Peggy Sue - Acrobats out on Wichita in September

Peggy Sue will release their sophomore album, Acrobats, on Wichita Recordings on 12th September (and on Yep Roc Records in North America this October.)

Produced by John Parish (PJ Harvey, Sparklehorse, Giant Sand, Eels etc) in early 2011, the album finds the band moving away from the acoustic sounds of their first album to something heavier but just as subtle and beautiful. This new sound may surprise some fans - only one song on the album features acoustic guitar - but the dual vocals and tribal drums familiar from their debut are still present and more developed and breath-taking than ever before.

You can hear the first taste of this new direction, “Cut My Teeth” over at the band's website now or here: soundcloud.com/peggysueband/cut-my-teeth

Full details on the new album to follow but to celebrate its release the band will be throwing a party on the 12th September at the Lexington in London. Peggy Sue will headline the event and are very happy to announce that also appearing will be very special guest from Portland, Oregon, Laura Gibson.

Following this London show the band will head out to play a handful of UK shows (all details below.)

The band released their debut album Fossils and other Phantoms on Wichita Recordings in 2010. It won the band acclaim for its subtle but powerful song writing. The NME called them 'head-over-heels brilliant', The Guardian praised their 'thrilling' musicianship and awarded the album four stars. They toured tirelessly for the rest of 2010, playing runs around Europe with both Local Natives and The Archie Bronson Outfit and around North America with She Keeps Bees, a co-headline run with Sky Larkin and finally in support of Kate Nash.


2011 UK TOUR DATES:

Mon 12th September LONDON, LEXINGTON

Wed 14th September WINCHESTER, RAILWAY

Thu 15th September BRISTOL, LOUISIANA

Sat 17th September MANCHESTER, DEAF INSTITUTE

Sun 18th September LEEDS, BRUDENELL


Official site: www.peggywho.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/PeggySueBand
Twitter: twitter.com/peggysueband

Kathryn Calder solo album and End of the Road appearance

Kathryn Calder is one of those artists who belies her age. She began her professional music career as a teenager, and by the time that most people are just stepping into their first independent record store, she had recorded 2 EPS and 4 CDs with the Victoria based Immaculate Machine (from whom she parted ways in 2008), and toured the world and recorded three albums as the newest member of The New Pornographers.

Recorded at her mother’s house in Victoria BC, ‘Are You My Mother?’ is one of 2011’s most innovative releases. It is a deeply personal record that was largely born through two years of Kathryn caring for her terminally ill mother. Yet the songs on “Are you my mother?’ are universal in their tone because the record relates to so many facets of all our lives. This is NOT a eulogy. Rather, it is a statement that life is a mixed bag, and that without losing things you would never know to cherish them. Yes there are songs of loss on ‘Are you my mother?’, yet there are also songs of love, friendship, and whimsy. It is a beguiling album, that - because of the wisdom and experience communicated by her voice - gives the illusion of being written by someone in the twilight of their years, while at the same time it expresses the excitement and wonder of a young woman who is just finding her own voice.

‘Are You My Mother,’ is one of the most exciting and honest debut records of 2011. You will hear a moment in time and all of the feelings that were contained in it. Kathryn Calder will be playing the End of the Road Festival on Sunday 4 September at the Tipi Tent Stage.

http://kathryncalder.ca/

Butcher Boy - new album and single on Damaged Goods

HELPING HANDS (CD/LP) - 29 August
IMPERIAL (7"/digital single) - 22 August
Damaged Goods Records

Short video for title track "Helping Hands" here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0yxAOcYvWc


New Damaged Goods signings Butcher Boy release their third album Helping Hands, with this single "Imperial" out a week before on 7” (a limited edition of 500 copies) and digital. The Glasgow-based 7-piece have produced yet another momentous album, weaving rich storytelling and exquisite arrangements, allowing the strength of their songwriting to shine through.

Creating poetic, delightful indie-pop tinged folk, Helping Hands leans towards well crafted melodies and allows the music to convey the emotion rather than simply relying on John Blain Hunt's tenderly delivered off-kilter poetry. Drawing inspiration from their native Glasgow, the album follows the previous two records Profit in Your Poetry and React or Die as the completion of a trilogy of sorts. Where the first two focused on childhood and growing up, Helping Hands is more about moving out and moving onwards. Using a lush mélange of strings, guitars and piano arrangements, they have also incorporated electronica on this record, with Moog synthesizers lacing the cello on “Whistle And I’ll Come To You” and a classic Roland CR-78 drum machine introducing “Imperial”.

Beginning in its current form in 2005, Butcher Boy released Profit in Your Poetry in 2007 to a flurry of press activity, including a First Sight Feature in The Guardian and a 4/5 review in Uncut. Second release React Or Die (2009) made even more of an impact, The Times’ Peter Paphides intimating that the album was as important as any of those released by The Smiths or Belle and Sebastian in his 5/5 review. The album also received a 5/5 review from The Sunday Telegraph and scores of 9/10 from Drowned in Sound and 8/10 in the NME. The amount of critical acclaim garnered for their first two albums were surely heralding in a significant band for our time - but no-one was more shocked than the band themselves when React Or Die was voted one of The Times’ top 100 albums of the 2000s.

So how then, did a band declared one of the best in Britain, end up without a label? They had completed Helping Hands by late 2010 and suddenly found themselves without anyone to put it out. Their previous label How Does It Feel To Be Loved had moved away from releasing records to focus on club nights and events, so the band had to shop the record around. In a stroke of luck, they were picked up by the iconic Damaged Goods label (home to Billy Childish, Holly Golightly, Piney Gir).


PRESS QUOTES

“Like those of Tindersticks and The Chameleons, Hunt's intelligent, unshowy songs are often so intimate you feel privileged simply to be listening to them.” METRO

“Regret, giro-funded couplets, sensual ambiguity – it’s all here, resurrecting a great British genre” UNCUT

“studded with literate, finely etched pop moments that could easily fill Belle & Sebastian's collective shoes” Q

“unabashed west-end indie - romantic, delicate, literate and sweetly melodic”
THE SCOTSMAN


http://www.butcher-boy.co.uk/
http://damagedgoods.co.uk/band/?c=Butcher-Boy

Roberts and Lord "Eponymous" on Asthmatic Kitty

Remember MySpace? Rafter Roberts and Simon Lord sure do—they owe their new band to it. Well, sort of; this is a band that would've happened regardless, a collaboration constellationally fated, a thing bound to be born, and born to be fun. Earlier this year, former Simian member Lord was combing the interwebs for collaboration ideas. A click lead to a click which lead to a click onto a Rafter video and then a MySpace message was blasted off from Lord in London to Roberts in California. This “hella MySpace hookup,” as says Roberts, has blossomed into a full-length album, Eponymous. To best understand the duo's debut, it's necessary to look at the nature of the collaboration: The distorted, garage-y, electro backing music was recorded on a 4-track tape machine at Roberts' studio. Next, Roberts sent the tracks to Lord, who recorded vocals and mailed 'em on back. The duality of these dancy art-pop jams, Roberts' rough and grimy (yet complexly arranged) analog backing tracks paired with Lord's clean, digitally-recorded vocals, gives the work a tricky kind of depth that is immediately engaging and, above all else, FUN. Eponymous will be released ------ on Asthmatic Kitty Records.

http://asthmatickitty.com/roberts-and-lord

FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD (feel free to post!!)
Roberts and Lord "Windmill" : http://asthmatickitty.com/mp3/roberts_and_lord_-_eponymous_-_%20windmill.mp3

Herman Dune Stream on The Guardian

Thanks Mr Guardian for streaming the Herman Dune album... :)
http://gu.com/p/2pcj2

Crystal Stilts UK TOUR - June 2011

UK Dates
Mon 20 Jun 2011 London XOYO
Tue 21 Jun 2011 Southampton Joiners Arms
Wed 22 Jun 2011 Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms (w/Warpaint)
Thu 23 Jun 2011 Cardiff Millennium Music Hall (w/Warpaint)
Fri 24 Jun 2011 Manchester Sound Control

Following the release of their latest album In Love With Oblivion, Crystal Stilts are releasing “Shake the Shackles” as a digital download single to coincide with their second UK jaunt of 2011 this coming June with headline shows including XOYO in London on 20th (with The 1990's and Still Corners) plus a couple of shows with Warpaint.

Crystal Stilts burst out of Brooklyn's storied post-punk indie scene in 2008 with a string of releases including their fantastic debut album Alight Of Night and this year’s critically acclaimed In Love with Oblivion. Deftly combining the spooked 60s Texas psych of 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola, the gothic blues/punk howl of Gun Club, the dark, experimental DIYism of early Flying Nun/Xpressway groups and a dash of classic 60s pop, Crystal Stilts won universal accolades and established the band as first-class purveyors of haunting, atmospheric post-punk pop.

"Shake The Shackles" is one of the stand-out tracks from In Love With Oblivion, as described by the NME; "the fuzzy layers of infectious riffs, organs and tambourine shakes gloom clear with a hopeful, dappled-sunlight brilliance." Driven by echoed guitar strum and droning keys, it's a dexterous update of 60s garage pop that places it alongside late 80s Paisley Underground heroes like Green On Red and later Dream Syndicate, but the song itself is totally timeless, and impossible to place anywhere but firmly in Crystal Stilts' own unique style.
"Where 2008 debut 'Alight of Night' swooned in on a wave of surf-tinged guitars and simple rhythmic swagger, 'In Love With Oblivion' capitalises on the band's melodic talents and embraces them tenfold. It's not so much a departure as just, well, better. For every one of Brad Hargett's nonchalantly droning vocals, there's a melody that shimmers and sparkles with all the pop nous of any 60s great." NME 8/10 "Tough, primitive and direct... when scholarship and tribute are transformed into something urgent and vital" The Wire "Thrillingly transcendent... even the song titles sound like great bands from the future" Q (4/5) "Swirling through a reverb fug comes this satisfying record of lean garage rock... a nice updating of Count Five-style psych menace" Uncut "Brooding garage with a classic retro sound... there's something strangely familiar, thrilling and addictive about this LP" Loud & Quiet (8/10) "It opens with an ominous crescendo of atonal, swirling organ and eerie guitars. Suddenly it bursts into a drone-tastic groove that recalls Clinic's fusion of The Velvet Underground and Neu!-style kosmische... Terrific Stuff." The Fly

http://www.fortunapop.com

The Ladybug Transistor - Clutching Stems album out June

The Ladybug Transistor
Clutching Stems
Fortuna POP!
25 June 2011


LINKS!
Press kits: https://www.mergerecords.com/presskits/MRG377/
Artist Page: http://www.mergerecords.com/artists/ladybug


Since the 1990s, the Ladybug Transistor has created formalist pop-rock albums with a dreamy, articulate sound that spans decades and genres. Anchored by Gary Olson’s organizing vision and restrained baritone, their music boasts intricate arrangements and soaring melodies that are at once modern and timeless.

This band’s narrative holds a rich history of heartfelt collaboration, tireless devotion, quiet and outspoken romance, new arrivals, unexpected departures, achy break-ups, and unspeakable loss. They have become agile at adjustment.

In 2007, the untimely passing of their beloved drummer San Fadyl left members Olson, Kyle Forester (also in Crystal Stilts), and Julia Rydholm at an unimaginable loss, struggling with a prevailing sense of “What now?” At a time where moving forward felt possibly impossible, the band quietly gathered new recruits – Mark Dzula, Eric Farber, Michael O’Neill (also in MEN with JD Samson) – and embarked on writing a new album with the memory of San squarely in mind.

The resulting effort is their forthcoming release Clutching Stems—a lush collection of potent refrains and brought-to-one’s-knees ballads. Set to an invigorated soundtrack of wave-pop arrangements, the songs detail stories of humbling heartbreak, profound longing, undoing distress, nagging regret, and coming-of-age awakenings. Olson’s lyrics express an overarching search to find one’s voice in the face of moments that knock the wind and words right out of a person.

This new line-up has found a distinct voice that honors diverse influences and the band’s own precedent sound. Clutching Stems assuredly underlines that while love can tear things apart, it can also capably mend them back together once again.

The Ladybug Transistor are:
Gary Olson – vocals
Kyle Forester – keyboards
Julia Rydholm – bass
Michael O’Neill – guitar
Eric Farber – drums
Mark Dzula – guitar