Name: Area Man (Radio Edit) by A Festival, A Parade
Duration: 3 min 39 s
Description: 'AREA MAN' taken from 'Company' (Expanded Edition). Available on 12" blue & white marble vinyl here: tinyurl.com/CompanyVinyl

I hear The Ocean Blue, The Jam, Psychadelic Furs, The Railway Children

put me in mind of Magic Numbers... that's a good thing

Los Angeles band Dummy employ pummeling guitars and celestial ambience within the same breath, folding a myriad of reference points into their drone-pop style. Influence from '60s melodicism and '90s UK noise pop can be found woven-in with inspiration from spiritual jazz, Japanese new age, and Italian minimalism. After releasing two cassette EP’s in 2020 (on Popwig and Born Yesterday respectively), Dummy’s debut full-length album arrives via Chicago’s Trouble in Mind Records on October 22nd, 2021. (www.troubleinmindrecs.com)

Mandatory Enjoyment

Daffodils

Dummy "Daffodils"

From Young Prisms 3rd album 'Drifter' out March 25th on Fire Talk. 

Pre Order: https://ffm.to/youngprisms

Drifter

Young Prisms - Honeydew

Facebook: www.facebook.com/boywithappl/ 
Instagram: www.instagram.com/boywithappl/
Contact: Hello@varorecords.com

Boy With Apple - Linger On

'Delusion Spree' by Eades.

Taken from the debut album 'Delusion Spree', out now on Heist or Hit.

Available on LP / CD / Digital Download:
https://heistorh.it/DelusionSpree

Delusion Spree

From the album The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong out April 29, 2022 on Western Vinyl.
Pre-order / Listen: https://lnk.to/XHoJYpp2

On their debut for Western Vinyl, recording engineer and multi-instrumentalist Nate Mendelsohn and his band use lyrical maximalism for the powers of good. Where Market’s previous home recorded releases shifted genre restlessly, on The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong Mendelsohn took a core band of longtime collaborators to a house in rural Massachusetts where they carved out space for his words to speak through with humor and intensity. 

Though he comes from a background in experimental music, Mendelsohn’s ear for pop has prevailed. Certain moments on Bullshit Gong reveal his stranger side, as on the thundering bridge of “Scar,” which sounds like a more unhinged Parquet Courts, or the angular  “I Would Do That,” which takes cues from Cate Le Bon. On the whole, though, this band of close friends insists on directness, their arrangements clear despite the intricacies. Guitars and synthesizers tangle fluidly atop the rhythm section’s tight bedrock, evoking the tenderness and backbeat-centric qualities of Elliott Smith or Big Thief. 

After college, where he met most of the members of Market, Mendelsohn became an engineer and producer at the Brooklyn studio Figure 8 Recording. Through that community he’s recorded artists like Frankie Cosmos and Wendy Eisenberg, and played with Yaeji, Vagabon, Katie Von Schleicher (who co-produced Bullshit Gong with him), and Sam Evian, who mixed the album. 

While writing Bullshit Gong, Mendelsohn grappled with long-gestating OCD, watched a formative relationship dissolve, and experienced a mental health crisis that lasted a full year. During this turbulent time, Mendelsohn began to consider the ways he has approached friendship, partnership, and especially family. Those observations and partial conclusions make their way into the songs in an essential capacity, as he mixes the small with the very big on a dogged search for empathy. On “Control” he sings “I heard a kid ask a teacher today / ‘What is a memory?’ / Man, sometimes life is great / At 4:15 I was awake and a mess / My mind’s a broke machine.” 

The words flow in much the same way as Mendelsohn’s thoughts, with observation and memory giving way to moments of profound anxiety. This emotional heft is met in crucial ways by his band. On the tender “Watergate,” a love song set against both the Watergate scandal and James Comey’s senate testimony, the arrangement is simple and trusting, adding depth and intimacy to each word as he compares his life, love, and temperament to that of his parents. 

While recording “Old,” the band sat around an omnidirectional microphone shaking percussion instruments and singing out certain lines. In the background, you can hear Mendelsohn pick up his clarinet and eke out a few notes, a spontaneous act of playfulness that made the final cut. These tonal shifts matter deeply, as the words he sings could be interpreted differently in a darker setting: “Half of these feelings aren’t my feelings anymore / But I guess I could still enjoy the notes and chords / Maybe that’s just the way it goes / We always sing about things that are old.”

Creating intimacy out of manic self-reflection requires a delicate balancing act, one Mendelsohn tackles with abandon. His words never skew too poetic or grandiose, and when he invokes the ugly it’s met with a sonic tonality that sets him right again. In tender moments, his voice is often flanked by bandmates Natasha Thweatt or Von Schleicher, who help skew his words toward the universal. Still, Bullshit Gong is an obsessive look inward, one in which Mendelsohn simply asks himself if he is good to those he loves. It’s an act of trust between the artist and the imagined listener he takes with him.

The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong

Market - "Scar"

Shady Baby - Come To Life

Sunbleached

pre-order our forthcoming vinyl here: 
https://catchthebreeze.dk/shop/
Find Rise on your streaming service:
https://frontl.ink/96obdy1

Recorded at Tapetown 
Mixed and mastered by Christian Alex Petersen 
at Grapehouse Studios
Vocals at Heyman Studios
Special guest on Rise Kasper Staub ( Lowly) on Keys.

Rise

If You Only Feel It Once

Obviously

🎧 Listen / Stream
https://song.link/velvet-sea

🎥 Music Video
https://youtu.be/kgimTC-pSF0

🎸  semiwestern
→ https://open.spotify.com/artist/4hfCqI8H72nfxJXR8Ic55n?si=c9QRNVp4SRKSXEGSyBvxyg
→ https://instagram.com/semi_western/

Stream

semiwestern - velvet sea

'AREA MAN' taken from 'Company' (Expanded Edition). Available on 12" blue & white marble vinyl here: tinyurl.com/CompanyVinyl

Area Man (Radio Edit)

‘COMPANY’ out now. 


https://www.plctrmm.to/company

Area Man (Radio Edit)

A Festival, A Parade

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