Durham, NC synth pop phenom Moon Racer filmed a delightful live session for the Hopscotch Music Festival & NPR Music. You'll find cozy living room performances of Is It Really a Secret? highlights "New Crush," "Friendly Ghost" & "Last Kiss" on the NPR site. You can also watch Moon Racer's full 6-song set below!
On March 12, Orindal Records will release Mr. Chill, an EP of five "busted and beautiful" folk songs by Dan Wriggins (also of Friendship). This morning, GoldFlakePaint premiered the title track, calling it "another solemn gem from one of the finest songwriters around."
Dan explains:
"I wrote the song 'Mr. Chill' while working for an arborist/tree care
company in the Philly suburbs. The hours were long and strenuous, and
like most of my friends, I was balancing full time work with writing
music and playing shows. That’s where the clock-punching lyrics come
from. This was a couple years ago, and I am only realizing now that “Mr.
Chill” might be a Christmas song. It also reminds me of the Disney ride
“It’s a Small World.” It’s the only song I’ve written so far that does
not rhyme.”
The EP Mr. Chill is Wriggins’ debut release under his own name.
Michael Cormier’s minimal production is an open frame; quiet drums in a
big room, classical guitar, and melodic organ lift Wriggins’ prose-poem
lyrics. His solemn, wounded delivery makes lines like “you trust your
gut/and your gut lies” and “read my salty lips/no new love” into deadly
serious jokes. Title notwithstanding, Mr. Chill isn’t great background
music - it’s rich and powerful, demanding attention as a profoundly
moving and original work.
Find "Mr. Chill" on your favorite streaming service HERE.
Mr. Chill will be released on cassette & digital formats on March 12, 2021. Pre-order your copy HERE.
Dan Wriggins, frontperson of Philadelphia alt-country band Friendship, has released his first two solo singles, "Dent" & "The Diner." Recorded in October 2020 at Big Nice Studio in Lincoln, RI, both songs feature Dan Wriggins on classical guitar & vocals with accompaniment from Michael Cormier (drums, organ), Lina Tullgren (violin) & Pete Gill (guitar). Both songs carry the same commiserative humor & emotional heft that made Friendship’s 2019 album Dreamin’ a cult favorite.
This morning, Brooklyn Vegan premiered "Dent" & "The Diner" alongside a music video for “The Diner,” directed by Dan & his brother, Adam
Wriggins, & filmed in the brothers’ hometown of Yarmouth, Maine. Brooklyn Vegan's Andrew Sacher writes:
"Friendship's music is on the quiet, plainspoken side to begin with, but 'Dent' and 'The Diner' do feel even more stripped-back and minimal, and
the lyrics often sound like they're ripped straight out of a diary.
They're both folky songs that feel ragged and lived-in (similar vibe to
Neil Young, Will Oldham, etc), and they're both songs that can stop you
in your tracks and leave you hanging on every word."
Read the full article HERE.
"Dent" & "The Diner" are streaming now on all digital platforms. You can also purchase a download HERE.
Order your copy HERE.
Waking the Dreaming Body, the new album by Tucson, AZ sound & video artist Karima Walker, is out February 26, 2021 on Keeled Scales / Orindal Records. This morning, Brooklyn Vegan premiered Karima's music video for "Horizon, Harbor Resonance," an epic 13 minute ambient track & the second single from Waking the Dreaming Body. Karima explains:
"I have performed parts of "Horizon, Harbor Resonance" live for a couple years now, the piece initially developed after my last record. There’s a large cathartic rain that falls a couple times and stands as a kind of threshold for me during live shows. I have been obsessed with waves and tsunamis for the past few years (Harbor Resonance is an effect that happens during a tsunami, where the force of the wave is magnified when it’s contained) and this song was a way of working through that obsession.
The video traces the Rio Grande river valley across the New Mexico Colorado border. Touring in the western US, on these long drives, I would enter a kind of altered state, watching the landscape change over many hours. This particular region stayed with me, and ended up inspiring large parts of the record and "Horizon, Harbor Resonance" especially. I remember passing San Antonio mountain for the first time. It’s the mountain you see toward the end of the video. It’s unattached to any range (a friend recently told me that it is the largest free standing mountain in the continental US), and rises up out of the desert as you leave New Mexico. It’s massive and takes a while to pass, marking the beginning of the San Juan Mountains.
I wanted to share this special way of seeing with people, to stretch and compress time like in a dream, the way mountains will sometimes move like water as you move through a landscape over the course of a day, and how our experience changes when the ‘eye’ is steady or hand held. These ways of seeing change our perception and experience, and so too our participation in a place and our access and connection to it."
Pre-order Waking the Dreaming Body by Karima Walker on vinyl, CD, cassette & digital formats HERE.
"Reconstellated" is the lead-off track from Karima Walker's forthcoming album, Waking the Dreaming Body, out February 26, 2021 on Keeled Scales / Orindal Records.
Tucson, Arizona interdisciplinary artist Karima Walker walks a line
between two worlds. Aside from her long resume of collaborative work
with artists in the diverse fields of dance, sculpture, film,
photography and creative non-fiction, Walker has long nurtured a duality
within her work as a musician, developing her own sonic language as a
sound designer in tandem with her craft as a singer/songwriter. The
polarity within Walker’s music has never been so articulately explored,
or graced with as much intention, as on her new album,
Waking the Dreaming Body.
GoldFlakePaint premiered Karima Walker's self-directed video for "Reconstellated." Anyone who has been lucky enough to see Walker perform live in recent years will recognize the collage-style psychedelia of her video work, which showcases the gorgeous desert landscapes surrounding Walker's Tucson home. In GoldFlakePaint's premiere of "Reconstellated," GFP's Tom Johnson writes:
Settled on a bed of gentle synths, “Reconstellated” is patient and spellbinding, the song touches upon many of the themes that informed the album overall: sleep, and nature, and the strange ways we fit ourselves inside these things. “ Don’t we move like water too? Don’t we pick up in the night? What does the mountain think of you?” she questions in the song. “Write it down, tell your friends I know where I am, but I can’t tell if I’m a part of it.”
Pre-order Waking the Dreaming Body on color vinyl, black vinyl, compact disc & digital formats HERE.
(Photos of Karima Walker by Holly Hall)
Shelter of a Song, a new album of solo acoustic protection spells by Lisa/Liza, is out now!
Find Shelter of a Song on your favorite streaming service here: song.link/shelterofasong
Shelter of a Song vinyl is distributed by The Business. Ask your local independent record store to order you a copy or purchase vinyl, CDs & downloads through mail order HERE.
Here's some recent Lisa/Liza press:
Various Small Flames' Shelter of a Song preview
Deepest Currents' Shelter of a Song preview
Undrcurrents' Shelter of a Song review
Music Won't Save You's Shelter of a Song review
Post-Trash's Shelter of a Song review
Dusted Magazine's Shelter of a Song review
Secret Meeting's "Sound & Vision" feature: Lisa/Liza edition
Shelter of a Song, the new album by Portland, Maine folk singer/songwriter/guitarist Lisa/Liza, is now streaming at Various Small Flames ahead its November 20 release date. Listen here.
Shelter of a song vinyl LPs, CDs & downloads are available for purchase here.
Video artist Alicia McDaid created this timely music video for "Everybody Knows" by TJO (aka Tara Jane O'Neil). McDaid stars as Chemtrails, a former advertising creative director turned toxic waste dump squatter. Camera by Jeremy Levine.
"Everybody Knows" is a cover of a Leonard Cohen song. This recording is taken from TJO's 2020 album Songs for Peacock, available HERE.
Please don't forget to vote, either in person or by dropping your absentee ballot in an official drop box. Find polling locations & official drop boxes HERE.
Thanks to Quinn Moreland & Pitchfork for reviewing Dear Nora's Three States: Rarities 1997-2007. Read the full review HERE.
"The indie pop band's reissue of loosies and cover songs captures their story in thoughtful strokes and further cements Katy Davidson’s role as an influential songwriter."
Three States 3LP vinyl box sets are available HERE.
This morning, Post-Trash premiered "Red Leaves," the final advance single from Lisa/Liza's forthcoming album of slow-burning psych folk ballads, Shelter of a Song.
Post-Trash's Dan Goldin writes:
“Red Leaves” is the record’s second single, a slow progression that
begins with gentle acoustic guitars, played softly and with nuance. With
each note that rings above the rest, the grip tightens, pulling us
closer into the sentiment, every intentional accent is felt. With an
easy melody to drift right into, Liza Victoria’s warm voice sings
between hushed lullaby and whispered croon, with an unwavering strength
behind each extended vocal line. It’s designed so you can sink right in,
escape the world around us, and give complete focus to her words and
composition, building ever so slightly toward a beautiful crescendo.
There’s nowhere else we’d rather be.
Post-Trash's track premiere contains a beautiful encapsulation of Shelter of a Song as a whole. Read Goldin's entire piece HERE.
Shelter of a Song
will be released on black vinyl, teal marble vinyl, compact disc &
digital formats on November 20, 2020. Pre-order your copy
HERE.
Lisa/Liza & Orindal Records will donate all revenue from Shelter of a Song's digital pre-order sales to two charity organizations: 50% will support Our Family Farms' Farmworker Housing Fund (a non-profit helping to provide immediate and long-term housing for farmworkers & their families devastated by the recent fires in Southern Oregon) & the other 50% will support Therapy for Black Girls (an online space dedicated to encouraging the mental wellness of Black women and girls).
In an effort to stay the hell out of the way of mail-in balloting, Monday, October 19 will be Orindal's last mail order shipment date until after the November 3 general election.
Any physical order placed at orindal.limitedrun.com or orindalrecords.bandcamp.com after Sunday, October 18 will ship on November 4.