Abalone

Pre-order: http://bit.ly/cinemechanica
Vinyl pre-orders will be entered into a drawing for one test pressing. 

Out September 23, 2016 on Arrowhawk Records. 

With over a decade of experience under its belt, you'd expect Athens, GA's Cinemechanica to have a pile of records completed. It'd be entirely reasonable to expect that the decade between the band’s groundbreaking debut The Martial Arts and its upcoming self-titled LP would have been separated by more than a single EP, 2008’s double-drum experiment Rivals. Sure, that'd be reasonable – but Cinemechanica is anything but.

While the band cut its teeth as pioneers of the region’s millennial math-rock landscape, those very chompers have now worn into predatorial fangs through years of exhaustive performance, tireless composition, and – most recently – a new level of aggressive sneer honed by Kurt Ballou (Converge) at GodCity Studios. From the opening blast of “Hang Up The Spurs” to the closing hyper-melodic bleed out of “Biblical Noise,” descriptors ash through the mind like subliminal screens in a movie house: Immediacy. Tension. Panic. Pacing. As the sweat starts to pour and the ears begin their tell-tale tingle of exertion, the body/brain divide dissolves into a blur of between the goosebumps of anxiety and full-breath catharsis. This band will move you, literally and otherwise.

Cinemechanica is centered around the constant trio of guitarist Bryant Williamson, bassist Joel Hatstat, and drummer Mike Albanese (Maserati). For this year’s release, the band has collaborated with guitarist/vocalist Jordan Olivera (Manray), while those live duties will be carried out by Bryan Aiken (Lazer/Wulf). The group tends to plot its music meticulously and often works for months for an output of seconds. For lesser bands, that may be overkill; for Cinemechanica, it’s a case of intense dedication to its craft that makes for line-drive focus in the studio and on stage. There’s no doubt that storied engineer Kevin Ratterman (Young Widows, My Morning Jacket) at Louisville's La La Land could tell this from day one, and by the time Ballou mixed this decade-gestating monster of a record, it was poised to stand easily alongside the man’s legendary output. 



Cinemechanica

Cinemechanica - "Vietnamese Pool Party"

From the album 'Jettison the Valley' out March 4th, 2016 on Western Vinyl

iTunes hyperurl.co/9f3l3j
Bandcamp: https://cartertanton.bandcamp.com/album/jettison-the-valley
WV http://westernvinyl.com/shop/wv119

Carter Tanton:
Artist page http://westernvinyl.com/artists/carter-tanton
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cartertanton/

By the time he was 15, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Carter Tanton was already playing bar shows in his hometown of Baltimore.  Two years later, he caught the attention of Gary E. Smith, best known for discovering and producing The Pixies.  After working together for a year, they parted ways, but Tanton never slowed down.  In the mid-2000's he released a couple of EPs with his band Tulsa, prompting Rolling Stone's David Fricke to claim "…his indie-seraphim voice is not of this world…", and after a particularly impressive live set KEXP's John Richards said "…he's one of the best singer-songwriters in the country today."  Beyond his critical acclaim, Tanton's early work was cited as an inspiration by his old friend Adam Granduciel of The War on Drugs.  As Granduciel recalled in an interview with Pitchfork, "He was sleeping in someone's basement, playing every instrument, going through this breakup,...That was the first time I saw someone make music obsessively. I’d never seen anyone living inside of something, to that level."  

Over the years, Tanton has toured and recorded with numerous artists including Marissa Nadler, Strand of Oaks, Lower Dens, and The War on Drugs. In 2012, he assembled Freeclouds, his first collection of songs for Western Vinyl.  A couple of years later, Tanton moved to England where he wrote all of the songs on his new album Jettison the Valley. The change of environment, and his rediscovery of early British influences including Richard Thompson, Nick Drake and John Cale sparked a powerful shift in perspective, which led him to write his most cohesive and personal work to date.  Other than the pedal steel featured on two songs, Tanton engineers and plays every instrument on the album.  His old friend and collaborator Marisa Nadler contributes lead vocals to "Jettison the Valley", and Sharon Van Etten sings on "Twenty-Nine Palms" and "Through the Garden Gates".   

More about Jettison the Valley in his own words: 
"Jettison the Valley began in a little dot of a town outside Bristol called Hambrook in the Fall of 2013. I had just moved to England with my girlfriend where we lived in a caravan on her family's plot of land with the M5 motorway on one side, and a horse farm on the other.  To get away from the incessant low rumbling of cars, I often walked along the area's ancient public footpaths that carve strange ways through the countryside. On those walks, my previous 30 years in America billowed and collapsed in front of me. As I stood there in the blowback, the constant push of time seemed to finally relent, and I found enough distance from it to see my past in clear broad strokes.  After a few months we moved to Oxford and lived in a little attic apartment up on a hill. I spent most days watching the weather roll through the valley and writing these songs about my relationship ending.  Eventually, I felt I had to come back to the states to record them.  I consider this my first solo record. The other two releases I've put out under my own name since 2005 were simply collections of scattered recordings, mixtapes essentially. Jettison was written in one long sitting, each song feeding the next."  

Carter Tanton - "Jettison The Valley feat. Marissa Nadler"

Pill — "Medicine" 
From the debut LP, Convenience.
Out August 19 2016 - LP / CD / DIG
Pre-Order from Mexican Summer: smarturl.it/ConveniencexWebstore

Purchase "Medicine" from iTunes: smarturl.it/MedicinexiTunes
Purchase "Medicine" from Amazon: smarturl.it/MedicinexAmazon
Purchase "Medicine" from Google: smarturl.it/MedicinexGooglePlay
Purchase "Medicine" from Spotify: smarturl.it/MedicinexSpotify

Pill — Medicine

Pill — "100% Cute" 
From the debut LP, Convenience.
Out August 19 2016 - LP / CD / DIG
pillpop.cool

Purchase from:
Mexican Summer: smarturl.it/ConveniencexWebstore
iTunes: http://smarturl.it/100Cute
Amazon: http://smarturl.it/Amazon100Cute
Google: http://smarturl.it/GooglePlayCute
Spotify: http://smarturl.it/100CuteSpotify

Pill — 100% Cute

Preview of the new Idle Bloom album - release date for CD and Cassette 02/17/17 and LPs in the near future (preorders available at www.fraternityasvanity.com soon).

Hive

Pill — "Fetish Queen"
From the debut LP, Convenience.
Out August 19 2016 - LP / CD / DIG
pillpop.cool

Purchase from: 
Mexican Summer: smarturl.it/ConveniencexWebstore
Bandcamp: smarturl.it/ConveniencexBandcamp
iTunes: smarturl.it/ConveniencexiTunes
Amazon: smarturl.it/ConveniencexAmazon
Google: smarturl.it/ConveniencexGP
Spotify: smarturl.it/FetishQueenxSptfy

Convenience

Pill — Fetish Queen

You Became The Light

Zula - New Years

Zula - Stepping

Pre Order: http://firetalkrecs.com/shop/monteagle

Monteagle is the solo moniker of Justin Giles Wilcox - best know as chief songwriter in Nassau and now defunct Tennessee band Moonlight Bride. The later of which had some early looks, collapsing just on the brink of break out success. Paste Magazine calling Wilcox’s delivery in a “Best of What’s Next” feature “tremulous, bare-souled vocals, which are as haunted and alluring as the caves that riddle the rocky hills of the band’s hometown.”  Monteagle, named for a mountain inside those hills marks a re-birth for the now well seasoned indie rock vet. Expanding on the more ethereal, dreamy inclinations of past work into something closer to the history of those hills. 

Midnight Noon is the project’s first full length album and embodies a collection of songs written about growing up in rural Tennessee, moving to New York City and looking back at the once discarded landscape with a deeper understanding and appreciation of rural America's hidden beauty. The album envelops a slow focus, working in honest observations and simple truths. It's an origin story sonically toying with Americana and Folk and placing it in a more urban, textural context. 

The aim here was to get back to Justin’s roots, to take all of those past experiences and channel them into something both nostalgic and modern. On the album’s title track Wilcox croons “I still can’t erase anything I’ve seen”, and that line speaks to the truths he’s getting at here. We all work hard to grow past our particular upbringing, but sometimes it’s worth reflecting to get at who we truly are in the modern American landscape and to better understand our place in the world. 

The album was written recorded and produced by Justin Giles Wilcox and members of the Monteagle live band in a old church in upstate New York, mixed in Justin’s home studio in Brooklyn and mastered by Doug Van Sloun (Bright Eyes, Songs: Ohia, M. Ward) in Omaha Nebraska. Midnight Noon will see release on November 30th 2018 on Fire Talk Records.

Cinemechanica - "Vietnamese Pool Party"

ArrowhawkRecords

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