Crane is a Soul / Pop  project based in Atlanta, GA.

“oOo (that’s my type)” and “omg” out now

MGMT: 
af@loyaltmgmt.com

BOOKING:
N/S America, Asia, Australia: 
mmarquis@paradigmagency.com
max@amonly.com 

UK/Europe:
nick@codaagency.com 

Act One, the debut full-length from songwriting duo Marian Hill, was written and produced in its entirety by Jeremy Lloyd (music/lyrics/production) and Samantha Gongol (music/lyrics/vocals). The multi-talented duo, who have been collaborating in one form or another since high school, have shifted the classic paradigm of a woman on a stage and a man with a piano to a woman on a mic and a man with a laptop -- and the results are seductive and vivid. Tempting paradox with a blend of blues and bass, acoustic and digital, classic and modern, Marian Hill have arrived.

Two years ago Sam and Jeremy wrote and recorded “Whisky” over spring break in Jeremy’s parents’ basement. When they released it for free on Soundcloud later that summer it was the only song they’d written for the project, and in a little over a year’s time they had recorded their first EP in a bedroom, amassed millions of plays on various platforms, sold out shows across the country and featured in high profile commercials. They signed to Republic Records in early 2015, released the Sway EP, and settled in to write and record their debut album over the course of the following year with a plan to push their unique sound to its fullest potential.

For the first 50 seconds of “Down” you might think you’re at a supper club in the 1920s, but when the bass drops out of nowhere you couldn’t be anywhere but 2016. Act One then takes you on a journey through the complexities of modern relationships, with each song inhabiting a specific and charged relationship lyrically, melodically, and sonically. “I Know Why” constantly transforms and reinvents itself as the vocals grapple with a secret while “Mistaken” is the hardest of sax trap with a classic songwriting backbone. “Same Thing” is the saddest part of the album, a haunting ballad depicting serene resignation of a doomed relationship, but castanets rise from the ashes as “I Want You” closes out the night in a pure moment of optimistic electricity, a glance across a crowded room that changes everything.

Marian Hill’s one of a kind sound is present throughout — blues harmonies blend with sparse hip hop drums, horns blast under classic vocal melodies, and soloistic vocal chops sit side by side with clear, intimate lyrics. You’ve never heard this before, yet it’s surprisingly familiar. And it’s only the beginning.

https://phantogram.komi.io/

Fall In Love Again (Desmond Remix) Out Now
Move In Silence feat. Big Boi Out Now

Sparked by a color or song that recalls the most joyful and tragic moments in your life, a sense memory vaults you into the distant past. These subtle triggers remind us that memory isn’t confined to the mind; it lives in the body, too. Phantogram’s fifth album, Memory of a Day, captures that disorienting sense of time travel. “We put these songs together as a capsule, thinking about how a certain sound or melody can bring you back instantly to a memory of a day,” Phantogram says. 

While they were recording, the duo fixated on life calendars, a gridded sheet in which each unit represents a single week of a person’s life on the planet. As you fill in the grid, you witness the progression of your life in stark terms. The older you get, the darker the grid becomes, reminding you of how much time you have lived, and how little you may have left. “It’s this exploded view,” Phantogram says. “Like an image of Earth from a distance.” The life calendar is both morbid and nostalgic, a physical representation of our ephemeral time on Earth. 

“Days are only numbers,” Sarah Barthel sings on the chorus of “Come Alive.” That lyric became a north star for the duo as they set forth to make Memory of a Day. At once heavy and ebullient, “Come Alive” distills the lasting impact Phantogram has made on popular culture. Since their 2010 debut, Eyelid Movies, Phantogram has been comparable to no one, futurists who still manage to stay ahead of the curve more than a decade into their career. Their genre-bending approach to pop has led them to work with everyone, from Big Boi, with whom they founded Big Grams, to Subtronics, Future Islands, Deftones, the Flaming Lips, Tom Morello, and Miley Cyrus, to name just a few. A festival staple across the globe, Phantogram has also toured with Queens of the Stone Age, Arcade Fire, the XX, and many more. “We’ve always been proud of that: not being afraid of the experimental.”

Though their music has always been future-facing, to make Memory of a Day, Phantogram looked back. “Recording this album, it felt like how it did when we first started making music together,” Phantogram says. Alongside special collaborators like Mikky Ekko and Dan Wilson, Phantogram was joined in the studio by producer John Hill, who helmed Phantogram’s second album, Voices. The duo experimented in the studio and indulged in the music that brought them together in the beginning, artists such as J Dilla, Prince, Slowdive, and so much more. They reference new wave acts like the Talking Heads, ESG, and Liquid Liquid as influences on the percussive punk track “Feedback Invisible,” which is followed by the wistful burst of color “Attaway.” It’s a shoegaze song so sumptuous “you can almost see the grain in the guitar sounds.” 

Phantogram think in images when they write, drawing on scenes from films that linger with them years on. “Ever since Eyelid Movies, our work has been visually driven,” Phantogram says. In the video for the fuzzed-out waltz “All a Mystery,” snippets of human lives coalesce into a montage of experience. “Erase all the tapes in my mind/ Throw them all away,” Barthel sings, accompanied by a bittersweet swell of synths. “Turn back the tables of time/ Let all those memories die.” A swirl of memories, both triumphant and tragic, surface on Memory of a Day. “Come Alive” was written after Barthel experienced a transformative live show on her own, while the title track recounts the moment Josh Carter had to put his dog down. “It’s what you wanted, but couldn’t say,” he sings. “I’m not afraid of dying or what it feels like”

The album’s penultimate track, “Happy Again,” is a thrumming, bass-heavy rock song with a chorus that sounds like a wave crashing against the sand. “Another empty summer sunset/ Feeling homesick,” Barthel sings ahead of the bridge, her voice catching on the breezy, luminous production. “Can you believe this is your life?” It’s a moment of realization Phantogram compares to the dour scene in Forrest Gump, where Lieutenant Dan, “mega depressed and drunk,” throws a bummer New Year’s Eve party. Still, the song ends with an enlivening mantra. “I can be happy again,” Barthel repeats as guitars careen and crash. If days are only numbers, then how else can a person measure a life? On “Ashes,” the answer seems to be in moments of resilience. Based on the adage “you came into this world alone and you’ll leave it alone,” the throbbing production infused with elements of trip hop, shoegaze and indie accompanies Barthel as she reminds the listener: “Ashes rise, ashes rise.”

When they penned the lyrics, Phantogram thought of the mythical phoenix spreading its wings after catastrophe to take flight. The vulnerable, even despairing moments on Memory of a Day are stark, but they’re buoyed by a relentless optimism that has driven this project from the outset. In the Los Angeles studio where they recorded Memory of a Day, Phantogram often marveled at the distance they’ve come, both physically and spiritually, since they first started making music together in a barn in Upstate New York. “Tomorrow never knows,” Barthel nods to the Beatles on “Come Alive.” The accumulation of days together tell a story bigger than any finite lifetime, and Phantogram’s life calendar is only a fraction full.

Randi B is following