I really like this part a lot. good stuff dan.

First single off our debut LP VACANT PAGE out Feb 10th via Exploding in Sound and Inflated Records. 

Pre-order a limited-edition paint splatter vinyl via Inflated http://inflatedrecords.bigcartel.com/product/leapling-vacant-page

Crooked

You're not sure why you decided to come alone to this karaoke bar. A sudden desire for people-watching, you suppose. You don't sing anything, just nurse a drink near the back. For the first half-hour, nothing out of the ordinary happens. Then, another spectator, one you've noticed hovering by a side wall, takes the stage. A slightly tinny drum machine comes forth from the P.A. The song is instantly familiar, but you can't quite place it. It must be some mostly-forgotten hit from the '80s that you haven't heard in years. At first, the singer's delivery is as shy as you'd expect from a fellow wallflower. But slowly, you come to perceive a deep, quiet confidence in his voice. He obviously knows the song by heart. He occupies it as if it were home. Actually, you think his rendition might be truer than the original performer's, although you still can't recall who that was. Although it might just be your second drink taking effect, you've almost begun to suspect that there is no original, that the enigma on the stage in this unremarkable bar, is, somehow, performing an entirely new song for the very first time. As the tempo slows and he begins to gently croon the next track, you become sure. By some weird turn of Lynchian magic, this man on the stage has reshaped the room to his will, coaxing his own private music out of the karaoke machine.

This is the kind of scenario one imagines when listening to Better Person's smoke machine pop. His (Adam Byczkowski) enigmatic stage presence is matched by his elusiveness as a recording artist output: while he's already toured with the wonderful Canadians TOPS and Timber Timbre, and as keyboard/guitarist with Sean Nicholas Savage, at six tracks It's Only You is his longest release, encompassing the critically acclaimed singles “Sentiment” and “I Wake Up Tired.”

While the EP's sonic touchstones – torch songs, Sade, Arthur Russell, synthed-up European and Japanese pop from the 80s, French and Italian movie soundtracks – are all unimpeachably romantic, there's a more Romantic undercurrent of isolation that begins from the way It's Only You was made – all recorded on a computer at home, on Berlin's Pannierstrasse (the same street where Magic Island's Wasted Dawn was recorded last year.) The title itself casually, elegantly captures the paradoxical phase shift which occurs when the movement toward closeness becomes a plunge into solitude. It's Only You is the sound of turning down the mood lighting so low you're no longer sure if anyone else is there.

The transmutation of being-alone-with into being-alone ignites a fixation on memory, and most especially on its entanglement with place. On repeated listens, It's Only You slowly reveals itself as a work of (self-imposed) exile behind a facade of seduction. In the aftermath of intimacy, one is left with only sensual remnants - smell leads to memory (“I found a smell that takes me home,” Byczkowski sings in opener “Somebody Cares”) and memories, of home and of people, lead to the question of place and belonging. In “Somebody Cares,” “I found a smell that takes me home” leads into “I try to notice all the things around” - reminiscence of there demands attention to here – but he concludes “God only knows where I'm gonna live.” “I Wake Up Tired” features the plaintive request “Show me a place / where I feel home;” while the refrain in “Everything Cold” asks the question on the mind of every expatriate in Berlin: “Why is everything closed on Sunday night?” In the still astonishing “Sentiment,” the singer is left unsure of his identity, with only sentiment remaining, precisely because he will “never be from here.” The real revelation of It's Only You may however be the closing track “Your Smell” which, atop a tragicomically funky shuffle, wraps in a cocoon of beautiful confusion all of Byczkowski's themes: lost love, lost locales, and finding oneself again, fleetingly, provisionally, in their pursuit.

Better Person - Everything Cold

A tune written, played, and recorded by myself. 
Full Album coming soon!

Be My Friend

The first single off Widowspeak's 4th album, Expect The Best, out August 25th, 2017 on Captured Tracks.

Pre-Order Physical: https://www.omnianmusicgroup.com/products/expect-the-best
Pre-Order Digital: http://smarturl.it/expectthebest

Tour Dates:
07/28 - Teulon, MB - Ignite Retreats (Real Love Summer Fest)
09/08 - Boston, MA - Great Scott
09/09 - Burlington, VT - ArtsRiot
09/11 - Toronto, ON - Garrison
09/12 - Detroit, MI - El Club
09/13 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
09/15 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th St. Entry
09/16 - Madison, WI - High Noon
09/17 - Des Moines, IA - Des Moines Social Club
09/19 - Denver, CO - Hi Dive
09/20 - Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge
09/21 - Boise, ID - Neurolux
09/22 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios
09/23 - Seattle, WA - Barboza
09/24 - Vancouver, BC - Biltmore Cabaret
09/26 - San Francisco, CA - Swedish American Hall
09/27 - Visalia, CA - Cellar Door
09/28 - Los Angeles, CA - Pico Union
09/29 - San Diego, CA - The Hideout
09/30 - Phoenix, AZ - Rebel Lounge
10/01 - Santa Fe, NM - Meow Wolf
10/03 - Austin, TX - Sidewinder
10/04 - New Orleans, LA - Gasa Gasa
10/05 - Birmingham, AL - Syndicate Lounge
10/06 - Nashville, TN - The High Watt
10/07 - Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade
10/08 - Asheville, NC - The Mothlight
10/10 - Washington, DC - DC9
10/11 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot and Saddle
10/12 - Kingston, NY - BSP Kingston
10/13 - Brooklyn, NY - Rough Trade

Expect The Best

Widowspeak // Dog (Official Single)

Released 4.12.17 on ltd edition postcard. Grab one here:
http://artishardrecords.limitedrun.com/artists/postcardclub

Likely familiar to anyone who wears their heart on their cardigan, Laura K forms part of Fortuna Pop'sters Tigercats. In her spare time she also plays in Jean K, Ski Saigon, Mikey Collins as well as finding moments to work on her own material. 'Apologise' is the result of some of that spare time. Though it kicks off like a Casio keyboard demo, by the minute mark it has slowly built into a swelling pop song.

Of the track Laura says "the song is about being insecure and anxious in a relationship; having negative thought patterns - not knowing if problems are real or in your head...classic! It’s also about not being sorry for your feelings."

The single is out on Postcard and digital download from Monday 4th December. The artwork was created by David Zacharis of the Smittens.

The Postcard Club

Laura K - Apologise

Chain Reaction

Shrinking Violet

From down below the bottles crack, slowing fast.
The paint brush bows, it's made to last, a paint filled slash.

The arts been done and hangs from the wall, it sure won't fall.
My cell phone rings and who should call, who knows what for? 

Fade out in velvet sheets.
Fade out in velvet sheets.

The canvas drips, its blues and reds, the carpet drenched.
My pencil burns, the smell of lead, it fills my head.

I check my watch, see that time, i'm nearly blind. 
A stupid song, a silly rhyme, it's so sublime. 

Fade out in velvet sheets.
Fade out in velvet sheets.

Velvet Sheets

OUT NOW ON BANDCAMP: https://darktapeca.bandcamp.com/track/harmless
written, recorded, and produced by me in my poorly ventilated bedroom

lyrics:

your words
they come and suck me away
harmless thoughts
oh that’s what they all say
you think you know
how I always seem to feel
but your words
they hit me quite real

i fall into a spiral of uncertainty
yet you brush it off
thinking that it’s okay
but no, that’s not how I feel

it’s more than just your view
one day you’ll realize too
but then it’ll be too late
and you’ll wallow in your own self-hate

Harmless

Phoenix - Playground Love

LYRICS

Violence 
My Way
I Live
To Set Me Free

I Let
Violence 
(In) My Way
To Set Me Free

Oh Oh
I Don’t Wanna Know 
No 
No 

Oh Oh
I Don’t Wanna Know 
No 
No

...

Will You Die For Me?

It’s All In The Game :)

In My Apocalypse

https://www.facebook.com/leaplingmusic

https://leapling.bandcamp.com/

https://twitter.com/leaplingband

http://leaplingmusic.com/

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Crooked

Leapling

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