Toro y Moi Blessa

From the album The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong out April 29, 2022 on Western Vinyl.
Pre-order / Listen: https://lnk.to/XHoJYpp2

On their debut for Western Vinyl, recording engineer and multi-instrumentalist Nate Mendelsohn and his band use lyrical maximalism for the powers of good. Where Market’s previous home recorded releases shifted genre restlessly, on The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong Mendelsohn took a core band of longtime collaborators to a house in rural Massachusetts where they carved out space for his words to speak through with humor and intensity. 

Though he comes from a background in experimental music, Mendelsohn’s ear for pop has prevailed. Certain moments on Bullshit Gong reveal his stranger side, as on the thundering bridge of “Scar,” which sounds like a more unhinged Parquet Courts, or the angular  “I Would Do That,” which takes cues from Cate Le Bon. On the whole, though, this band of close friends insists on directness, their arrangements clear despite the intricacies. Guitars and synthesizers tangle fluidly atop the rhythm section’s tight bedrock, evoking the tenderness and backbeat-centric qualities of Elliott Smith or Big Thief. 

After college, where he met most of the members of Market, Mendelsohn became an engineer and producer at the Brooklyn studio Figure 8 Recording. Through that community he’s recorded artists like Frankie Cosmos and Wendy Eisenberg, and played with Yaeji, Vagabon, Katie Von Schleicher (who co-produced Bullshit Gong with him), and Sam Evian, who mixed the album. 

While writing Bullshit Gong, Mendelsohn grappled with long-gestating OCD, watched a formative relationship dissolve, and experienced a mental health crisis that lasted a full year. During this turbulent time, Mendelsohn began to consider the ways he has approached friendship, partnership, and especially family. Those observations and partial conclusions make their way into the songs in an essential capacity, as he mixes the small with the very big on a dogged search for empathy. On “Control” he sings “I heard a kid ask a teacher today / ‘What is a memory?’ / Man, sometimes life is great / At 4:15 I was awake and a mess / My mind’s a broke machine.” 

The words flow in much the same way as Mendelsohn’s thoughts, with observation and memory giving way to moments of profound anxiety. This emotional heft is met in crucial ways by his band. On the tender “Watergate,” a love song set against both the Watergate scandal and James Comey’s senate testimony, the arrangement is simple and trusting, adding depth and intimacy to each word as he compares his life, love, and temperament to that of his parents. 

While recording “Old,” the band sat around an omnidirectional microphone shaking percussion instruments and singing out certain lines. In the background, you can hear Mendelsohn pick up his clarinet and eke out a few notes, a spontaneous act of playfulness that made the final cut. These tonal shifts matter deeply, as the words he sings could be interpreted differently in a darker setting: “Half of these feelings aren’t my feelings anymore / But I guess I could still enjoy the notes and chords / Maybe that’s just the way it goes / We always sing about things that are old.”

Creating intimacy out of manic self-reflection requires a delicate balancing act, one Mendelsohn tackles with abandon. His words never skew too poetic or grandiose, and when he invokes the ugly it’s met with a sonic tonality that sets him right again. In tender moments, his voice is often flanked by bandmates Natasha Thweatt or Von Schleicher, who help skew his words toward the universal. Still, Bullshit Gong is an obsessive look inward, one in which Mendelsohn simply asks himself if he is good to those he loves. It’s an act of trust between the artist and the imagined listener he takes with him.

The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong

Market - "Scar"

Heartbeat

This is @Krychek. Happy to release my first single with  NYC producer Alex Sterling (www.alexsterling.net). We are @SignalSoundNYC

Mountain Beach

‘There is a thin line between desire and obsession, Misty Dreams plays across both fronts. When being close to someone just isn't enough, wanting them so badly that you would chase them into their dreams…’

'Misty Dreams' - the debut single from Gonzo Jones

Purchase // Stream track from https://caroline.lnk.to/MistyDreams

Released by:
Good Manners Records
Release date:
8 March 2016

Follow Gonzo Jones - http://on.fb.me/1pa9jPa
Follow Good Manners Records - http://on.fb.me/21UMuMZ

Misty Dreams

Following his debut So Good, AMERY unveils his second single I Need Lovin'. In this catchy pop song inviting the audience to follow him in his quest for love, he lets his personality fully explode, confessing his timidity through his lyrics, served on a production full of imagery representative of his creative energy.

Written by: AMERY & James Lowland
Produced and Mixed by: James Lowland

© Weird !s Good

I Need Lovin'

Amery - I Need Lovin'

"Pool" is the debut single from Harrison Lipton

Written, produced, performed and engineered by Harrison Lipton | Additional guitar by Noah Ross | Mixed by Harrison Lipton | Mastered by Sarah Register

www.facebook.com/harrisonliptonmusic
www.instagram.com/harrisonlipton
www.twitter.com/harrisonlipton

Thank you Ian Bakerman, Marco Gill and Noah Ross

Buy/Stream the LP

Pool

Good, Better, Best

Written, produced and performed by Calundé.

All The Time We Move is available now.
calunde.fanlink.to/AllTheTimeWeMove

Follow Calundé:
instagram.com/calunde_
twitter.com/calunde_
facebook.com/calundemusic 
@calunde

All The Time We Move

This song centers around the main theme of the album. A celebration of life through the lense of mortality, a feeling of ecstatic aliveness and balance when faced with the madness of existence. It's an upbeat bobbing disco song that addresses the passage of time and the seasons and the blooming and decomposing of the natural world. The choruses sum up the message in a pretty straightforward way: “ So sweet, so nice, everything is waiting to die / So sweet, so high nothing's ever felt so alive”.

Good, Better, Best

Swamp Dogg

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