Grass Widow

Grass Widow

Internal Logic

HLR

***NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! GRASS WIDOW—HANNAH LEW, RAVEN MAHON, and LILLIAN MARING—write their hypnotic, layered melodies collaboratively. Their haunting songs, rich in metaphor and couched in reference and allusion, are mined from the personal narratives of each member. Vocal duties, shared equally all around, complete the overall sensibility. Grass Widow has no front-person, and offers a musical experience not based on celebrity or spectacle. In line with these principles, they have maintained their objective of playing age- and gender-inclusive shows since their formation. Grass Widow formed in 2007; their first release was a self-titled LP on San Francisco’s Make a Mess Records in 2009, followed by a 12-inch EP on Captured Tracks and their second full-length, Past Time, which came out in 2010 on Kill Rock Stars. The band has toured Europe and China, and recently started their own record label, HLR. The ready-steady build for Grass Widow is representative of their music and overall band aesthetic, and it reaches a new high point with the release of Internal Logic, their third album.    “The San Fran phenom Grass Widow inspires as its pastoral harmonies float effortlessly over trellises of spindly guitars.”  —The New Yorker   Visit the Grass Widow online store: http://grasswidow.bigcartel.com/

Grass Widow

Disappearing Industries

HLR

GRASS WIDOW debut their song "Disappearing Industries," a million rays of sunshine condensed into 2 1/2 minutes, also doubling as a sneak preview of their new LP, Internal Logic.   The track is also available on the split 7 inch they share with Nature.

Grass Widow

Milo Minute

HLR

***San Francisco trio, GRASS WIDOW unleash a new 7-inch on their new HLR imprint. Milo Minute will be the first of the Common Chord releases, a series of 7-inches the band will be releasing on HLR, all of which are based around a theme of collaboration. The series will begin with Milo Minute, which features two covers, “Time Keeps Time,” by Neo Boys and “Mannequin” by Wire. Future releases will include a split with Portland’s Nature as well as a project involving the gorillas at Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo.

Grass Widow

Past Time

HLR

The latest reissue on the band’s own HLR imprint, Past Time is Grass Widow’s second album and was originally released in 2010 on Kill Rock Stars.   “... Grass Widow joins a slew of recent DIY post-punk revivalist groups—Vivian Girls, the Bitters, Crocodiles—but the band’s loose, meandering guitars and colorful vocals bring something new to the scene. Formed in 2007 from the remnants of the band Shitshorm after drummer Frankie Rose moved on to Vivian Girls, Grass Widow’s three members share vocal duties, and the voices range from child-like to choir-ready, making for a delivery that can be harmonious when it needs to be, but is just as interesting when it isn’t. “Hannah Lew (bass), Raven Mahon (guitar), and Lillian Maring (drums) each seem to represent a different set of emotions with their voices—say, timid and shy, sad and mournful, and strong and bitter—as if they’re performing three different dramatic parts. This probably isn’t their intention, but the mix of tones is nonetheless a powerful complement to the textures played out on their three instruments, and the vocals add a distinctive pop element to the post-punk roots of the music. It’s a sound in keeping with Grass Widow’s self-titled debut, released last year on the small label Make a Mess (and followed by an EP on Captured Tracks last August). Those songs, few of which clocked in over three minutes, feature the same raw, disjointed guitar patterns, call-and-response vocals, sashaying, tambourine-driven rhythms, and delightful, quick-shifting harmonies that sometimes sound centuries-old....

Grass Widow

Grass Widow

HLR

***Back in print on the band’s own label, GRASS WIDOW’s sophomore release initially came out on Captured Tracks in 2009 and followed close on the heels of their self-titled debut album on Make A Mess Records. The 12-inch EP features three original tracks plus a cover of the Urinals’ classic “Black Hole.”   “A diamond in the late-’00s roughs, SF’s Grass Widow is like a modern-day analogue to early Throwing Muses, Glass Eye, Salem 66, maybe even Scrawl—a band with ideas about structure and clarity that has bypassed much of the past few years of intentional grounding of aesthetics. Without necessarily bowing down to the concessions of defeat, there’s a sense that these women have something bigger going on, sort of a unifying theory between sweet sugar pop and a little something more to chew on. Here’s three great originals and a Urinals cover by a band which has fully awakened to its abilities. No obvious turns are taken in their songwriting, and the spaces in them are kept busy by a lot of interesting, cool-sounding things springing up from each corner. If nothing else, they have a melodic inventiveness that should keep everyone entertained, but there’s more here, and it’ll be exciting to hear what exactly that may be.”—Still Single