Record Label • Portland, ME, USA • est. 2014

Jordan Holtz
EDT
Diamanda La Berge Dramm
Eliot Krimsky
Peter Broderick
Teton
Woodpainting
Friend Roulette
Will Graefe
Forêt Endormie
Wei Zhongle
Lisa/Liza
Afraid
Yairms
Family Planning
Ada
Jared Fairfield
Snaex
Jacob Augustine
Bad Braids
The Milkman's Union

Brooklyn based art-pop band. 
For booking, questions and deep thoughts email us at hi@milantominsk.net

Kenneka Cook has always loved outer space. 

Growing up in Richmond, VA, she was obsessed with the moon, staring out her window at the night sky in awe of its mystery. The title track on Cook’s debut record Moonchild, set for a February 23rd release on American Paradox, is both a product of her intense connection with the cosmos, as well as a tribute to the embracing of celestial feminine energy. Musically, Cook bridges the gap between beat-driven sonics and melodic jazz in a brazenly colorful and tonally rich debut album.

Cook’s early training took place in her church choir and school chorus. Her tastes eventually shifted towards heavyweights like Billie Holiday, Erykah Badu, and The Cardigans, informing her confidently playful, harmony-heavy, atmospheric style. Initially she was making acapella songs with a microphone and laptop during the end of her college career out of necessity, describing her voice as “the only instrument I truly had access to” at the time. 

She discovered the process of live looping through Reggie Watts, who sometimes uses looping techniques in the songs found in his comedy acts. She covered the jazz standard “Night and Day” using the technique and it turned out better than she ever could have hoped. From there, she began to fully explore creating music and on the new album, she welcomes a variety of live players into the fold to flush out and widen the unique sound she created on her own.

Moonchild is a glimpse through Cook’s lens, exhibiting heartfelt lyrics and melodic themes on spirituality, technology, and social interaction. The album opens with serious meditations on the state of human connection (“My Universe”, “Don’t Ask Me”) and finds its way to a fun-as-hell-take on the now-classic “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” by Vampire Weekend. “Please” transforms a conversation between Cook and her mother into a soft hymn, and “Brings Me Back (111)” depicts the mutual beckoning of soulmates. 

There’s a DIY backbone here too, as the album was recorded entirely in producer Scott Lane's living room, transformed into a makeshift studio that was regularly set up and torn down. It was recorded this past summer over 3 months time, and features players Devonne Harris (piano/Butcher Brown), Kelli Strawbridge (drums/Kings), Caleb Knight (drums/Sammi Lanzetta), Chris Speasmaker (piano/The Congress), Andrew Sisk (drums/Angelica Garcia), Marcus Tenney (trumpet/Foxygen), Russell Lacy (guitar/Mikrowaves), Sid Kingsley (saxophone/Sid Kingsley), Jared Pool (mandolin/Larry Keel), and Scott Lane (production/engineering).

Belle Mare is a collaboration between songwriters Amelia Bushell and Thomas Servidone. The duo met at an open mic in Brooklyn during the winter of 2012, and recorded an EP that was released the following year.  
With the addition of Tara Rook (Keyboards), Rob Walbourne (Drums) and Gary Atturio (Bass), Belle Mare performed a live video session at Manhattan’s Electric Lady Studio, at which they caught the attention of Grammy-winner Tom Elmhirst and Ben Baptie.
Elmhirst offered the band his studio at Electric Lady to record with Baptie as producer, and began work on what will be their debut full-length album, with sessions spanning the better part of two years. Now set to arrive late summer 2016.
The first fruits of those sessions came to light last year with the singles, “Cicada”, released in February, which BULLETT called, “the most beautiful song of the month,” and “Dark Of My Evening” in November, a ‘Track of the Week’ by Interview Magazine.  Belle Mare also collaborated with director Nicole Mackinlay Hahn on the video for “Cicada”, which premiered via The New York Times’ T Magazine last April, chronicling a stunning journey of the women of Burkina Faso.
While preserving the foundations of their songwriting and maintaining the stark minimalism of their previous work, Belle Mare’s first album is new territory for the band. Compositionally diverse arrangements, and instrumentation more in line with their live performances, resulted in a far more expansive sound. Although the results are dramatically different, the sincerity and fragility of Bushell’s voice resonates distinctly throughout the album, as do the themes of longing and the passage of time.
Prior to their full length, Belle Mare released the aforementioned EP, The Boat of the Fragile Mind in April of 2013. A collection of eight songs described as “spaciously eerie” by SPIN. The EP was written and recorded by the duo in the modest confines of Servidone’s Brooklyn apartment. It is a strikingly different experience from the Electric Lady recordings, conjuring “a sense of timeless unbeholden to a specific time.” (Eric Danton, Listen Dammit). 


Waco Sparkler is an eclectic electronic musical act hailing from Brooklyn, and areas abroad. Jack Reynolds fronts a rotating line-up of talented contributors in exacting a distinctive and original song profile ranging from quippy pop, to meditative instrumentals. Bring two pairs of socks when you attend a Waco Sparkler show, because one will surely be knocked off!

Paper Garden is a music & creative agency based in multiple countries. Our expertise ranges from event curation & production, strategic brand partnerships, publicity & record label services. Our mission and what excites us the most is helping bring the love of music, art & experiences to a wide range of communities and audiences. We are all in this together.

"Memory is the star in which we used to wish, the dream we lose after waking, the key we hold but cannot turn."

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