(grave045) Eating Us cd/digital download

Tracklisting:
Born On A Day The Sun Didn't Rise (free mp3)
Dark Bubbles
Twin Of Myself
Gold Splatter
Iron Lemonade
Tooth Decay
Fields Are Breathing
Smile The Day After Today
The Sticky
Bubblegum Animals
American Face Dust

FIRST 100 ORDERS COME WITH A 3X3 STICKER SET OF EATING US ALBUM ART (EACH SET IS 4 STICKERS) AND A 2 1/4" BUTTON OF THE BMSR LOGO ON NEON PINK/ORANGE PAPER

 

(grave042) s/t mini-lp CD/LP/Digital Download

With The Lava Children’s self-titled debut, the listener is immediately aware they’re hearing something completely uncommon. In fact, The Lava Children are something completely uncommon.

As the music industry becomes ever more jaded and manufactured and music is treated like so much invaluable garbage to be traded and tossed about freely, it seems like hearing something that sounds totally new is becoming less and less of a regular occurrence.

Here you’ll find no familiar “classic rock overtones.” There are no hackneyed “angular guitar tones”- in fact, you’re only occasionally reminded that you’re even hearing instruments. From the dreamy, weirdly programmed Colecovision-on-the-fritz nonsense of opening track, “I Am a Pony,” to the underwater opium cabaret wash of “Particles,” to the discordant, drunk music box stagger of “Troll,” every track on this mini-lp bears the same distinctive stamp of not sounding a whole lot like anything else you’ve heard.

This music may have been found inside a rotting old fish, plucked from a muddy, overgrown swamp and encrusted with plankton and river rot. It could have been stuck in an ice block in the far-flung pitch-black night of the frozen tundra or growing out of a patch of moss and fungus on the side of a mighty California redwood tree. It could’ve been found buried in an Egyptian desert wasteland, firmly clutched to the now-hollow chest of some bygone dusty old corpse… and it just might be cursed. Hell- maybe it’s from space, or some kind of message from the future.

But fact of the matter is it’s made by a couple of Oklahomans who are soon to be Texans...Though that doesn’t make it any less of a fascinating listen.

Close your eyes, turn off all the lights, and turn this album up. See if the little hairs on the back of your neck aren’t immediately standing at full attention as you find yourself awash in weird, half-remembered memories of playing with a dog you had when you were five years old, deep in the swiftly darkening woods and far from home.

1. I am a Pony
2. Particles
3. Firefly
4. Troll
5. The Green Word (free mp3 download)

FIRST 50 VINYL ORDERS COME WITH A FREE 2 1/4" BUTTON OF THE ALBUM ART + A 11X17 PROMO POSTER //// FIRST 25 CD ORDERS COME WITH 2 1/4" BUTTON /// LP COMES WITH DOWNLOAD CODE OF THE RECORD THAT CONTAINS A BONUS TRACK // PRE-ORDERS WILL SHIP 5.15

The Appleseed Cast

Hospital Ships

Dreamend

(grave028) The Long Forgotten Friend cd/2xlp

Dreamend is the main musical output of Ryan Graveface, Graveface Records' owner/sole employee and part time guitarist for psychedelic oddballs Black Moth Super Rainbow. Since its’ inception in 2002, Graveface has released albums by Monster Movie (ex-Slowdive), The Loose Salute (Mojave 3 side project), Kid Dakota, Appleseed Cast, Art in Manila (ex-Azure Ray), Octopus Project, BMSR and many more.

The Long Forgotten Friend's 14 songs (10 songs on the cd version) are loosely based on stories and memories of a relative from the far past, whose tragic life has metamorphosed into legend over the course of time. This is music to listen to while driving through abandoned cities and ghost towns, imagining their disintegration. Rather than drums making the melody as on their previous efforts, banjo and vocals are at the foreground of the landscape. The drumming is minimalist, almost spastic and, as always, the guitars are the ghosts. Dreamend has taken a darker, folky, more nightmarish road than before. Some evidence of this can be found on the tracks Your Kiss, Scratch and Deathwatch Carnival 1965. Conversely, they have found themselves with more poppy, almost sing-alongs than ever before (see Are you Waking and The Tulip Staircase).

Appearances by Toto of the Octopus Project and Darren Jackson of Kid Dakota add some outside sounds, while Darren and John Congleton's (see Explosion in the Sky, Modest Mouse, etc) mixing bring them all together.

Listeners are encouraged to buy the vinyl version as it includes the cd version for free, contains 4 extra songs-16 minutes worth of music, a handmade pop-up gatefold by William Schaff (GYBE!, Okkervil River etc), and an extra cd of demos and alternate versions. The cd version comes packaged in a 15pt chipboard gatefold sleeve with a 12 page booklet of photos by Christy Romanick. In stores on Oct 28th.

Review of ‘Are you Waking’:
“I think it must be the background vocals—something in them reminds me of the most amazing ’50s Motown song never written…this is a beautifully unique voice for dreamend. I feel as though they’ve found a home here and I want to visit and hang obscure photographs of vague familiarity that remind me of what this sounds like. - THE SEVEN FIELDS OF APHELION(BMSR) for paperthinwalls.com

Tracklisting:

Last night on Feather River
If only for a day
The Tulip Staircase
Are you Waking (mp3)
Your Kiss
Scratch
Fourth of July at the Asylum
Remember you Smiling
The Third Casket
Deathwatch Carnival, 1965
A Sunbeam in every Sip (VINYL ONLY)
I'm so Lonely (VINYL ONLY)
Interlude (VINYL ONLY)
It Happened in December (VINYL ONLY)