Jan / Feb / March 2023 Force Field PR

La Luz

The Pines

Artifacts

Sicily

Book Of Jaws

"Never Had You at All" manages to capture the spirit of Nick Lowe's "Cruel to Be Kind" while still feeling modern and unique.
Madeline Star lyrically paints the agonizing push and pull of a vice – "You can take away my pain, but numb can seem just the same..."
The song is a dichotomy of melancholy themes and uplifting instrumentation pointing toward a light at the end of a tunnel.

Never Had You at All

Moon Boy

Music toys with time. Or, maybe songs reflect back that time is always toying with us. The world of a song takes hold of us like an eternity to be lost in, with its repetitions and variations, but ultimately, as with everything else, it has a start and then ends. And there’s no place to lose time like San Francisco, where there are no seasons and all the seasons occur within one day; where the fog takes the space where your plans might have been; where there’s insane wealth all around and everyone you know and love is hanging on at the periphery and making art on any given Tuesday night. About Glenn Donaldson’s new record, "The Town That Cursed Your Name," he says, "I realized as I was piecing it together that it's a song cycle about trying to live while also feeling called to make music." It’s a double life when it works and a deeper doubleness to mirror the Gemini nature of songs themselves. "The Town That Cursed Your Name" contemplates this problem with wryness, generosity, and the micro- and macroscopic realness Donaldson is known and loved for.

Whereas the 2022 collection "Summer at Land's End" was a softer, gauzier world, "The Town That Cursed Your Name" is heavier, with fuzzed lines running through. "Leave It All Behind" starts out with an amorphous whine but quickly launches into something both supremely melodic and buzzing at the edges. "Here Comes the Lunar Hand" is an impressionist geometry that seems to capture the album’s themes without telling you how. Lyrically, Donaldson embraces the earnestness of his heroes Paul Westerberg and Grant McLennan. Sonically, late '80s college rock is filtered through song-forward lo-fi acts like East River Pipe and House of Tomorrow-era Magnetic Fields. Like the images that accompany his releases – flowers and residential street scenes are pushed to the breaking point with color – Donaldson’s songs are at the same time dazzling and lurid, beautiful and burdened, not unlike life as a musician around here.

In the liner notes, Donaldson dedicates the record "to everyone who ever tried to start a band in the Bay." There will be many knowing smiles at his title "Too Late For An Early Grave." But, this dedication captures something else about the particular strain of sincerity that laces the city water supply – the front man around here is on stage under those lights evincing the fervor not of the pop star but of the biggest fan.

-Karina Gill

The Town That Cursed Your Name

The Reds, Pinks & Purples - Life in the Void

1st Single Off The Upcoming Record "Artichoke" 
Out 4/28/23 on Plume Records

Brian Noyes: Vocals, Guitars, Piano, Moog
Jake Brady: Guitars, Percussion
Dillon Sturtevant: Slide Guitar, Bass Vocals
Bryan Appleby: Drums, Vocals, Harmonica

Engineered & Mixed by Nicholas Wilbur at 
The Unknown - Anacortes, WA
Mastered by Carl Saff / Saff Mastering - Chicago, IL
Produced by Tomten & Nicholas Wilbur
Written by Brian Noyes

Grapefruit Sea

Bicycle

Black Earth, WI

Terra Incognita

Got 2 Give

Perished In Bloom

Death And Vanilla - Arcana

Explorer

Homebody

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney - My home is the sea

2nd single off The Money War's debut album

Hey Now

Slumberland began operations in 1989 as a collective effort consisting of members of DC area bands Velocity Girl, Big Jesus Trash Can/Whorl, Black Tambourine and Powderburns. We were inspired by such musical happenings as C86, early Creation, Postcard, K, Bus Stop, lower East Side noise, and also the renegade art aesthetics & methods of people like Cage, Burroughs and Duchamp. The explosion of punk had left behind a thriving network of 'zines, labels and distributors and we felt that there was room for our noise-loving, pop-obsessed aesthetic. While there were loads of US indie labels releasing a steady stream of 7"s, there wasn't much pop going on. Notable exceptions included Bus Stop, K and Picture Book, and we hoped to join that group and help chisel out some space for melodies amongst the noise.

Early releases from Velocity Girl, Whorl and Black Tambourine struck a note, and we found like-minded popsters getting in touch from all over the world. As we expanded the label roster and our own horizons, the goal was always to share great songs and interesting sounds from a range of styles. Our first burst of activity through the 1990s and early 2000s brought seminal records by legendary bands like Stereolab, Rocketship, The Ropers, Lorelei, The Aislers Set, Hood and Boyracer.

By the mid 2000s we were seeing a resurgence of interest in guitar pop and the start of the ongoing vinyl revival: the perfect environment for Slumberland! We launched into our latest phase of activity with as string of classic releases from The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Crystal Stilts, Frankie Rose, Veronica Falls, Allo Darlin', Joanna Gruesome and so many more.

2025 is our thirty-sixth (!) year we are still at it, ploughing our own furrow and bringing you unique, genre-defining (and genre-defying!) releases from bands like The Laughing Chimes, Humdrum, The Cords, Autocamper, Jeanines, The Umbrellas, Neutrals, Artsick, Kids On A Crime Spree, Papercuts, Lightheaded, Tony Jay, Chime School, Lunchbox and many, many more. Indie fashions come and go but we're still thrilled by great songs and the new ways that pop can be rejuvenated to fit the times.

The Reds, Pinks & Purples - Life in the Void

Slumberland Records

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