W. H. Lung - Showstopper

Amelia Rivas and Christian Pinchbeck don't just sing about feverish, frayed and  fractured romances – in the three years since forming  Elephant, they've been living one.

Their first recordings, recorded in the strung out early mornings after the night before, were delirious and light-headed. Rivas’ stream of conscious lyricism combined with Pinchbeck’s innate melodic nous to create vignettes of delight and wonder.  A debut single followed, 2011’s woozy Ants, followed by the Assembly EP.   But before they had a chance to capitalise on the growing acclaim around them the duo’s relationship broke down, almost to the point of no return.

That seemed to be Elephant’s graveyard.  Yet an unexpected rapprochement in late 2012, and a renewed musical hunger saw Rivas and Pinchbeck reconcile.  The first fruit was this year’s gauzy single Skyscraper, which announced their return in spectacular fashion, with Rivas’ swooping vocals allied to a spectral chorus creating an eerie, lens-flared 3 minute wonder of song.

Now, new release Shapeshifter provides confirmation that Elephant are truly back as a force to be reckoned with. “I flew to the moon to mirror you and I saw the future” sings Rivas, with a raw melancholy and nostalgic longing. A sumptuous missive of love lost and lessons learned, that sparkles with charm, optimism, and the sort of lush swoonsome string arrangements that reach into your chest and wring your heart dry. 

Backed by the sparse and stretched out Snowday, as icily cool as it sounds, full of chiaroscuro contrasts and flickering atmospherics, it’s a release that suggests their debut album is set to be one of the standout albums of 2014.

ELEPHANT LINKS: 
 
Facebook - www.facebook.com/elephanttheband    
Twitter – www.twitter.com/ElephantTwit  
Label -  www.memphis-industries.com


Elephant - Shapeshifter

From TOPS' LP "Picture You Staring" 
Order here: tinyurl.com/pqoh8t9
Released September 2nd

TOPS on Twitter: twitter.com/tttopsss
TOPS on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/TOPS/335481216473541

outside, you don't know why
tell each other in the middle of the night
talk about it like you really want to know 
what she running around for?

rat-tat the door unlatch
someone here to take you back
outside in the middle of the street
are you getting what you need?

thoughts of you 
running through my mind
open door but it doesn't feel right 
you look at me as if you know what it's like 
in the shadows of the streetlight

now i know 
I can't go back
you're with her and she doesn't deserve that
but when I look into your eyes
you see something I'm trying to hide 

thoughts of you 
running through my mind
open door but it doesn't feel right 
you look at me as if you know what it's like 
in the shadows of the streetlight
shadow, why's it a shame for me to love?

Picture You Staring

Outside

TOPS "Outside"

From the upcoming album "Mister Divine" out on City Slang October 16th 2015
Pre-Order:
http://smarturl.it/misterdivineitunes
http://smarturl.it/misterdivinelabel

Mister Divine

Naytronix - Mister Divine

follow along-> https://www.facebook.com/steadyholiday/
get the song-> http://www.steadyholiday.bandcamp.com

Steady Holiday - Your Version Of Me

Right Now is written by Annelotte De Graaf 

Produced, recorded and mixed by Ben Greenberg
Mastered by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering, Brooklyn, NYC

All songs recorded and mixed at Strange Weather Recording Studio and Figure 8 Recording, Brooklyn, NYC

Guitars by Shane Butler
Bass by Keven Lareau
Drums by Jackson Pollis

Artwork and photography by Nick Helderman
www.amberarcades.net

Management by MMM

Fading Lines

Right Now

First single from Zen Mantra's self titled album out April 15, 2016

Zen Mantra

Second Skin

Zen Mantra - Second Skin

First track from the Twain album "Rare Feeling" coming October 20, 2017 via Keeled Scales on LP, CD, cassette, and digital release.

http://keeledscales.com/store/twain
http://facebook.com/twainband
http://instagram.com/twainband
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2tMcnRGaCtfz1ZyTBgHjmW
http://twain.band
http://twitter.com/twain_band

Tracklist:
1. Solar Pilgrim
2. The Sorcerer
3. Little Dog Mind
4. Hank & Georgia
5. Freed From Doubt
6. Rare Feeling Pt. 2
7. Black Chair
8. Dear Mexico (Thank You for Joyce)
9. Good Old Friend

Rare Feeling

Twain "Solar Pilgrim"

STEPHEN STEINBRINK
Utopia Teased

US pre-order: http://westernvinyl.com/shop/wv180
UK/EU pre-order: https://www.melodic.co.uk/product/stephen-steinbrink-utopia-teased-pre-order/
Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/5Qo591Xv69WpUaRpziRIwA


Stunned with grief in the months following the Ghost Ship fire, Oakland-based Stephen Steinbrink ate LSD daily, bought a synthesizer, and locked himself in his shipping container studio, refusing to sleep for days as he wrote and recorded what would become Utopia Teased, as a means of working through his overwhelming feelings of cynicism and loss.  

Recorded in between stints touring as a member of Dear Nora, and then as a touring member of Girlpool, Utopia Teased is Stephen Steinbrink's followup to his critically acclaimed 2016 album Anagrams.  Unlike the pristine production of Anagrams, on Utopia Teased, Steinbrink embraces the rough edges, as he shifts his focus from the craft of production to the art of processing and capturing his experiences with honesty.   He explains, “I was driving the preamps a little too hard, mixing down to tape, bouncing back to the computer, and repeating the process over and over again. I wanted it to reflect how fried my brain felt at the time, totally pulverized.  The songs just poured out of me, it hardly felt like work to make them up. It was like turing on a spigot. I don’t write often, maybe once or twice a year, but when I do, a lot comes out. To me my craft is less about putting in the hours physically playing music — the real work is getting my soul right so that when the holy wave of pure creative energy moves over your house, it will recognize you as worthy enough. If it does, maybe it’ll give you a song.” 

“Empty Vessel” and “Maximum Sunlight” both sung from perspective of residents of Tonopah, Nevada, were written to accompany a book about the town, by Steinbrink's friend Meagan Day.  The sparse imagery on “Empty Vessel,” ostensibly about a semi-transient lock-picking truck driver, feels at least semi-autobiographical as Steinbrink sings “You're 31, you don't believe in anything…If you don't stop moving you'll never get hurt.”  His evocative lyrics continue to intrigue on “Maximum Sunlight” as he sings “Sleeping through the night in the drained pool / I said I love you to a fool” from the perspective of a 30-year-old alcoholic ATV enthusiast.  At the close of the, too-little-too-late acoustic narrative “Mom”, guest vocalist Melina Duterte of Jay Som joins him in conjuring a memory of listening to extraterrestrial radio, drifting asleep in a suburban Phoenix Wal-Mart parking lot.  The album’s heartbreaking closer “I’m Never Changing Who You Are” continues Steinbrink’s recollection of his adolescence, asking an unnamed family member “Will you try to love more than you did?” while soberly accepting his reality. 

In an interview with North of the Internet, Steinbrink recalled a video he came across on his phone, which was taken the day after the fire, “It sent me spiraling and thinking, it’s almost been a year. Nothing really felt actual those weeks, and I could only only react to the future at a remove because the horror of everything was inescapably tying me to the present. The idea of doing laundry or driving across the bridge to San Francisco to work was too abstract, so I just didn’t do it. I hardly did anything. Two days after the fire I woke up, walked to P.’s porch and sat there for hours alone and cried without a jacket on until the sun started going down. Geese were flying across power lines at dusk and I took a video of them on my phone. I imagined one of the birds was my friend.”  In the same interview, he goes on to share some insight provided by a friend he reached out to when trying to finalize the album: “Finishing the thing puts a limit around something that comes from an infinite well; this is uncomfortable.” True.

Bad Love

Listen here: https://NANCY.lnk.to/PleasurePen
Lyrics here: https://englishleather.tumblr.com/post/636854931851247616/pleasure-pen

‘Pleasure Pen’ is based on the Sacher - Masoch novella Venus in Furs, it’s dark and dirty and needs to be listened to whilst engulfed in red light. Break out those assless chaps cos it’s about to get disgusting

Steady Holiday - Your Version Of Me

Infinite Best

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