MP3: Karl Blau – “Mockingbird Diet”
About LAKE:
“Oh, the places we’ll go! Oh, we don’t actually know!” The title track lyrics, with a nod to Dr. Seuss, have a wide-eyed, wondrous feeling, (and a hint of agnosticism) which finds itself popping up throughout the record. On their first K release, LAKE crafts up-beat, dance-able, psychedelic, uniquely sincere and unaffected pop songs, ranging from the jubilant, echoey, post-soul groove of Heaven to the sweet, polyrhythmic Green Arrows-inspired Bad Dream. Recorded at home, largely on cassette 8-track, this album, actually LAKE’s third, has a slightly lo-fi, homemade feel as well showing evidence of their influence from prolific artists Karl Blau and R. Stevie Moore.
Oh, the Places We’ll Go represents a new direction for LAKE – more synthesizers, more up-beat, rhythmically-based songwriting – but it is also in keeping with their aesthetic, with contributing horn
players and percussionists, male and female singers, group harmonies, sweet melodies and
homespun production.
LAKE’s core membership is Ashley Eriksson, Eli Moore, Lindsay Schief, Andrew Dorsett, and Markly Morrison, a group of long-time friends based in Olympia, WA. The members of the band came from Washington, the Los Angeles area, and the Midwest but soon found themselves drawn together in the inspiring forests of the Pacific Northwest, and thus LAKE was born. Each is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist in their own right, and contributing melodies and complementing one another’s strong points has become the process for LAKE’s intimately nurtured songwriting.
LAKE
Oh, the Places We’ll Go
(K)
Street Date: Oct. 21, 2008
1.Oh, The Places We’ll Go
2.Blue Ocean Blue
3.Counting
4.Bad Dream
5.Minor Trip
6.Dead Beat
7.Heaven
8.On The Swing
9.Oh, The Places Two
***
About Karl Blau:
Anchor’s got aweigh… and now Blau’s ship shatters as it strikes land! This is the land that production forgot, the place where Nature is central and permeating out from the core. The sense that the sound matters never arrived, and here to stay in its place is the process a song happens and then leaves out into the world. Did Nature leave? No. Nature got loose. And now that these songs have clearly gone into the world — are they left to
run around naked? Yes.
Nature’s Got Away made it to tape fresh off of a tour in Spring 2007 where Karl Blau traveled to Japan and performed with some of his biggest musical influences: namely Tori Kudo (Maher Shalal Hash Baz), Reiko Kudo, Nikaido Kazumi, the Moools, Tennis Coats, and Arrington DeDionyso (of Old Time Relijun). Written on the road and recorded at “home” at the beloved Dub Narcotic Studio by Karl Blau accompanied mainly
by: Olympians– Peter Dolan (Chin-Up Merryweather), and members of LAKE: Lindsay Shief, Eli Moore, Mark Morrison, Micah Davis-Wheeler, Andrew Dorsett, and Ashley Eriksson; with also Portland folks Nate Ashley and Greg Olin (Graves); and Seattle’s Steve Moore (Earth, Sunn0)))))).
Esoteric Blau says regarding this Nature’s Got Away release:
“Invoking the fates and listening deeply into the forces present– the room, the instruments, the players, listening to the microphones, listening to the wood grain– the director of a musical piece may find that the less heavy handed one can be, the more one can approach hands free and even getting out of the way of a ‘happening.’ And if you use your hands to guide you in the forest on a clouded night you will not forget this experience.”
If it appeared that Blau bowed out of music biz after his making of Beneath Waves (his previous K release, KLP174) nothing could be further from truth. In June K sent a shot across the bow of listenership with the release of the heavy hitting International Pop Underground single “That’s How I Got To Memphis” (IPU118) sung by Blau and produced by Tucker Martine (Mount Analog, the Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens). Since the release of acclaimed Beneath Waves, Blau put out 15 albums to subscribing fans of Kelp Lunacy– his subscriber supported audio zine, recorded and toured with Nonesuch artist Laura Veirs (for the albums Year of Meteors and Saltbreakers), recorded and released D+’s No Mystery, and What Is Doubt For with cohorts Bret Lunsford (Beat Happening, Knw-Yr-Own) and Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie/Knw-Yr-Own) as well as 3 albums with Your Heart Breaks.
In the past two years, two of Karl Blau’s releases on Kelp would be picked up by labels and released to a more general public. Marriage Records re-released Dance Positive and Whistler Records let AM see a broader audience by promotion and distribution through Carrot Top. Blau backed these releases touring extensively with Your Heart Breaks, a tour with Bright Black Morning Light, shows with Kimya Dawson, Polite Sleeper and extensive solo touring catering to his all-ages fan base.
Karl Blau
Nature’s Got Away
(K)
Street Date: Sept. 23, 2008
1.Move On From Dreams
2.Nothing In the Way
3.Before Telling Dragons
4.Nothing In The Way
5.Carry and Rob
6.Ghostly Appearance
7.Mockingbird Diet
8.Of Your Feet, Of Your Place
9.Stream of Ganders
10.That’s the Breaks
11.2 Becomes 1
12.It’s The Stars
LAKE
Oct 17, 2008 – Tacoma, Washington Helms Gallery*
Oct 23, 2008 – Sacramento, California Luigi’s Funhouse*
Oct 26, 2008 – Santa Barbara, California Biko Garage*
Oct 28, 2008 – San Diego, California Che Cafe*
Oct 29, 2008 – Phoenix, Arizona Trunk Space*
Nov 7, 2008 – Charlotte, North Carolina The Milestone*
Nov 8, 2008 – Knoxville, Tennessee The Pilot Light*
Nov 11, 2008 – New York City, New York The Cake Shop*
Nov 13, 2008 – Rochester, New York The Bug Jar*
Nov 16, 2008 – Grand Rapids, Michigan The DAAC*
Nov 18, 2008 – Chicago, Illinois Schuba’s Tavern*
* = w/ Desolation Wilderness
KARL BLAU
Sep 02 Vancouver, BC Media Club*
Sep 03 Seattle, WA Chop Suey*
Sep 05 Salem, OR IKE Box*
Sep 06 Eugene, OR Wandering Goat
Sep 19 Anacortes, WA Department of Safety
*= w/ Bodies of Water
LAKE LINKS:
Myspace: www.myspace.com/lakemusicmusic
Press Materials: www.krecs.com/html/artists/artistbio.php?interest=107
Artist Page: www.LAKEtheband.com
KARL BLAU LINKS:
Myspace: www.myspace.com/karlblau
Press Materials: www.krecs.com/html/artists/artistbio.php?interest=91
Artist Page: www.kelpmonthly.com/Karl Blau