Pieta Brown & JT Bates - Beauty Pill - Log Across The Washer - Ovlov
Beloved singer/songwriter Pieta Brown has teamed up with acclaimed percussionist/producer JT Bates (Bonny Light Horseman, Big Red Machine, Taylor Swift) for two new singles to be released through Righteous Babe Records. Today they shared the first single “Is / Was,” a slow-burning experimental ballad anchored by Brown’s stirring guitars and dreamy vocals and Bates’ innovative beats and ethereal instrumentation.
“We made ‘Is / Was’ out of musical fragments, across space and time,” said Brown. “For me, music, memory and dreams make the world more coherent. One day when I was feeling extra isolated during the heart of the pandemic I sent some fragmented guitar recordings to one of my all time favorite drummers, JT Bates. We played some musical ping pong with the fragments: adding, taking away, exchanging…and then all of a sudden we had a coherent piece. It had a beginning and an end. When I heard the instrumental track I flashed on a song I had written one night in Paris in an apartment that had a blue door and was 59 stairs up. Why did I count the stairs? Why did I flash on this song when I heard our track? I sang what I could remember of the momentary Paris song about hope, and somehow it all connected and became ‘Is / Was.’”
"Pieta and I have made a lot of music together, so it felt very natural to proceed remotely,” stated Bates. “I got to dig through a folder of her ‘fragments,’ select a couple of things, and build on top of them. Very fun way to work! I'm very proud of this music and excited to share it.”
About the video, Pieta added, “To connect even further out, I sent ‘Is / Was’ to choreographer/dancer Veronica Tundis (Rome, Italy) and she responded with a mesmerizing dance that she said was about ‘a person lost in memories in a place that doesn’t fit the memories she’s lost in.’”
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| Photo - Morgan Klein |
Washington, D.C.-based band Beauty Pill today announced their new EP Instant Night out December 3, releasing on limited edition vinyl, CD and digitally via Northern Spy Records and available to preorder here.
Alongside the announcement the band is sharing the official video for "You Need A Better Mind". On the track, Beauty Pill's Chad Clark says:
"The Roland TB-303 is an old Japanese synthesizer that was designed to convincingly mimic the sound of a bass guitar. It was introduced in 1981, it sounded like a toy and failed miserably, and it was ultimately discontinued in 1984. It makes freaky, wiggly, cartoony sounds. It sounds fuck-all like a bass guitar. Why am I telling you this? One ended up in my hands for a week. I did a lot of silly stuff with it. I did come up with this one worthwhile riff, which I built a song around. The song is called "You Need A Better Mind."
"It was recorded with my band in a single take at the end of a recording session for another song. We were tired. None of us cared that much if we failed. The fun spirit you hear in this song is mostly exhaustion… that kind of punchy exhaustion you get late at night when you’ll laugh at anything. The lyrics were inspired by the spooky/funny 10-minute movie “Rachel”. "The song is about the scourge of American loneliness. It is by far the fastest, easiest song Beauty Pill has ever created. We hope you like it."
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Log Across The Washer Shares "Listen to Xasthur" off Upcoming Album It's Funny How The Colors, out 11/12/21 on Crash Symbols With a titular nod to the black metal band Xasthur, this bent pop nugget is about time as the most precious commodity.
About It's Funny How The Colors: Music being made with an absolute indifference to commercial viability has been a feature of the cultural landscape for decades. But there’s still an undeniable thrill that bubbles up whenever the algorithm or the universe serves up art that is idiosyncratic, deeply personal, and uncompromising.
That’s the dominant feeling drawn out through each listen to It’s Funny How The Colors, the latest effort from Tyler Keene’s Log Across The Washer project. Self-produced and self-recorded in the humble practice space that Keene rents in Bushwick and in his South Orange, New Jersey basement, the album is a woozy and melodic collection of unbound pop that drifts from clattering blues to sunburst synths. It’s the rare album that feels both thoughtfully considered and entirely ad-libbed. “I find it really fun to create without the guardrails that exist if you think too hard,” Keene says. “I’m definitely more of a ‘first idea’ kind of writer. Just run with it and don’t question too much. It’s more about the excitement in the process than the finished product. I get so much joy out of creating something new.”
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Last month, Ovlov emerged from a long layoff following their beloved 2018 LP TRU to announce their 3rd full length Buds, with a track called "Land of Steve-O." Described by NPR as a "track that transcends into an unhinged, euphoric catharsis before fading and forcing us back into reality," the single was warmly received by outlets like Stereogum, FADER, Uproxx, Paste, MTV and BrooklynVegan, and set the stage for the Connecticut band to release one of the more anticipated full lengths of the fall on November 19th via longtime label home Exploding In Sound.
Today, Ovlov are sharing their second single from the LP, a track called "The Wishing Well," alongside a Stereogum feature that dives into the band's history, and speaks to some of their peers about their enduring influence.
Combining the band's signature squall with singer/guitarist Steve Hartlett's engaging sense of melody and backing vocals provided by Erin McGrath of Exploding In Sound label mates Dig Nitty, the track explores the way society treats people who are experiencing mental health issues.
"'The Wishing Well' is about how much I dislike and disagree with certain ways cops and some people of the DIY indie rock scene respond to a situation involving a person with mental health issues," explains Hartlett. ""Ideally, only people who are well educated in mental health should be dealing with these situations, with methods that attempt to avoid harm on anyone involed, rather than these blanket procedures that are only designed to punish and seem emotionless."
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