twenty twenty one

After one year of Covid, we highlight the songs our artists have created during quarantine. Featuring new tracks from Deerhoof, Ohmme, Kishi Bashi & El Ten Eleven, plus an interview & music from the infamous Rob Crow (Pinback, Goblin Cock, Optiganally Yours, Thingy, Anal Trump, etc.).

Hosted by Karl Hofstetter, founder and curator of Joyful Noise Recordings.

Background music by Dumb Numbers, Joan of Arc, and Thor & Friends.

Intro by David Woodruff, featuring music by El Ten Eleven.

For more, visit joyfulnoiserecordings.com

Joyful Noise Radio Hour - Episode 3, with Rob Crow

Crocus

LP/CD/Cass/Dig

snowflyer - ep

From the album Freedays, released by Joyful Noise Recordings, 2/17/17.

To say that Mike Savino is an innovator would be an understatement. Touring under the moniker Tall Tall Trees, the banjo-wielding bard has reshaped the landscape of what is possible with the instrument. On stage and in studio, Savino breaks down the banjo into its most basic iteration, reminding audiences that the banjo is, at root, a drum. Coupled with his mastery of electronic effects, loops, toy ray guns, and heaps of spontaneous creativity, Tall Tall Trees has been encapsulating audience members worldwide with his mystifying solo shows, as well as playing alongside fellow innovator Kishi Bashi.  

His latest album Freedays is, in a way, his debut album. Having recorded two previous albums in a traditional collaborative band setting, Freedays is the first album Savino wrote and recorded as a solo project. Beginning in 2015, Savino took a much-needed respite from New York City, where he had spent a decade and a half honing his craft, and assumed the role of sole caretaker at an abandoned health retreat nestled in the green mountains of northern Georgia. The Bird’s Nest, as it was called, completely surrounded by national forest, provided the freedom and space to work without time constraints or interruption. 

Composed and recorded over a period of eight months, Freedays tells the story of a man in transition and documents an artist alone at the crossroads of the life he has and the one he wants. The album begins with “Backroads”, which drops the listener into a darkened forest amidst a chorus of wailing coyotes and quickly takes off on a midnight drive. Tracks like “Being There”, “A Place to Call Your Own”, and “CLC” provide an honest look into the author’s thought process and decision making. Although it’s often hard to imagine, most of the sounds on the album are experiments with the banjo, and they all reflect the innovative musings of one of the freshest sounds to come out of the Appalachians in decades.

Purchase 'Freedays' here: http://joyfulnoi.se/Freedays

Purchase The Album

Tall Tall Trees - Backroads

From the album "Moh Lhean", released on Joyful Noise Recordings 3/3/17.
Get the album here: http://joyfulnoi.se/MohLhean
Tickets at http://www.mohlhean.com

WHY? - This Ole King

"He's Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land In His Hands" releases on Joyful Noise Recordings January 20th, 2017.

Order here: http://joyfulnoi.se/newJoanofArc

He's Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land in His Hands

Joan Of Arc - Full Moon And Rainbo Repair

Psychic Temple - Turn Off The Lights

In 1970, Southern soul music maverick Jerry Williams, Jr. made the most radical move of his career. Frustrated with music business politics Williams reinvented himself as Swamp Dogg, an irreverent anti-hero smashing the conventions of commercial R&B music. Swamp Dogg’s debut release Total Destruction to Your Mind featured a post-apocalyptic take on the Muscle Shoals’ sound, with lyrics inspired by the revolutionary politics and psychedelic drugs of the late ‘60s. The music on Total Destruction to Your Mind stood worlds apart from the formulaic pop tunes Williams started cutting in 1954 under the name Little Jerry, and Swamp Dogg hasn’t looked back since. 

But the music business wasn’t ready for Swamp Dogg, nor was the rest of America. His bizarre album titles and wild cover art turned the average consumer off, while his subversive lyrics earned him a spot on Richard Nixon’s infamous enemies list. Swamp Dogg was not deterred. He seemed to relish operating from the margins of the music business, consequently becoming one of the quintessential outsider figures in American music. 

Now, nearly fifty years after his debut release, Swamp Dogg stands on the precipice of another radical reinvention. His latest creation, Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune, is a nine song collection featuring production by Poliça’s Ryan Olson, and finds Swamp Dogg’s bluesy southern soul colliding head-on with 21st Century electronic music production techniques.

Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune

LP/CD/Digital

I'll Pretend

This is an unauthorized mashup of Alan Watts' "Do You Do It or Does It Do You?" and Sigur Rós "Liminal Sleep". Best experienced while sleeping or in an altered state of consciousness.

The Pattern (Alan Watts & Sigur Rós)

'Low Desk : High Shelf' is taken from The Green Child's forthcoming album 'Shimmering Basset' out October 9th on Upset The Rhythm.

Available to pre-order now: upsettherhythm.bigcartel.com/

The Green Child - 'Low Desk : High Shelf'

Taken from the Within A Dream EP, released 15th January 2020. Pre-order the limited edition 12" here - https://smarturl.it/WithinADream

Further info
Following the release of two 12"s in the past year, White Flowers return with the Within A Dream EP,  a recently recorded four song collection to be released on 15th January 2021. Alongside digital formats, it will be pressed to 12" transparent vinyl in an edition of 300.  

The four tracks on the EP came together earlier this year during various periods of enforced isolation, and somewhat inevitably reflect the conditions of their provenance, exploring themes of dissociation, multiple selves, and the role of the individual in an increasingly strange and fragmented world. Co-produced with Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Portishead), Within A Dream combines home and studio recordings in ways that display the duo’s growing ability to switch between grand sonic gestures and subtle sonic abstractions.

Alongside the three originals which explore the outer edges of post-punk, dreampop and shoegaze in increasingly alien ways, is a beguiling cover of Mama Cass’ ‘Didn’t Want to Have to Do It’. As with their version of Red House Painters' 'Katy Song' from their previous 12”, it's provides another example of how defined White Flowers' aesthetic has become, as they’re effortlessly able to shape the music of others to their own vision. Indeed, as with all their videos and records to date, the artwork for the single is again created entirely by the band, another example of their intentions to create a defined White Flowers universe distinctly their own.

Within A Dream EP (master - MP3)

White Flowers - Within a Dream

Marina Allen - Belong Here

Purchase: bit.ly/39Edf4E
Catalog #: GN60
Feb. 26, 2021
CASS+DIGI

With Immortal Word, Baltimore percussive extraordinaire David Jacober returns to gleefully eerie apparitional atmospheres first excised on The Gray Man in 2015 . On this tenth installment of Geographic North's Sketch for Winter series - highlighting compositions intentionally crafted for the colder season - Jacober beachcombed his way through frigid fog and frosted flotsam that washed ashore to cull 6 new songs of hypnotized hauntology and curiously climatic chorales with his trusty marimba mallets in tow.

Immortal Word opens with  “Four Horsemen”, rippling across an incoming tide of bubbling, frothing percussion and mirthful marimba melody. “Toast” breaks through the misting, overcast skieWith Immortal Word, David Jacober, Dope Body drummer and Baltimore percussive extraordinaire, returns to the gleefully eerie apparitional atmospheres first excised on his Geographic North debut, The Gray Man in 2015. On this tenth installment of the Sketch for Winter series - highlighting compositions intentionally crafted for the colder season - Jacober sets gaze to the sea, beachcombing his way through frigid fog and frosted flotsam to cull 6 new songs of hypnotized hauntology effortlessly blending climatic bombast with the tranquilizing harmonics of marimba.

Immortal Word opens with “Four Horsemen”, rippling across an incoming tide of bubbling, frothing percussion and mirthful melody. “Toast” breaks through the misting, overcast skies with a pulsing, sifting rhythm and wide-eyed optimism. The album’s namesake, “Immortal Word” turns that positivity inward, exploring a pile of tuneful textures and playful phrases.

On the B-side, “Flashbacking” wafts through a vacated, shadow-lined boardwalk in a euphoric daze of unhurried movement. The cold gust that is “Witching Hours” reels itself upward in a reversed rain of dripping tones. Closer “Universal Sign” makes calm space to host a sort of moonlit seance, decked in a wistful cloud of peripheral synesthesia.

Jacober - "Toast"

Featuring new and unreleased tracks from Joyful Noise Recordings, plus a candid and philosophical interview with Tim Kinsella. 

Songs from: Sleep Party People, Swamp Dogg, jess joy, Danielson, Kishi Bashi, Dale Crover, Anal Trump, Alan Watts & Sigur Rós, Big Business, and Joan of Arc. 

Background music by El Ten Eleven, Joan of Arc, and Dale Crover. 

For more, visit joyfulnoiserecordings.com

Joyful Noise Radio Hour - Episode 1, with Tim Kinsella

Devon Williams is back with a new EP named "Out of Time." Redolent with the feelings of isolation, impatience and dread common to all of us during these days of pandemic, "Out of Time" is the product of spending lockdown away from home, adding to the sense of dislocation. According to Williams: "...the ideas of running out of time, feeling stagnant, self-doubt came through in different ways in these songs."

The EP focuses on the dreamier side of Williams' blend of folk and power-pop, calling to mind such inspirations as Felt, The Church and Teardrop Explodes. Lead single "La La La La II" is a new version of a key tune from 2009's "Euphoria" album and a perfect showcase for Devon's rich, melodic songcraft. Amidst the chaos of 2021 "Out of Time" is a much-needed antidote, a soothing melodic tonic for our times.

Out of Time EP

Out of Time

Devon Williams - La La La La II

Featuring new and unreleased tracks from Joyful Noise Recordings, plus an interview with our artist and friend Dale Crover (aka, legendary drummer of the Melvins, Nirvana, Redd Kross, etc.). 

Songs from: Paul Leary, Serengeti, The Ophelias, Dumb Numbers, Joshua Virtue, Toshi Kasai, Dale Crover, and Melvins. 

Intro by David Woodruff, featuring music by El Ten Eleven.

Background music by El Ten Eleven, Joan of Arc, and Thor & Friends. 

For more, visit joyfulnoiserecordings.com

Crocus

Joyful Noise Recordings

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