MP3: Fight Bite - “Widow’s Peak”
Fight Bite formed in late 2007, as the necessary conclusion that founding member Leanne Macomber arrived at while brokenheartedly searching for an outlet suitable for her tragic love songs. Macomber had previously performed everything from flamenco, noise rock, and pop (The Snowflakes) growing up in San Antonio, to the skewed punk of the Denton, TX DIY scene that she now calls home. Leanne’s growing repertoire of sad ballads didn’t always fit with her other projects, and after being blown away by local 60’s chamber pop disciples, Teenage Symphony, she found a solution in the form of the group’s lead singer and principle songwriter, Jeff Louis.

Louis has a special knack for building Phil Spector-styled micro arrangements, taking the wall-of-sound layering technique and stuffing it in a bedroom closet. He shreds through tape-after-tape on an old 8-track, and the results are beautifully reverb-drenched melodic compositions, twinkling with multi-instrumental nuance and sorrowful harmonies. Louis’ style was the perfect accompaniment to Macomber’s previously penned songs, and he soon began writing pieces specifically tailored for her.

The group worked hard through 2008, logging countless hours of home recording time until they had more than enough material for a debut album, the forthcoming Emerald Eyes. The record is a startlingly strong debut statement, and showcases the group’s diverse abilities as they both sing and play every keyboard strain, xylophone plink, and drum machine thump. The music has been compared to Julee Cruise, High Places, and the most mythically dark and mysterious 4AD acts such as This Mortal Coil. It’s Fight Bite’s tendency to balance the ominous qualities of these acts with classic pop songwriting that makes the band so unique. The album is to be released November 2008, with touring in key cities to follow. Fight Bite will also release “Swiss Ex-Lover” as a seven inch in anticipation of the release.

Press Quotes:

“has us reaching back into the record collection for our Slumberland and Parasol vinyl — or maybe early Magnetic Fields, before Stephin Merritt took over vocal duties” - Stereogum, “Band to Watch”

“I was immediately enamored with their painfully beautiful, reverb-heavy vocals and simple yet sort of instantly unforgettable keyboard melodies. Recommended for fans of Beach House, Young Marble Giants, and Tickley Feather” - Gorilla Vs. Bear

“Those soft keyboards, mixing with the vocals to make a sound so sad, so honest, sounding like far off city lights look, blurred in the edge of your vision. The whole song is a slowed down crescendo, and it gives a glimpse of the details of life that we never see. It makes me want to put up christmas lights in the summer, and quit sleeping for a while. I have listened to this song so many times, the world seems to slow down when I play it.” - The Torture Garden

FIGHT BITE

Jul 25 Denton, TX Fra House
Jul 26 Ft. Worth, TX The Chat Room
Aug 02 Dallas, TX Good Records
Aug 30 Denton, TX Rubber Gloves

Fight Bite - Emerald Eyes (Self-Released)

Street Date: Oct. 28, 2008

1. The Accident
2. Never Let Go
3. Swiss Ex-Lover
4. Widow’s Peak
5. Emerald Eyes
6. Age Of Faith
7. Small Wonder
8. Dorthea
9. Strings
10. Spring Rain

FIGHT BITE LINKS:

MySpace: www.myspace.com/ilyushindove

MP3: These United States - “West Won”

Sick, tired, torn, and frayed, These United States let no dust settle under their soles this spring as they made the pilgrimage from DC to Lexington, KY just 9 weeks after the release of their debut album, sights set on a rock-and-roll reformation. The result is Crimes, These United States’s sophomore album, recorded in six short days at Shangri-La Studios, and out to the world October 7th.

One part Rolling Thunder Revue, one part banged-and-bruised balladeering, two parts just plain strange, Crimes sees the band hitch an American folklore ride down diverging tracks from A Picture of the Three of Us at the Gate to the Garden of Eden’s trembling psych-folk tendencies. Bandleader Jesse Elliott’s casual croon careens more often towards a yearning yelp - desperate times, you know? - as his merry gang of Obviously Five Believers vamp all piss and vinegar, hoot and holler, multi-instrumental mischief and sly saloon smiles.

In place of Picture’s lovelorn protagonists, Crimes supplants the classic characters of a world gone wicked: bad men in boots and boats, all-too-able Cains, wolves in fresh-shorn sheepskin, sold-out sirens of the seashore, knife-wielding big-talking drunk drinkers, Moriartys, don Quijotes, Samuel Clemenses, and all manner of disillusioned Appleseeds in between - with the occasional dogged optimist thrown in for good measure, of course; even the world itself can’t be all bad all the time. As self-effacing as they are scathing, though, Crimes’s critiques are ultimately an empathetic eye towards the sins, schemes, devils, and delusions that bind us all. Dreams, in other words.

Hot off pressing the ‘08 flesh from Paris to Portland and Glastonbury Fest to SXSW, These United States will of course continue their mad march to - well, any sea that will have them - in support of Crimes.

THESE UNITED STATES

8/08 IOTA Arlington, VA
8/09 IOTA Arlington, VA
8/11 Fort Reno Washington, DC
8/13 Gypsy Hut Cincinnati, OH
8/14 The Hideout Chicago, IL
8/15 Slowdown Omaha, NE
8/16 Hi-Dive Denver, CO
8/17 Kilby Court Salt Lake City, UT
8/18 Record Exchange Boise, ID
8/19 Caterina Winery Spokane, WA
8/22 Dept. of Safety Anacortes, WA
8/23 Sunset Tavern Seattle, WA
8/24 Holocene Portland, OR
8/26 TBA San Francisco, CA
8/27 Echo Curio Los Angeles, CA
8/28 Plush Tucson, AZ
9/03 The Billiken Club St. Louis, MO
9/05 Bear’s Place Bloomington, IN
9/06 Magic Bag Ferndale, MI

These United States
Crimes
(United Interests)
Street Date: Oct. 7, 2008
1. West Won
2. Susie at the Seashore
3. Get Yourself Home (In Search of the Mistress Whose Kisses Are Famous)
4. Pleasure and Pain and Pride and Me
5. We Go Down to That Corner
6. Honor Amongst Thieves
7. Six Fast Bullets (Five Complaints)
8. Heaven Can Wait
9. Study the Moon
10. Those Low Country Girls
11. Old John Chapman Takes a Good Long Walk
12. When You’re Traveling at the Speed of Light

THESE UNITED STATES LINKS:

MySpace: www.myspace.com/theseunited

Band Page: www.theseunitedstates

MP3: “The Girl Ain’t Preggers”

Asthmatic Kitty Records is pleased to announce the signing of Indianapolis-based artist Grampall Jookabox. The label will release his second album, Ropechain on Nov. 4 in conjunction with Joyful Noise Recordings.

Grampall Jookabox, which is the nickname of David “Moose” Adamson, sounds like a child slurring the words “Grandpa Jukebox,” implying filial connection with an archaic musical object. Either that or the intoxicated pronunciation of a strange blues artist’s nom de plume.

When David was in grade school, his uncle took note of his developing interest in hip-hop and loaned him a four-track. They mixed tracks together and the young Adamson would write rhymes to sing over them, including a double-boombox sequel to Fu-Schnicken’s “What’s Up Doc (Can We Rock?)” called “Suffering Succotash (I Got Whiplash).” At first the beats came from instrumental sides of cassingles, on to presets on his uncle’s drum machine, and then finally from his very own beat machine (a Christmas gift), the Yamaha DD-9.

But that was a long time ago.

Since then, through various incarnations and collaborations with groups such as Archer Avenue and BIGBIGcar, Adamson’s musical interests and excursions have crystallized into a startlingly singular and eclectic songwriting strategy. Jookabox’s debut record, Scientific Cricket, samples a kind of primordial blues sound, children’s sidewalk-chalk rhymes and Appalachian folk. But his latest effort finds him moving into new, unplumbed territories. Ropechain pinwheels kaleidoscopically through old-time spirituals, punk, chain-gang hymnal, deep house, and club music hip-hop, blending these disparate elements into a cohesive and unique synthesis.

***

More about Ropechain:

Recognizing the presence of a particularly assertive muse, David Adamson canceled a weekend of shows to sit at home in a dank basement, writing and recording a string of songs that seemed to arise spontaneously. Granting them his full attention, a week of intense composition and arrangement bore Grampall Jookabox’s second album: Ropechain.

After the ominous, trembling, synthetically angelic choral intro on the first track of Ropechain, Jookabox breaks in with a vision that sounds like a bizarre hybrid of a Diddy rap video and ancient cosmology; “Black girls walk on the tips of mountains/ Black girls jump into seas like they was fountains / Black girls build skyscrapers with their brains/ Black girls do shit that I can’t explain/ Black girl won’t you do it again? / Black girls are built to walk across the seas/ Black girls convince the icecaps to freeze/ A black girl was the mamamama of everyone you see.”

One of Ropechain’s themes is the paranormal. Says Adamson,”I was interested in paranormal experiences, because I guess I was having them or something? I don’t know. Definitely some weird shit was happening.” Listeners may be inclined to agree. On the album’s third cut, “Ghost,” dirge-like vocals evoke Casper keening through an old time radio about the simultaneous omniscience and heartbreaking tunnel-vision of the dead in soft, helium-pitched whispers. Jookabox sings: your limbs go sweeping through my room at night/ I can see your purple body swell and fall/swell and fall/swell and fall. “Ghost” is followed by a knee-slapping sing-along about a pregnancy scare turned lamentation (“The Girl Ain’t Preggers”). Despite the album’s dizzying musical and thematic eclecticism, there’s a mysterious logic to its arrangement (or perhaps it’s simply a paranoid interpretation of irrational datum).

Madness is another of the album’s unifying thematic threads; “Some of the samples on “I’m Absolutely Freaked Out’” were recorded in a vacant insane asylum,” Adamson explains. “I Will Save Young Michael,” Jookabox’s tragically affectionate love-letter to Michael Jackson, ponders the razor-fine boundary between aesthetic illumination and neurotic burnout. On “Let’s Go Mad Together” he sings: “Let’s accept madness together / I need a partner in crime / I am too weary to fight it, honey / And it could be a good time.”

The idiosyncratic lyricism of the album’s love songs is sure to warm the cockles of listener’s hearts. When echoing vocals ascend after the darkly, bass-heavy intro to “You Will Love My Boom” and Jookabox shouts,” I love you love you/ You know I love you I love you/ I took mushrooms and then proposed to you because I love you love you,” it’s a hard-hearted listener who won’t laugh with joy at the dissonance between the tender lyrics and the dread-heavy distortion of their accompaniment.

Ropechain braids holy fear, schizophrenic inspiration, baroque pop-references, and deep, mystical love into a formidable work likely to leave aficionados of avant-rock trapped in an obsessive cycle of listening and re-listening. Get your tickets here.

GRAMPALL JOOKABOX

Sa Sept 6 - Indianapolis, IN - Spin
Mo Sept 8 - Chicago, IL - Hideout
Tu Sept 9 - Dekalb, IL - House Cafe
We Sept 10 - Iowa City, IA - TBA
Th Sept 11 - Grinnell, IA - Gardner Lounge
Sa Sept 13 - Morisson, CO - Monolith Festival
Su Sept 14 - Morisson, CO - Monolith Festival
Tu Sept 16 - Kansas City, MO - Record Bar
We Sept 17 - Columbia, MO - Mojo’s
Th Sept 18 - St. Louis, MO - Billiken Club
Fr Sept 19 - Madison, WI - Forward Music Festival
Sa Sep 20 - Urbana, IL - Pygmalion Music Festival
Su Sep 21 - Bloomington, IN - TBA
Mo Sep 22 - Cincinnati, OH - TBA
Tu Sep 23 - Pittsburgh, PA - Brillobox
We Sep 24 - Washington DC - The Hosiery
Th Sep 25 - Philadelphia, PA - The Green Line
Fr Sep 26 - Brooklyn, NY - Death By Audio
Sa Sep 27 - New York City, NY - Cake Shop

Grampall Jookabox
Ropechain
(Asthmatic Kitty / Joyful Noise)
Street Date: Nov. 4, 2008
1. Black Girls
2. Let’s Go Mad Together
3. Ghost
4. Old Earth, Wash My Beat
5. The Girl Ain’t Preggers
6. You Will Love My Boom
7. I Will Save Young Michael
8. The One Thing
9. We Know We Might Be Fucked
10. Strike Me Down
11. I’m Absolutely Freaked Out

GRAMPALL JOOKABOX LINKS:

MySpace: www.myspace.com/grampalljookabox
Label page: www.ashmatickitty.com
Label page: www.joyfulnoiserecordings.com

The music of Mount Eerie has taken many forms (see: The Microphones) but it is always made by Phil Elverum. Lost Wisdom is an album that finds Elverum in a more collaborative mode than usual, working with two legends of music and kindred spirits, Julie Doiron and Fred Squire. Elverum and Doiron share vocal duties almost equally on the record, making it an album comprised of dark pop duets.

This time the songs were recorded quickly and quietly during a surprise visit by Julie Doiron, keeper of the world’s greatest and saddest voice, and Fred Squire, hidden guitarist of the floating riff, in a small wooden room in Anacortes, Washington before they returned home to eastern Canada.

10 songs with the expression of the face of a baby in a burning world, in the swirling dust. More overtly personal and emotional than usual (which is saying something), these songs hang on a theme of impermanence and destroying forces. Sample lyrics: “Every single shape I see for the pile of dust it is. Let’s get out of the romance.” and “Newborn babies come to life on my face, and they say ‘ta daa!’” The river is revealed to be going right through the house, the river of inevitable chaos, sorrow and love.

It’s worth noting that this is a dream-come-true collaboration for Elverum. Julie Doiron has been his favorite singer since his teenage brain was exploded by the music of her legendary band Eric’s Trip in the early nineties. They are basically the reason he is playing music at all. Now the full circle feeback loop quietly feeds back in these 10 beautiful songs.

MOUNT EERIE

July 18- Anacortes, WA City Hall (What the Heck Fest)
August 15- Seattle, WA Vera Project
September 4th- Salt Lake City, UT Kilby Court
September 8th- Austin, TX Mohawk*
September 9th- Dallas, TX Granada Theater*
September 11th- Pensacola, FL Sluggo’s*
September 12th- Gainseville, FL Common Grounds*
September 13th- Miami, FL White Room*
September 14th- Orlando, FL The Social*
September 16th- Asheville, NC Grey Eagle*
September 17th- Philadelphia, PA First Unitarian Church*
September 18th- New York, NY Bowery Ballroom*
September 20th- Northampton, MA Iron Horse#

* = w/ WHY?
# = w/ Julie Doiron

Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron and Fred Squire
Lost Wisdom
(P.W. Elverum & Sun)
Street Date: Oct. 7, 2008
01 Lost Wisdom
02 Voice in Headphones
03 You Swan Go On
04 Who?
05 Flaming Home
06 What?
07 If We Knew…
08 With My Hands Out
09 O My Heart
10 Grave Robbers

MOUNT EERIE LINKS:

Press Materials: www.pwelverumandsun.com