2025 Nice

Stream / Buy https://lnk.to/blood-run-through-me

2022 Tour with Beth Orton:
11/01 - Washington DC - Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
11/02 - Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live
11/03 - Montclair, NJ - Outpost in the Burbs
11/05 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
11/06 - Somerville, MA - Crystal Ballroom
11/07 - Le Studio Td - Montreal, QUE
11/08 - The Great Hall - Toronto, ONT
11/10 - Mayfair Theatre - Chicago, IL
11/11 - Pabst Theatre - Milwaukee, WI
11/12 - Cedar Cultural Center - Minneapolis, MN
11/14 - The Oriental Theatre - Denver, CO
11/17 - Teragram Ballroom - Los Angeles, CA
11/18 - Bimbo’s 365 Club - San Francisco, CA
11/20 - Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR
11/21 - Neptune Theatre - Seattle, WA
11/22 - Hollywood Theatre - Vancouver, BC

Heather Woods Broderick - Blood Run Through Me (Single Edit)

Canto Ostinato is the new volume of classical minimalism from musician and producer Erik Hall. Written for four pianos in 1979 by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, the piece is freshly framed as an intimate, hour-long solo performance consisting of multitracked grand pianos, electric piano, and organ. Modern yet warm, ethereal yet tangible, Hall’s Canto Ostinato expertly bridges a revered piece of meditative concert repertoire with a tactile and highly personal studio setting.

Chicago-born and Michigan-based, Erik Hall is known as a multi-instrumental pillar for the groups NOMO, Wild Belle, and his own songwriting moniker In Tall Buildings. He has composed music for feature films, and as a producer/engineer he has shaped records for Natalie Bergman and Western Vinyl labelmates Lean Year. In a 2020 creative pivot, he chose to reinvent composer Steve Reich’s monumental contemporary classical masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians as a solo undertaking, applying the piece’s score to the familiar keyboards, guitars, and synthesizers in his studio. “At the time I think I was working through my identity as a musician and an artist,” Hall explains, “and on a level there was some sort of exorcism of a long held pop spirit.” The album was celebrated for being “freshly thrilling” and “legible in history but assertive of the moment” (Pitchfork) and “beguiling, meditational, and magical” (Electronic Sound). It won the 2021 Libera Award for Best Classical Record, and it quickly joined the canon of the piece’s quintessential recordings.

“There is a pseudo-meditational benefit to working on a longform piece that’s built on repetition,” Hall says. “Every stage— from internalizing the music, to executing the performance, to editing and mixing the record— requires deep and sustained presence of mind. I’ve always been drawn to a hallucinatory combination of harmony and repetition, and I found the entire process addictive.”

An apt second chapter, Canto Ostinato is inherently vast, and its score gives great creative license to the performer. Comprising 106 sections, complete freedom is given to repeat each one as many or as few times as desired. Additional leeway is given with regard to dynamics, articulation, and even instrumentation. On the heels of his previous, rather maximal arrangement, Hall chose to limit this album’s palette to three foundational keyboards of his studio: a 1962 Hammond M-101 organ, a 1978 Rhodes Mark I electric piano, and his family-heirloom 1910 Steinway grand piano. “This particular piece brought the added challenge of rekindling my dexterity as a pianist, something I haven’t maintained in earnest since I was a teenager,” he admits. The ensuing five-note rhythmic motif— the piece’s primary building block— is steady and workmanlike, forgoing virtuosic flare for depth, texture, and resonance, and eventually giving way to the stunning gratification of a gorgeously lyrical left turn.

As with Music for 18 Musicians, Hall employed no loops nor quantization nor any programmed or sequenced instruments of any kind. Every part was performed live in a room and captured with microphones, one at a time, each informed by, and reacting to the last. In this way the record breathes with interplay and an organic humanity, complete with flaws, noise, and the faint sound of turning pages. The recording quality is nonetheless toneful and saturated, characteristic of Hall’s production style and straying from the usual transparency of classical albums by using gear with tubes, transformers, and various stages of compression in the signal path. Always there is unmistakable realism and the feeling of being present in the room, sitting among the keys, hammers, and tines.

Ten Holt said: “Time, patience and discipline are the prerequisites for making a genetic code productive." His landmark composition provides Hall once again with a wondrous space in which to reverently embody this sentiment and deftly convey the elegant beauty of this music.

Erik Hall - "Canto Ostinato - Sections 17 - 30"

From the album Labyrinth, available April 7, 2023 on Western Vinyl
Listen / order lnk.to/heather-woods-broderick-labyrinth

Labyrinth

Heather Woods Broderick - "Crashing Against The Sun"

From the album Nostalgia Killer, available June 9, 2023 on Western Vinyl.
Pre-order / listen https://lnk.to/nostalgia-killer

Lightning Dust - "Run"

From the album Spirit In The Room available on Western Vinyl August 4, 2023
Listen / buy https://lnk.to/spiritintheroom

https://www.instagram.com/activity_songs
https://www.facebook.com/activitysongs
https://twitter.com/activitysongs

Activity 2023 Tour Dates:
7/13 - Boston, MA - O'Brien's 
7/14 - Washington, DC - Pie Shop
7/16 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby's All Right (Album Release Show)

Spirit In The Room

Activity - "Careful Let's Sleepwalk"

Activity - "Department Of Blood"

From the album Be Good the Crazy Boys available November 10, 2023 on Western Vinyl
pre-order / listen https://lnk.to/crazyboys

https://www.instagram.com/mr.luke_temple
https://www.instagram.com/artfeynman
https://www.facebook.com/artfeynman

Be Good The Crazy Boys

Art Feynman - "All I Can Do"

From the album Welcome to Hell available October 20, 2023 on Western Vinyl

Joseph Shabason: synths
Phil Melanson: drums
Bram Gielen: bass
Thom Gill: keys
Michael Davidson: Vibraphone 
Felicity Williams: Voice 
Hugh Marsh: Violin 

Skateboard noise sound design: Drew Thomas, Quinn Hoodless 

Thanks to Toy Machine Bloodsucking Skateboard Company for use of the footage

Welcome to Hell  

Joseph Shabason - "Jamie Thomas"

From the 2-song release Songs to Heal, available on Western Vinyl
Stream / download https://lnk.to/levedad

QUIÉN ES GERONIMO:
www.instagram.com/quienesgeronimo/
tomasnovoamendizabal.com/Q-E-G
www.facebook.com/quienesgeronimo

Quién es Geronimo - "Levedad"

From the album A Flor de Piel, available November 17, 2023 on Western Vinyl
Stream / buy https://lnk.to/aflordepiel

A Flor de Piel

Montañera - "Un Día Voy A Ser Mariposa"

From the album For Who The Bell Tolls For available December 1, 2023 on Western Vinyl
Pre-order / listen https://lnk.to/forwhothebelltollsfor

Song credits:
Michael D’Addario - Drums
Brian D’Addario - Bass
Dan Hindman - Guitar 
Sarah Versprille - BGV 
Jonathan Swift Behr - BGV 
Jackie Cohen - BGV

Jonathan Rado - "Easier"

Iterations

Old Fire - "Mephisto (ft. Bill Callahan)"

From the self-titled album Lamplight, available March 1, 2024 on Western Vinyl
buy / listen https://lnk.to/lamplight

Lamplight - "Call Your Mom"

From the album Mi Casa available February 23, 2024 on Western Vinyl
pre-order / listen https://lnk.to/mi_casa

Returning home has been a recurring theme in works of art for millennia. But what if home was more than just a destination? What if the comfort and reward of home could be uncovered in realms of transition? In the journey itself? On his debut album Mi Casa, Tomás Mendizabal — aka Quién Es Geronimo — explores these concepts through a remarkably fresh take on confessional songwriting, ambient pop, and stunningly vibrant alt folk. But to understand the concepts behind Mi Casa, you must first understand Quién Es Geronimo.

In the past decade, the singer-songwriter left behind his roots in Chile, completed his music studies in the Netherlands, and had his heart broken in Berlin, all before settling in Mexico City in the early months of 2022. These experiences left Mendizabal transformed, emotionally devastated, and ultimately, inspired enough to create Mi Casa.

“Although I’ve always justified moving to other countries for practical reasons,” the artist explains, “I think the main reason is more spiritual than anything else. I’m in search of experiences. Experiences that linger only in your memory: beautiful and fun nights with friends, people you fell in love with, goodbyes, and the final realization that you are merely the continuity of it all.”

According to Mendizabal, this is the dimension where the concept of home begins to manifest, the idea that “no matter under which circumstances and how far from your loved ones you are, it is within yourself that home needs to be built, upon the loving and cherished memories that have transformed you.”
On Mi Casa, this philosophy is distilled into an album that is by turns oneiric yet lucid, meditative yet dynamic, and above all, unforgettable. The collection was initially conceived as a sort of soundtrack for the liminal space between dreams and waking life, a map for weary travelers who slip from the tumult of reality into gentle realms of sleep.

“Punto Final” greets you with simple strummed guitar and lulling bass before Mendizabal’s voice enters the landscape, laden with overdubs and subtle experimental textures. Emerging like a sprout reaching for light, the song — like most of Mi Casa — the song maintains a darkness at its roots, as the artist questions where the “final point” in life and love may lie. Mendizabal’s gentle voice and lush instrumentation further belies themes like jealousy and anguish on tracks like “Dime si es Verdad” and the stunning two-part composition “Serotonina,” which begins as a sorrowful acoustic ballad before guiding the listener to sublime peaks richly adorned with seraphic strings and slide guitar.

Through a series of dreamlike instrumental interludes, Medizabal suspends the listener in the gauzy world of Mi Casa. In less skilled hands, transitional tracks like these could feel like filler, but on Mi Casa, they weave the album into a cohesive whole, as they complete the chiaroscuro, adding depth and relief.

“Outro,” the final track on the album, finds Mendizabal at the piano, saying farewell to the friends and lovers he’s met along the way. “It is a bit sad,” the songwriter explains, “but I see it as a gratitude song. All of these people have become my family over the years. Ultimately, they’re my home.” Listening to Mi Casa, it's easy to dissolve into the tableau: the journey, the dream, and everything that’s happened along the way.

On the cover of Mi Casa, the artist behind Quién Es Geronimo poses next to a friend wearing a monster mask. Although the photo was taken as a joke, it serves as a fitting representation for the artist’s debut. The sojourn has been beautiful, the landscape gentle and dreamlike, and yet the monster remains. On Mi Casa, Quién Es Geronimo doesn’t work to fight the creeping darkness, he embraces it as one of the integral workings and viscera of home.

Quién es Geronimo - "Mi Casa"

From the album Miracle Focus available June 7, 2024
stream/buy lnk.to/miraclefocus

LYRICS:
MEET ME IN THE SPECIAL PLACE
WE’RE ROLLING LIKE AN EARTHQUAKE
HOPING I WON’T BE THE SAME
SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN’T REPLACE

ITS JUST SOMETHING ABOUT THE RAIN
SOMETHING ABOUT THE RAIN

OVER AT THE HERO’S WAKE
WE’RE SWIMMING IN THE MONSTERS LAKE
CRITTER YOU CAN MY NAME
CRITTER YOU DON’T NEED THE SHAME
GOING ALL THE WAY DOWN

ITS JUST SOMETHING ABOUT THE RAIN
SOMETHING ABOUT THE RAIN (X2)
GOING ALL THE WAY DOWN 

WAIT TILL ALL THE COLORS BREAK
I WANNA FEEL MY BODY SHAKE
NOT THAT YOU CAN MY NAME
NOT THAT YOU CAN HEAR THE CAGE
GOING ALL THE WAY DOWN

IT’S JUST SOMETHING ABOUT THE RAIN 
SOMETHING ABOUT THE RAIN

Miracle Focus

Strand of Oaks - "Party At Monster Lake"

From the album Certain Limitations, available July 12, 2024 on Western Vinyl
Pre-Order / Pre-Save https://lnk.to/certainlimitations

Certain Limitations

Luke Temple and The Cascading Moms - "I Can Dream"

From the album Sun Glories, available August 16th on Western Vinyl
Listen / pre-order https://lnk.to/sunglories
Follow Chuck Johnson
https://www.instagram.com/chuckjohnsonmusic/
https://x.com/cirrus_oxide
https://www.chuckjohnson.net

Sun Glories

Chuck Johnson - "Teleos"

From the album Saisons, available December 6, 2024 on Western Vinyl
Pre-Order / Listen https://lnk.to/alicehebborn

2025 Nice

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