This is Clare and the Reasons back on July 16th this year performing on Irene Trudel's programme at WFMU.
Clare and the Reasons call Brooklyn home, but after touring around the world extensively for their first two albums with Van Dyke Parks, My Brightest Diamond, and on their own, they needed a new setting – one that would make them see and hear differently. For 8 months in 2011 they lived in an apartment on Berlin’s Bergstrasse, on the western edges of what used to be the East. They got a 1968 Schwalbe moped – model KR-51 – and sped around the city at a velocity the congested New York streets would have prohibited. While riding under the vast skies of Berlin, the city a blurred filmstrip of cobblestones, trees, and graffiti, they dreamed up the sounds of this new record. After months of writing under the influence of Berlin they packed up a van and drove to Haldern-Rees, a little German village, to record KR-51.
In Oct-Nov of 2011, they recorded for long hours, in between bicycling in and around cow fields, under an unimaginable number of stars. The neighbors in the village brought the band homemade apple cake, and the sheep became familiar with the band “bahhing” at them in a strange New York accent as they walked past. The cows offered encouragement and fresh milk to the band.
WFMU who provide so many emerging, new and talented artists with a platform to a wider audience, suffered considerable damage from the recent hurricane both to their studios and transmitter sites. You can support them by visiting their website HERE.
Source: WFMU Studio recording.
Sound Quality: Very good stereo mp3 @256s.
Genre: Indie pop, folk.
Set: Studio set.
Set List:
01 The Lake
02 PS
03 Magpie
04 Make Them Laugh
05 Tennessee Blues
Web: Official HERE.
(download link also in comments below).
