02. Please Let Me Be

03. Weary Lady

04. Ode To The Moon

05. Feberdr?m

06. The Wolf

07. The Demon Within

08. Witches Of The Woods Pt. II

09. On This Night

Press

Audio & Video

THE INTELLIGENCE - 'LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO'

Formats

• CF102 - LP

  647603401997

• CF102CD - CD

  647603401980

Details

“For folks who dig A Frames, Country Teasers, Wire, Gang of Four, pita chips and dad’s boozy breath, may we present The Intelligence, captured live in a truly subterranean underground show space below SF vintage clothier Vacation. “Lars Finberg: a name synonymous with artisanal hand-crafted, locally brewed, and organically-farmed song lasers. Hilarious, fast, tour-tight and ballsy—the band has all these perks in pocket, and all that on borrowed gear! I’ve watched this band go through many variations over the years and in their own right all of them have been marvelous. This particular version of the line up is constructed entirely of road-dogs. These guys don’t fuck around—or maybe they only fuck around, who can tell anymore? They drink, they get bawdy, they shred, and when we asked Lars if the band would be into doing a small show in a basement in the Tenderloin in SF for a live LP, he asked ‘What should we play?’ and I replied ‘nothing but the hits’— and they did exactly that. “The Intelligence and Lars himself are masters at the penning of hits—hit after hit after hit—and with a soft-shoed tippity-tap of crowd work and banter, you can really smell the basement on this one and feel the cobwebs grazing the top of your head as you go deaf in one ear from the eye level PA pointed directly at your soul hole. If you love this band then this is a great live LP of them scorching the hits and talking trash. If you don’t know this band (shame on you) then this is a good place to start.” —John Dwyer

Tracks

1. Virgos
2. Dating Cops
3. Debt & ESP
4. We Refuse (To Pay The Dues)
5. Whip My Valet
6. Evil Is Easy
7. Thank You God For
Fixing The Tape Machine
8. Estate Sales
9. Janitors
10. (They Found Me In The Back Of The)
Galaxy
11. Confidence
12. Telephone Wires
13. Males

Press

? Latest in Castle Face live series captures
long-running post-punk garage rock band
in all their glory, playing nothing but hits
? For fans of A Frames, Country Teasers,
Wire, and Gang Of Four

Audio & Video

SARAH DAVACHI - 'GAVE IN REST'

Formats

• BING137 - LP

  600197013717

• BING137CD - CD

  600197013724

Details

**LTD COLORED VINYL COPIES AVAILABLE**Sarah Davachi has quickly risen in prominence since her first release five years ago, and Gave In Rest represents her highest artistic achievement. By infusing her compositional style within a predilection for medieval and Renaissance music, Davachi unearths a new realm of musical reverence, creating works both contemplative and beatific, eerie yet essentially human. Gave In Rest is a modern reading of early music, reforming sacred and secular sentiments to fit her purview and provide an exciting new way to hear the sounds that exist around us. Between January and September of 2017, Sarah Davachi lived in flux; storing her belongings in Vancouver, she spent the summer in Europe, occasionally performing in churches and lapidariums and seeking respite from her transitional state while surrounded by such storied history. This latest album echoes that emotional state of solitude and ephemerality, reaching towards familiar musical landscapes but from oblique perspectives. “I named each track after a particular time of day as a way of expressing my experiencing different moments of quietude, how morning and night are both independent and interconnected entities in this regard,” she says. Her titles evoke canonical phrases referring to morning or evening prayers, as well as Latin and German phrasings for metaphors about the time of day. “From my perspective, there is a lot of loneliness on this record, and I think it is as much about beginnings as endings,” she continues. “In a way, it’s about the prospect of the unknown as it manifests alongside a very inward form of grieving—really the essence of what constitutes a period of transition. Davachi has mined a bottomless landscape where listeners can witness music’s participation in their solitudes. Gave In Rest lends a voice to her personal exploration with a firm, intuitive stance.

Tracks

1. Auster
2. Third Hour
3. Evensong
4. Matins
5. Gloaming
6. Gilded
7. Waking

Press

MOJO - Underground Album of the Year 2018

Audio & Video

NIGHT SHOP - 'IN THE BREAK'

Formats

• WOODSIST095/MARE004 - LP

  647603402314

Details

Night Shop is the songwriting project of Justin Sullivan. Sullivan has worked as a touring drummer for the past twenty years with a half dozen DIY punk bands, including Ringers and an early incarnation of Worriers. In 2009, he joined The Babies alongside Kevin Morby and Cassie Ramone. When the band went on hiatus in 2013, Sullivan moved to Los Angeles with Morby and continued working with him as a staple of the live band and playing on all of Morby’s studio albums. In the meantime, Sullivan also formed the fuzz punk outfit Flat Worms, with Tim Hellman of Oh Sees and Will Ivy. But in the middle of a tour in August of 2016, Sullivan realized the rigors of the road had grown to be too much. He made the decision to take a full calendar year away from touring and focus, for the first time, on writing his own music. Like most of Sullivan’s projects, the album is a family affair. His former touring and recording partner in the Kevin Morby band, Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) plays bass on several of the songs and sings backup vocals on a few as well. Flat Worms cohort Will Ivy plays lead guitar on some, while Mare labelmate and soon-to-be touring partner Anna St. Louis sings backup on two songs. The album was engineered by Jarvis Taveniere of Woods and mixed by Drew Fischer who previously worked with Sullivan on Morby’s first two records and The Babies second album Our House On The Hill. “When I think about this record, a lyric from A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, comes to mind. It’s the line where Dylan sings, ‘I’ll know my song, well before I starting singing.’ In The Break is the product of someone who has had a lot to say and has waited for the perfect moment to say it.” —Kevin Morby

Tracks

1. The One I Love
2. If You Remember
3. Road To Carolina
4. The Ship Has Sailed
5. In The Break
6. You Are The Beatles
7. I Was Alone
8. On The Island
9. Here With Me Now
10. My Love
11. Where Does Everyone Go?

Press

Solo album by Kevin Morby?s drummer /
member of Flat Worms
Features appearances by Meg Duffy
(Hand Habits), Will Ivy (Flat Worms), and
Anna St. Louis

Audio & Video