Halloween again! and we have news of the touring variety for you. Next year we're releasing an album by Ed Schrader's Music Beat entitled 'Jazzmind' Right now they are touring with our old friends (no pun intended) Future Islands. So, if you are stateside or like travelling here's the full tour dates for you...
US Tour with ED SCHRADER'S MUSIC BEAT
November 1 - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry November 2 - Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room November 3 - Lawrence, KS @ Jackpot Saloon November 4 - Norman, OK @ The Opolis November 5 - Austin, TX @ Fun Fun Fun Fest November 7 - Marfa, TX @ Padre's November 8 - Santa Fe, NM @ VFW November 9 - Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge November 10 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court November 11 - Boise, ID @ Neurolux November 12 - Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project November 13 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios November 15 - San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill November 16 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Muddy Waters November 17 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Echoplex November 18 - Long Beach, CA @ Alex's Bar November 19 - San Diego, CA @ Casbah November 20 - Phoenix, AZ @ Rhythm Room November 23 - New Orleans, LA @ Circle Bar November 25 - Birmingham, AL @ The Bottletree November 26 - Atlanta, GA @ The Earl (w/Lonnie Walker) November 27 - Carrboro, NC @ Cat's Cradle (w/Lonnie Walker) November 28 - Wilmington, NC @ Soapbox (w/Lonnie Walker) November 29 - Charlottesville, VA @ Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar November 30 - Lancaster, PA @ The Lizard Lounge December 1 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom (w/Zomes) December 2 - Philadelphia, PA @ Kungfu Necktie December 3 - Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar
Yes, we're very happy to shout from the rooftops that Gentle Friendly's new EP entitled 'Rrrrrrr' is OUT NOW through Upset The Rhythm on heavyweight white vinyl. You can buy it in all good stores around the world or from our webshop for £7 (inc. p+p within the UK) HERE!!!
Here's more on the record...
GENTLE FRIENDLY are a duo from London, comprised of David Morris and Richard Manber, who have a penchant for circular melodies, tidal fuzz and rapid junked rhythms. With an austere setup of casio keyboard, vocals and drums (sometimes electronic) the band push against the pop boundary, trapping their songs on record like a continuous sun-warped field recording. 2009 saw Gentle Friendly release their debut album ‘Ride Slow’ to critical acclaim, Uncut considered “No Age, Ponytail and Health as spiritual kin” whilst Pitchfork even cited Clipse and Lil Wayne as influences on the band. Since then Gentle Friendly have remodeled and rebuilt their sound into a stronger beast at their home studio called Deep House. Bringing us up to date, new EP ‘Rrrrrrr’ is the first fruit to fall from the tree, with its seven tracks washing the band’s more insistent prism punk alongside more tender, filmic textures.
‘Rrrrrrr’ as its name suggests uses repetition and a certain minimalist touch to create a wonderfully poignant wide-eyed record. But why Rrrrrrr? Rrrrrrr can be the sound of an engine idling, a death rattle, the buzz and howl under the influence of heat. The EP is standing in for a reality, away from words and closer to feeling, following instincts and worshipping the detail. Bittersweet in its tendency to mix more ecstatic moments alongside some contemplative pools, ‘Rrrrrrr’ shows how the band’s emotional range has grown since their debut. Opener ‘Kiwi Chang Cane’ leaps out of a nature sleep, the song swimming with resonance whilst its drums beat and tumble a path through the sidestepping static rush. The song races onwards, with gleeful ascending keyboards reaching out in a questlike fashion akin to the song’s Shaolin monk namesake’s attempt to find his lost brother. Meanwhile ‘Speakers’ finds Gentle Friendly in ballad form with gattling gun snare hits and David’s most heartfelt vocal yet. “Put your arm around the speaker … it’s like dancing without moving” he sings into the relative space of the track, moving focus squarely on a sense of resigned simplicity.
‘Rrrrrrr’ is a development for the band in terms of sound and production as much as lyrical scope and understanding. While their self-acknowledged influences (Arthur Russell, Bruce Springsteen, Top 40 hip-hop) are detectable, this record showcases Gentle Friendly as a band who have found their own language, drawing on nostalgia and ritual in equal measure, whilst continuing the tradition of English eccentricity and popular song. ‘Rome Rome’ sees Gentle Friendly at their most immediate, vacillating on overheard music David sings “On the radio she said you should put on a ring, if you like it, if you like it, turn it off”. His metronomic vocal delivery is unstoppable, the percussive treatment dicing itself into each spare beat, creating a feeling of transcendence and of galloping rush. In comparison, ‘Love Scenes’ is a positively nocturnal shift with its clubby house kick and spectral synth soup and panning drum shuffles. Seamlessly blending into ‘Rrride Slow’ with its pitched down vocal gurgle and channelled depths of caveman techno, the record enjoys throwing organic nature against distanced electronics in an almost meditative way.
Overlapping rhythms, looped mixtapes and revisited lyrical themes make rebirth an important touchstone for this release. This is perhaps best distilled with the track entitled ‘Rrrrr’. Stammering repetition finds a home in swirls of chorus-inflected atmosphere, chiming bells and shaken metal. There’s a feeling of inevitability in the slow melodic cycling and tribal drumming, the whole effect is one of focusing inwards and devotional crescendo. Gentle Friendly are masters of aching sentiment, overheard static and enraptured awakening and with this record they turn the quiet repeated actions of our everyday into a blissful all-consuming wave of saturation.
Our friends in Cologne are throwing an awesome festival at the start of December in a former movie theatre! There's loads of UTR favourites playing like High Places, John Maus, R. Stevie Moore and Gary War alongside many more! Check out their video trailer below and the website at the end of this!
WAY THROUGH are a pastoral punk duo originally from Shropshire, now residing in London. Informed by the field as much as the flyover, Way Through write songs which phase in and out with guitar, tapes, damaged drums and vocals. Using wrong-footed repetition, rapid interplay and free-looping happenstance the band create a ragged yet intuitive tapestry of sound. Their songs walk the streets of market towns, wait forever at bus stops and lose themselves in edgelands. 'Arrow Shower' is the title of Way Through's debut album, recorded in their practice space Deep House during a particularly heavy snowstorm in early winter 2011. The name of the album is taken from a set text of Philip Larkin's 'Whitsun Weddings' heavily annotated by a 14 year old schoolboy found in a junk shop in Much Wenlock, often described as England's most perfect village. Way Through find great resonance with the spirit of place and try and channel its feeling into their music, joining the dots between lost places and deteriorating histories. 'Arrow Shower' is out in stores from TODAY and you can buy it from UTR now here!
