Cold Beat

Cold Beat

Mother

Crime On The Moon

***NOW AVAILABLE!!! Wound tight with an energy that ricochets from one song into the next, COLD BEAT's Mother was made while frontperson HANNAH LEW (formerly of indie trio GRASS WIDOW) was pregnant and considering the chaotic conditions of the world she was bringing a new human into. If we consider Mother an artistic style guide through space and time, the framework Cold Beat provide is overcast by design but focused in execution; locked-in drums and synths with choir-like melodies high above it all. The A-side of Mother presents the facts as we perceive them, while the B-side accelerates into the uncertain. Each of the first five track titles is one evocative word: the synths on “Prism” slide against the motorik guitar riffs and the plaintive saxophone on “Paper” casts the Leonard Cohen-esque melody in a melancholy shadow; “Gloves” is a real mood, all drive. Everything begins to unfurl from there.

Cold Beat

War Garden

Like LTD

***During a year of separation and isolation, Cold Beat created a record about connection, loss, and hope called War Garden. The term "War Garden" is a reference to the self-sufficiency required by civilians during World War II to plant their own fruits and vegetables. The hopefulness of seeds sprouting and growing despite a conflict-laden backdrop provided Cold Beat with ample imagery and allegorical material.

Cold Beat

A Simple Reflection EP

Dark Entries

***COLD BEAT is a San Francisco-based quartet fronted by HANNAH LEW (synths, vocals) with KYLE KING (synths, guitar), LUCIANO TALPINI AITA (synths) and SEAN MONAGHAN (guitar). Formed in 2013 the band has released three albums and two EPs. A Simple Reflection is a 7-song collection of Eurythmics covers, yet feels just as personal as any of their original material. While digging through a collection of 12"s for her record shop Contact Records, Lew stumbled across the earliest Eurythmics B-sides and was floored. This lead to the discovery of their debut album In The Garden. Annie Lennox’s abstract and poetic lyrics really struck a chord with Hannah. What had started out as a single cover quickly snowballed into a full blown obsession. The synth and drum programming resonated with her songwriting process, so reimagining them was very creatively fulfilling. The covers on this EP are simultaneously dynamic and atmospheric post-punk that plays to Lew's ethereal vocals and King’s crystalline guitar. All songs have been mixed by MIKEY YOUNG (Total Control) and mastered by GEORGE HORN at Fantasy Studios. The record is housed in a jacket designed by ELOISE LEIGH, which features pink and purple clouds that evoke a dreamy softness and DIY playfulness and photos Lew in her best Lennox-inspired drag. Each copy includes a postcard with photos and notes. “Sometimes a song seems to sing just for you, as if someone knows your most inner thoughts and feelings and has found a way to describe them effortlessly”—Hannah Lew

Cold Beat

Chaos By Invitation

Crime On The Moon

***Back in stock on LP!!  Cold Beat, aka Hannah Lew, returns with the announcement of her third album, Chaos By Invitation, out April 7th via her own Crime on the Moon label. As compared with previous releases, Chaos By Invitation began in Lew's home, alone, with additional tracking done later by Phil Manley (Trans Am) at El Studio and Mikey Young (Total Control) - only to return to Lew's home for completion over the course of many months. As a result, the offering is much more personal and direct than Into The Air, which was more of a band effort. Collages from Lew's home environment make up many of the textures of Chaos By, woven in to create an intimate atmosphere, a sort of chaos by necessity and design. The album also features performances by her friends Kyle King, Alex Shen, Jackson Blumgart, and Mikey Young.  The album moves through themes of sensuality/intangibility. Lew attempts to reconcile the distance between these two modalities throughout the album. One can hear the surrender in Lew's voice as she grasps to hold onto the end of a rope during "In Motion" - as if succumbing to a strong current of emotion. Chaos By Invitation examines what can be machine-readable and what is only felt in the body.    Inspired musically by bands such as NEU! and Tubeway Army, Lew was also influenced by her own burgeoning interest in astronomy. The first single, "62 Moons," is a song about love...

Cold Beat

Into The Air

Crime On The Moon

***Less than a year after COLD BEAT's debut LP, Over Me, the band is set to release Into The Air on bassist, vocalist, and primary songwriter HANNAH LEW's label Crime On The Moon. Moving past the themes of grief and loss prevalent on Over Me, Into the Air explores ideas both earthly and celestial. Some songs are attempts at describing complex emotional landscapes, while others playfully wonder about physics and astronomy, often delving off into deep fantasy. But it doesn’t stop with the personal or metaphysical. With the exodus of artists and musicians leaving San Francisco due to increased rent prices and overall cultural changes, Cold Beat has persevered through the city’s metamorphosis into a place less and less hospitable to artists. One can pick up on a sense of discontent in the face of a rapidly growing techie millionaire culture on Into The Air. There is a sense of fighting to survive. One can almost hear the struggle represented on the record as guitars face off against increasingly prevalent synths.   The truth is, the formation of a more stable group—including KYLE KING (guitar), JACKSON BLUMGART (guitar), and SUSI LENI (drums)—allowed the group to begin writing more collaboratively, expanding their vocabulary to include lush synths and crisp drum machines. While the record explores a wide swathe of sonic territory—the propulsive rock hooks of “Broken Lines,” the trance electronics of "Cracks," the ethereal abstraction of "Clouds"—it seamlessly transitions between modes, all anchored by Lew’s distinctive glassy vocals. Into The Air...

Cold Beat

Over Me

Crime On The Moon

***Following the release of COLD BEATS Worms/Year 5772 EP via bandleader HANNAH LEW’s (GRASS WIDOW) Crime on the Moon imprint, Over Me is the Bay Area act’s debut album. Propulsive and taut performances from guitarist KYLE KING and drummer BIANCA SPARTA (ERASE ERRATA) bely Lew’s glassy vocal melodies. A cathartic album, Lew sourced difficult personal experiences to create an immersive lyrical world sometimes fraught with paranoia, anxiety and impending doom, and also an exploration of hope and imagination—themes felt ever more acutely by a native San Franciscan artist in the midst of tech boom cataclysm once again. Over Me was recorded by PHIL MANLEY at Lucky Cat Studios in San Francisco, and mixed and mastered by MIKEY YOUNG  in Australia. As a Crime on the Moon release, a percentage of sales benefit Charity: Water, an organization committed to eliminating privation in developing nations. A meditation on the duality of identity, “Mirror” rides tear-drop guitar leads into a buoyant chorus, then cascades mightily towards an exalted outro. It is the first of three album tracks to receive music videos created by Lew. Elsewhere, the menacing “UV” couples fetishistic imagery with instrumental vigor, while the dystopian subject matter in “Out of Time” finds Lew’s vocals entwined in the sky, on a swift ascent to space with only glistening notes in their wake. Seething with circuitous anxieties, even teetering at times towards terror, Over Me ultimately marvels in the face of staggering unknowns.

Cold Beat

Worms / Year 5772

Crime On The Moon

Cold Beat is Hannah Lew, bassist and co-songwriter of the band Grass Widow. It’s the fully expressed voice and emotions of one person, versus the harmonic and lock-step declarations of three women. It’s the emergence of Lew as a singular voice, using dream logic and abstraction to describe the themes of death, internet surveillance, paranoia and science fiction that permeate her music. “Worms” is the lead single off “Worms/Year 5772,” the first EP from Cold Beat, out 11/5 on Lew’s new label, Crime On The Moon. Written not too long after Hannah Lew's father passed away in 2009, it’s largely about the horror of things one does and does not know about death. Lew uses the tools of pop music to access the inaccessible and honor her grief while discussing some of the most jarring aspects of her father's death. However, anyone who listens to “Worms” can hear that it transcends the overtly personal and manifests itself as melodious and universal.     The A side of this 12" EP features "Worms" and "Year 5772". The recording features Kyle King on guitar, Lillian Maring ( Grass Widow, Ruby Pins) on drums and Cody Blanchard (Shannon and The Clams) on guitar/synth. The B side of the EP features a Worms remix by POW!, a local SF doom synth band, and also a remix of Year 5772 by Mikey Young of Total Control. The live band features Bianca Sparta (Errase Errata) on drums, and Greer Mcgettrick (The Mallard) on guitar as well...