***CHRISTINA SCHENIDER is back with a futuristic palette of electronic drums, funky bass lines, and quietly hyperactive chord progressions that are sure to impress even the most learned musical millennial. LOCATE S, 1 is the result of a seasoned songwriter cum lo-fi home-recorder delving into the world of mid-fi pop, with results that are pleasantly difficult to define. U.S. MAPLE's Todd Rittman could only describe her songs as having "too many chords to be pop, too catchy to be anything else." Behind deceptively soft vocals, Schneider’s lyrics seem to always circle back to an examination of the disparity between her own will and what people expect of her—ultimately unveiling a hidden well of self-confidence and power. Locate S,1 is a technical tour-de-force that extrapolates high-brow jazz harmonics and prog-rock time signatures into a whole menagerie of new forms—all while still passing as pop. Recorded in Athens, GA with the production and accessory input of KEVIN BARNES (OF MONTREAL), plus a wrecking crew of some of the Georgia's most practiced, each song on Healing Contest really is a gem, layered with facet after facet of shimmering ear candy. A polished statement from a songwriter who is truly in a class of her own.
LP $16.35
06/01/2018
CD $7.75
06/01/2018
***Returning to Chicago after yet another self-booked tour marked by engine failure and a drummer jumping ship, PADRAIG STEADMAN and CLAIRE LAMBACH wrote a stunningly beautiful album reflecting on the melancholy of a life in pursuit of art and music. Here’s GOSH!’s Odyssey, the too-real opposite to the Wayne’s World quest-for-rock-stardom narrative. It remembers an underpaid journey as arduous as the real Ulysses’s, full of tragic twists and chemical quicksands, dating back to Padraig’s years as the frontperson of NUDE SUNRISE—one of the most notoriously drug-fueled bands to churn through the DIY circuit in the first part of this decade, who always played louder than any band on the bill, who’s volume got our co-founder arrested in 2011, who toured with 200 hits of acid at least once in my experience, and who all worked at the same Papa John’s when they weren’t on tour. Since forming GOSH! with bassist/vocalist Claire Lambach in 2015, Steadman’s output has been far more sober (literally)—the group has become known for their uniquely minimal and sensitive psych rock, at times traversing into almost ambient territory.
LP $16.35
05/25/2018
CD $7.75
05/25/2018
***Sometimes it takes a post-human character to stir the humanity in a citizen of the 21st century. Sometime there's no better role model than a woman in a wig, pointing down the path of righteousness with big, caricature-ized gestures. LOUISE CHICOINE's alter-ego BANNY GROVE burst onto the scene in 2016, like a toon ripping thru the thin fabric of Los Angeles reality, and immediately found a devoted following of fans who uphold the fictional diva as some kind of messiah of loving neighborliness, or the Mary Poppins of DIY. Her debut full-length Who Is She? introduced Banny's uniquely candid vocal delivery, that skips between talky honesty and operatic ebullience, and her palette of punchy '80s drum machines and glittering, artificial, Nickelodeon-esque synth patches. Guitarist PETER NICHOLS' arrangements include sections of Prince-ly funkiness and Elfman-y goofiness, as well as a healthy dose of the odd-metered prog futurism we came to expect from his prior outfit GRAPE ROOM. Five very ambitious songs written and reworked obsessively over a hectic and disastrous year. “Giddy and surreal synth-driven songs that fuse pointed social commentary with off-kilter melodies and teetering rhythms.”—Bandcamp New and Notable
CD $4.90
08/18/2017
7" $7.50
08/18/2017
***Awaited for years by the large nationwide cult of Boggers in the know, ERIN BIRGY's second LP at the helm of the fog-shrouded ship they call MEGA BOG is an instant and timeless classic. It's equal parts nostalgic and futuristic, mapping a new, jazz-literate and free form of songcraft onto the model of the traditional guitar-based band. It's poetry on roller skates, defying recognizable structures in favor of a stream-of-consciousness flow that guides Erin's lyrics around their many soft and uncertain turns. It's an inspiring example of a unique vision carried to it's most honest and vulnerable realization. Happy Together was assembled on tape amidst a lot of movement, including Erin's relocation from Seattle to New York. Like Joni Mitchell or Beefheart, Birgy has a seemingly magical ability to steer a diverse bunch of players into her own dream-world. And this album has a lot of players, many with big credentials we'll refrain from mentioning (except for Zach Burba and Will Murdoch from IJI, and James Krivchenia from BIG THIEF, who earn mentions for being particularly present). Considering its variety of personnel and its long gestation, Happy Together is a remarkably consistent and complete record that cuts the deepest when experienced from start to finish, as it arcs from the surreal bubblegum tempos of “Diznee” and “Marianne,” thru the extended dreamscapes of songs like “192014,” and out to the free-wheeling catharsis of “Blackout” and “Fwee.” Take the journey. "'192014' swarms with that cosmic curiosity. Its disembodied saxophones are straight...
LP $14.50
02/03/2017
CD $7.50
02/03/2017
***Here is the semi-debut from this newly-beefed-up New York City superforce, formed around the core of what was once CE SCHNEIDER TOPICAL. As the house band of the beloved, trendsetting label OSR, CE Schneider Topical enchanted the world with last winter's Antifree LP, that demonstrated the soft power of CHRISTINA SCHNEIDER's songwriting and crystal voice when subjected to ZACH PHILLIPS' instrumental accompaniment and reel-to-reel experimentation at Manual FX Studio. So it's no surprise they attracted two of NYC's greatest for their evolution into JEPETO SOLUTIONS—QUENTIN MOORE (BIG FRENCH) on guitars and DEREK BARON (CAUSINGS. MEGA BOG) on drums Their first four hits are predictably more raucous than the duo that preceded them, and Phillips takes an equitable share of the spotlight, singing lead on half the songs. From time to time, Moore's absolutely manic guitar wizardry is allowed to tug at its leash and pull us into the shadow of Royal Trux, while other movements maintain CE Schneider's likeness to the gorgeous, intricate, rock-steady folkiness of The Roches.
7" $7.50
02/03/2017