"For the Boy Who Moved Away" is from EDJ's forthcoming self-titled debut.

Out 8/5/2014 through Easy Sound Recording Company (www.easysound.co)

Of the new record, Eric says:

In January of 2014 I decided to sit down and write an album’s worth of songs all over the course of a few weeks, which is something I had never done before.

Some were done at home during an unseasonably cold Portland winter, some in Boonville, California (a town in the wine-and-weed producing part of Mendocino County where they also have their own language,’Boontling’), and some in Joshua Tree, a place where people have always sought inspiration.

It had always taken a long time for me to write songs – and when one would finally come to me I’d put some broad concepts down on paper, find a nice melody, and then let the listener decide what they might be hearing.

Well, these new songs all mean something, from my life and from my brain. Even the lines that may be somewhat enigmatic or metaphorical sounding to you directly correlate to my life, and maybe yours, too.

The puzzle of existence on “Minor Miracles.” Rebuilding a life in “West County Girl” and “Lose It All, All the Time.” A quite literal story in “For The Boy Who Moved Away” about moving away from L.A. to an uncertain future, the San Gabriel Mountains engulfed in flames in our rearview.

And that’s to name but a few.

These are not the “happy” songs that I’ve come to be associated with – no fully major chords, and lots of suspended chords and major sevenths to make things kind of emotionally ambiguous. There was no stylistic dogma in making this record, and I was ready to fold in every type of music I was into at the moment – Joni Mitchell, new age, early 80′s McCartney, Another Green World, film scores, Talk Talk, British folk, and modern stuff that’s got me excited.

I had a bunch of my favorite people come and join me on this. Sam Cohen, Brian Kantor, and Josh Kaufman (all of Yellowbirds and a million other bands) made up the backbone of the band in the early part of the tracking. And then there were appearances by people from all the different chapters of my musical life – Andy Cabic from Vetiver and Tim Rutili from Califone dropped by to add stuff. James Mercer from The Shins sang some gorgeous high harmonies, and Nathan Larson of Shudder to Think (also my sometime film score collaborator) laid down some drone-y guitar vibes. And of course Thom Monahan, my usual studio co-conspirator, was there to make everything
come together.

These are simple stories, some about losses, a few about disappointment and regret, but also of hope and perseverance. I hope you like these melancholy grooves and existential make-out songs. These all mean something to me, I hope they will to you, too.

- Eric D. Johnson

Pre-Order LP/CD/Digi

EDJ - For The Boy Who Moved Away

Recorded at Blue Barn Studios
Produced by Ben Lemi & Brooke Singer
Recorded and Engineered by Ben Lemi
Mastered by Mike Gibson 

Voice, piano, guitar: Brooke Singer
Guitar: John Fitzgerald
Drums: Hikurangi Schaverien-Kaa
Bass, voice: Ben Lemi

Released on Home Alone Music (NZ) & Lefse Records(World)
Publishers: Native Tongue

LYRICS

I watched in horror as the bird went up in flames, 
Couldn't beat his wings fast enough to up, and fly away. 
So feathers into dust, dreams into dust. 
Feathers into dust, dreams into dust, 
For this small one, this one of many birds. 

I closed my eyes to see, delicate wings in smoke. 
Heard the last cry of courage, heard the last sweet note, 
And feathers into dust, dreams into dust, 
Feathers into dust, dreams into dust. 

Helpful hands won't reach where they will only burn, 
These are lessons only if they are heard. 
Don't turn away, honour them by seeing them 
Don't turn away, honour them by seeing them 
Don't turn away, honour them by seeing their pain.

Feathers And Dreams

Mixed and Mastered by: Henryk Lipp
Cover art: Fanny Valentin

Nova

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Written by - Harry Kinchington ( Mugen )
Vocals - Harry Kinchingtin
Rhythm Guitar - Harry Kinchington
Lead Guitar - Daniel Heery
Bass - Henry Chatham
Drums - George Hall

Recorded at Greenmount Studios Leeds.
Mixed by Jean Gallows
Mastered by Pete Maher.

Going Down

Spring

Through A Dark Wood

Break it Down

Back to the Wind

Suburbia

All My Trials

American Culture - Silence

Taking its name from novelist Jack London’s 1904 seafaring adventure, Sea Wolf has evolved organically from its hermetic origins in Alex Brown Church’s living room into a muscular, full-bodied musical entity with passion to burn. After adopting the sobriquet, Church burst onto the music scene in two-fisted fashion with the EP, Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low, and the subsequent full-length debut album, Leaves in the River, about which Interview magazine observed, “His music is both erudite and unvarnished, a blend of swirling melodies, literary balladry and damaged art-rock composition.”

And now, Church’s singular vision has led to the creation of the eloquent and expansive new album White Water, White Bloom, which not only fulfills the immense promise of the initial musical diptych but conjures up its own cosmology. This is one of those rare and mysterious records wherein, the first time you hear it, you can’t shake the feeling that it’s always been part of the soundtrack of your life. You intimately know its ups and downs, its melodies and cadences, its settings and characters.

“I couldn’t have known beforehand what the next record would sound like,” says Church, “but I did know I wanted it to be bigger, with a band feel, rather than another series of intimate confessionals.”

A song cycle set against the changing of seasons, this timeless work unfolds like an epic poem, yet resonates with thematic elements that speak, elliptically yet unmistakably, to the world we live in. Pulsing with evocations of nature at its most elemental, Church’s songs are flooded with vivid imagery, carried along on torrents of sounds as majestic as a mountain stream swollen with the bracing, crystalline runoff of spring’s first warming breath. What’s more, he sings these songs with newfound power, the result of extensive roadwork behind Leaves in the River, while deepening the mesmerizing expressiveness with which he made his initial mark.

Opening track “Wicked Blood” begins with what sounds like an orchestra tuning up before surging to glorious life, the rhythm section shaping itself into a propulsive groove accented by delicate piano notes, carrying along the opening chapter of the saga: “We met in the East/ poured in like a flood,” Church begins, shadowed by the breathless wheeze of an air organ, “You’re the whispering kind/dark sapphire blood/A vision of veils/all shimmery white/like a backdrop of sails/all aglow from the light/of the wonder behind/at a starry night.” And with that, we’re off into an adventure of cinematic immediacy, as befits the sensibility of this onetime film student, who’s clearly found his natural medium of expression.

“Lyrically,” says Church, “I like to incorporate what one would construe as classic imagery, and even infuse the songs with elements of mythology, but also delve into more contemporary themes. I’m interested in the way words look and feel, not just when you hear them but also when you read them.”

Church’s verbal acuity is mated with bold, vibrant soundscapes set off with thundering drums, stabbing, reverb-soaked electric guitars and ghostly keyboards, resulting in such memorable pieces as the mythological tale “Orion & Dog,” ornamented with strings right out of a John Ford western; the folk-noir fable “O Maria!”; the surging title song, burning with Byronic heat; the fever-dreamscape “Spirit”; the muted, idyllic, “The Orchard”; the Dylanesque roundelay “The Traitor”; and the closing “Winter’s Heir,” with its life-embracing denouement.

“When I write a song,” says Church, “for me it’s always associated with a specific place and time. For example, ‘Orion & Dog’ was written during the summer, and ‘Winter’s Heir’ is about coming out of the long Montreal winter and experiencing a sense of rebirth.”

The album has a back story: “I met and fell in love with a girl in Montreal while on tour with Irving, and just before signing with Dangerbird,” Church recalls. “And then, while touring behind the Sea Wolf record, I spent most of my time off in Montreal with her. Apart from ‘Wicked Blood’ and ‘O Maria!,’ which I wrote in Los Angles, everything on White Water was written in Montreal, holed up in our little apartment, a block away from the river. That was all of last fall, winter and spring, so I was very much influenced by that experience, and a lot of the record is set there in my immediate surroundings, along with remembrances of being home on the West Coast.”

White Water, White Bloom was recorded at the Omaha studio of Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, M. Ward, Monsters of Folk), with Church handling vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, as well as some of the air organ and pump organ sounds that were such a big part of the sonic signature of the earlier records. Joining him were the three core members of the six-piece Sea Wolf touring lineup: keyboardist Lisa Fendelander, bassist Ted Liscinski and drummer Joey Ficken. The remaining slots were filled by Mogis on lead guitar and an assortment of other instruments, with his Bright Eyes cohort Nate Walcott filling the role of the cellist, arranging strings for a quartet, sometimes working from cello parts originally created by Catherine Odell, who’d been part of the initial Sea Wolf touring lineup, with Church’s input.

They arrived with a full set of song demos, providing a detailed blueprint for their subsequent expansion into widescreen anthems that reshape the classic aspects of traditional folk, folk rock and chamber pop—but these bucolic elements are intercut with aggressive bursts of raw emotion sharpened to a serrated edge—making for a rich, vibrant sound that is virtually unprecedented.

Church is working in the most personal of mediums, and that results in constant self-questioning. “Every time you make a record,” he says, “you invariably think, ‘Oh, I wish I’d done this differently,’ or ‘Next time I want to do this.’ But if you get to the point where you don’t think that, then it’s time to quit. In terms of aspirations, as long as I’m constantly having new ideas and finding new places to explore with the music, I’ll be satisfied.”

Break it Down

Sea Wolf

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