Welcome to Side Dishes: A series of songs, some new and some never previously released, that we'll be dropping right here in-between official releases.

Follow us to catch new ones on the last Sunday of every month.

Freedom Fry - Breaking Through the Waves

Rusty (Radio Edit)

Twin Ritual - Mercy
Written and Produced by Twin Ritual
Mix and Mastered by Antonio Estrada

Mercy

The name “Let’s Whisper” implies secrets—the sorts of things you’d tell friends in a night’s waning hours, as the sun is about to peek over the horizon. Colin Clary and Dana Kaplan have been friends and musical collaborators for years, and the openhearted, detail-rich indiepop they craft together reflects their rich creative relationship and trust in each other. On The In-Between Times, the second Let’s Whisper full-length—the band’s first release in eight years, and first as a five-piece—the Burlington-based band digs deeper into their day-to-day worlds while confronting their individual and collective futures.    
“This is a record about love and loss and change and possibilities,” Colin and Dana say about The In-Between Times, which comes out on Fika Recordings in August 2022. Indeed, the prevailing mood of this album is a sense of grounding, of not letting the big questions of life—“what gets you through the night?”, “will I see you around the town?”, “have you done the thing that defines you yet?”—completely obfuscate the minutiae that makes it beautiful.  
Musically and lyrically detailed, The In-Between Times is the work of a band that uses the catchy melodies and jangling guitars of indiepop to peel off into exciting, and at times unexpected, musical and lyrical directions. “The Thing That Defines You” is crisp and questioning, with squiggles of guitar at its melody’s fringes implying the strands of identity that a friend is trying to see in order to get a full, unencumbered-by-narrative picture of someone they love. “Sing!” swells from a gentle jangle into a triumphant trans anthem that charmingly flips the bird to societal norms. “40 Ways To Love You” pairs its pointillistic detailing of a loved one’s best qualities with a weepy guitar countermelody that makes the romance all the more poignant.        
Let’s Whisper started as a home-recording project between Colin and Dana, also in the beloved “open-hearted indiepop revolutionaries” The Smittens, in the mid-2000s. Writing and recording music at home resulted in more tightly knit songwriting process, which the pair referred to as “Whispering.” After releasing a pair of EPs, 2008’s Make Me Smile and 2010’s Keep a Secret, Let’s Whisper brought on drummer Brad Searles (Eef, The Also-Rans), expanding and adding a fulcrum to their sound. Since Brad joined, Let’s Whisper has released one album, 2011’s The Shortest Days, and a 10-inch, 2014’s As Close As We Are. The latter was called “short and sweet, by turns deadpan in its delivery and sentimental in its subject matter” by the Vermont weekly Seven Days, and it was Let’s Whisper’s last release until now.
But Let’s Whisper has kept creatively busy in those ensuing years. In addition to the three members pursuing their own projects individually and together, Let’s Whisper toured the US and the UK, rounding out its lineup with bassist-guitarist Jeff Baron (Essex Green, Ladybug Transistor) in the States and bassist-vocalist Emma Kupa (Standard Fare, Mammoth Penguins) in Great Britain. For the recording of The In-Between Times, both Jeff and Emma joined Colin, Dana, and Brad during sessions at Marlborough Farms in Brooklyn—although they did so a year apart, with Emma recording her parts (including banjo on the chiming “Simple Times” and vocals and banjo on the plainspoken “Long Run”) with the core three in 2017 and Jeff adding guitar and keyboards in 2018, when the finishing touches were put on the album by studio owner and engineer Gary Olson.  
With The In-Between Times, Let’s Whisper have created an album that, even in its more pensive and mournful moments, celebrates the array of what life has to offer—the elation of watching hot-air balloons lift off at sunset, the triumph that comes with living honestly, the joy that comes when an open heart is mirrored by a friend, or a fan, or a loved one. Lean in and listen closely.

The Year Of Getting High

Let's Whisper - The Year Of Getting High

'Sunday'

Track 9 from 'Bedroom Mixes'.
Written and Produced by Ella Walker.

A new demo every friday.
Stream Far and Wide, Lightly and Woman In Love now: https://awal.ffm.to/farandwide
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awal.ffm.to/womaninlove

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© 2022 WILDES
℗ 2022 WILDES

Sunday

Taken from the forthcoming album “The In-Between Times” out 26 August 2022

Let’s Whisper return with their first new music since 2014, having grown from a three piece to enlist the talents of The Essex Green’s Jeff Baron and Mammoth Penguins’ Emma Kupa, today previewing another track from their forthcoming album.

Following on from recent singles The Thing That Defines You and The Year Of Getting High (the first new music from Let’s Whisper since 2014), Long Run showcases another angle to Let’s Whisper’s evolution.

Written by Emma Kupa, Long Run is the first Let’s Whisper track not penned by the founding duo of Colin Clary and Dana Kaplan, and leads us through her tender reflections on relationship regrets - a thread familiar to those who fell in love with her critically acclaimed solo album of 2020.

“This song is about finding peace and closure and seeing a more positive side to a situation that for a long time may have only seemed negative.”

Let’s Whisper started in the early 2000s in Burlington, Vermont, as a home recording project for Dana Kaplan and Colin Clary, both of The Smittens, for their softer, more intimate compositions. Brad Searles joined soon after on drums, as the sounded evolved from acoustic duets to embrace a wider dynamic. They released a pair of EPs and two full length record on the much missed London based microlabel WeePOP! from 2008 to 2014.
Since then, Let’s Whisper started playing more shows, in the US enlisting Jeff Baron (The Essex Green, Ladybug Transistor) on guitar or bass, and in the UK bringing in Emma Kupa (Mammoth Penguins, Standard Fare) on bass.

On the forthcoming record The In-Between Times, their first for Fika Recordings, they recorded with Gary Olson (The Ladybug Transistor) in Brooklyn, NY. It’s the first Let’s Whisper record with Dana Kaplan post-testosterone, and sees Emma Kupa fill in on the high harmonies vacated by Dana’s new vocal range. The addition of Jeff Baron and Emma Kupa has brought flourishes of both The Essex Green’s textural complexity and Standard Fare’s polyphony arrangements to the Let’s Whisper catalogue.

Let’s Whisper are
Colin Clary - guitar, vocals
Dana Kaplan - guitar, vocals
Brad Searles - drums
Emma Kupa - bass, vocals,
Jeff Baron - guitar, keys

fikarecordings.com/artists/lets-whisper
facebook.com/letswhisper
instagram.com/letswhisperband

Long Run

Let's Whisper - Long Run

‘Young Guns’ is an impassioned look at the ongoing gun violence crisis in America, spurred by the recent shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas. It's the first taste of the band's Sophomore EP due out October 20th 2022.

Stream it here:
https://bfan.link/young-guns

Follow Salarymen:
www.instagram.com/salarymen
www.tiktok.com/@salarymen_music
https://www.facebook.com/Salarymenband

Lyrics:

Your love, unconditional and blind
Babe I love the way you shine
Never wanted more

Don’t say you don’t even know my name
Tomorrow everything will change
Begging me oh lord

Tonight, thank god that I’m alive tonight
I don’t know what is wrong or right tonight
Those kids will never see the light
If I could only change your mind

By now Mumma should’ve seen those signs
He’s quiet nearly all the time
Never see him smile

Time’s come, shoot ‘em all down one by one
I never thought it’d be this fun
Walking through your door

Tonight, thank god that I’m alive tonight
I don’t know what is wrong or right tonight
Those kids will never see the light
If I could only change your mind

(I don’t want to tell you what to do
But pain should make for changes
I don’t want to tell you what to do
The truth is some things will never change your mind)

Let's Whisper - The Year Of Getting High

Fika Recordings

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