Shearer, Dylan

Shearer, Dylan

Garagearray

Castle Face

Cut from the cloth of early Soft Machine and Kevin Ayers-isms, garagearray is a lofty, loopy flight in a candy-floss-clouded sky, with an ever-present darkness just below the surface. It’s wonderfully off the cuff, at times reminiscent of a Syd Barrett session where the band must’ve just closed their eyes and felt it out in the dark, coming together in all the right moments in the nick of time.  For garagearray, Dylan Shearer is joined by Petey Dammit (Thee Oh Sees) on bass and Noel von Harmonson (Comets on Fire) on drums. Produced by Eric Bauer (Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, etc.), the recording maintains a lighter-than-life vibration, like a breeze weaving through a tree far overhead. The production smacks with that lost-in-time quality of a BBC session piloted by a natural-on-the-knobs genius.  Shearer has a sort of shy quality that seems to fall away when he sings these songs live. It’s really quite lovely and full of sad and poetic moments. Castle Face is very proud to co-release garagearray with Empty Cellar Records, and to celebrate the occasion, the labels have come up with two special limited, hand-printed jacket / colored vinyl editions featuring artwork by Michael Sean Coleman.

Shearer, Dylan

Porchpuddles

Empty Cellar

***Empty Cellar Records is more than stoked to present the sophomore full-length LP by San Francisco’s elusive pop wizard, DYLAN SHEARER, at once a continuation of his distinctive and infectious melodic sensibilities and an evolution, fully exploring the romance and isolation only hinted at in previous releases. "There is a new specter among us. Dylan Shearer’s throaty baritone seems to have been borne on the slow-moving winds off some far-away coast. Plaintive and honest, his voice recalls Syd Barrett, Bill Fay, Skip Spence, and others whose words and melodies never seemed in a rush to get anywhere, yet always arrived fully formed in the listener’s ear nonetheless. Porchpuddles, Shearer’s second full length and first for San Francisco’s hodge-podge Empty Cellar records, is rare in its perfect timelessness. Sounds are heard and understood perfectly, yet the combination of these sounds is beyond a simple pop understanding. Songs of longing and songs of seeming indifference are bedded together seamlessly. Perhaps, questions about the record’s origin and its mysterious creator will abound, for taken at face value, Porchpuddles has little to no recognizable counterpart in today's one-hit warehouse. Indeed, there is a new specter among us; let us all welcome in the ghost of the present."—Tim Cohen. This first pressing (limited to 500 copies) comes in a classic uncoated tip-on sleeve. Keeping with the times, all LPs include a high quality download of the full album plus seven bonus tracks!