Getting Back to the River with Lily & Madeleine
June 4th, 2013 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Director/photographer Allister Ann seems to have nothing but warm words for sister duo Lily & Madeleine, whose first music video drops today. Released in advance of their Asthmatic Kitty EP, The Weight of the Globe, Ann’s video for “Back to the River” marries the melancholy track to black-and-white footage of the sisters.
“Even though the song itself is very slow and almost nostalgic,” says Ann, “the girls’ vibrant charm needed to be portrayed, so what we hopefully ended up with is a good balance of representing the music and the artists.”
For Nashville-based Allister Ann, that meant balancing the sad nostalgia of the song against footage capturing the duo’s easygoing personalities. She scouted locations around the two young women’s native Indianapolis that matched the timeless qualities of the track, and wardrobe stylist Mizzie Logan outfitted the girls in a classic look to match.
“It was wonderful going into a town with a fresh pair of eyes,” says Ann. “The architecture and history of that city was so inspiring, with bits and pieces that reminded me of old Europe. Ultimately I chose places that I thought would best represent the feel of the song.”
The result is a clip that manages to seem nostalgic for the present, as if capturing the singers’ youthful energy in a time-capsule of vintage home movies. Ann says that he shoot itself was as much fun as it looks: “Lily and Madeleine are so sweet, kind and talented; they made everything effortless and were so easy to work with.
“Best of all,” she adds, “I made some new friends.”
See the video on Vogue.com here, or below.
[youtube width=”547″ height=”308″]http://youtu.be/VVnvhjFywFQ[/youtube]
Shannon Stephens has Spring Fever; On Tour
June 4th, 2013 , by Asthmatic Kitty
“It must have been spring fever,” says Shannon Stephens; a Facebook announcement from the Seattle-based singer-songwriter says she’s hitting the road in the month of June on a “crazy regional tour.”
On Thursday, May 30, Stephens kicked the tour off with a concert at Olympia’s Spar Cafe, featuring Graydon Holden of lower lights burning, to be followed by seven more dates around the Northwest. Filling out the bill at most shows will be Stephens’ fellow Seattleites, singer-songwriter j. wong and three-piece Pablo Trucker.
Upcoming dates include June 6—j. wong’s birthday—at Seattle’s Sunset Tavern; June 7 at Portland’s Hawthorne Theatre; Boon’s Treasury in Salem, OR on June 8; and a June 15 show at Everett, WA’s Anchor Pub featuring Tomo Nakayama and Cami Lundeen. Finally, wong and Pablo Trucker return to the tour for three more dates: June 21 at Mikey’s Gyros in Moscow, ID; June 22 at Sandpoint, ID’s Downtown Crossing; and June 23 at Caffè Mela in Wenatchee, WA.
The Seattle Weekly called Shannon Stephens the “Best Female Vocalist of 2012,” and those clear, warm vocals come with a wry and often dark songwriting sensibility. She led the band Marzuki along with Sufjan Stevens, and her music has been covered by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, who also sings on her latest album. Pull It Together, her third LP, came out last year on Asthmatic Kitty, and Stephens has begun writing songs for a fourth.
[youtube width=”542″ height=”305″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyUySbnhMVY[/youtube]
Asthmatic Kitty Invade UK
June 4th, 2013 , by Asthmatic Kitty
We have not one, not two, but four shows in just three days for Asthmatic Kitty artists Fol Chen and Denison Witmer in London, starting on June 3.
Denison’s recently released self -titled album has received glowing praise from the likes of Uncut, who gave it an 8/10 and said “it’s a beauty” and featured one of Denison’s tracks on their Best Albums of the Month compilation. Denison will play his first headline UK show at the Angel in Islington on June 3. He follows that and then an invite only show at Black’s, also in London on June 4 (for an invite, please email tom at asthmatickitty dot com. Denison then heads north to Manchester for a show at the Castle on June 5. All ticket details are available on the tour page.
Fol Chen will make their way into the UK for their first London show for 3 years when they play a free gig at the Shacklewell Arms, London on June 5. Tickets can be downloaded here. They’ll be playing songs from their brand new long player The False Alarms described by The Line of Best Fit as “everything is meticulous, deliberately ingenious. It all flows excellently; there’s no disjointed genre-hopping here.”
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Revived
May 24th, 2013 , by Asthmatic Kitty
(Photo by Mike Massaro)
DM Stith has hardly been silent in the years since the release of his eerily intense Asthmatic Kitty debut, 2009’s Heavy Ghost. The Revival Hour, his project in collaboration with John-Mark Lapham of the Earlies (Secretly Canadian), put out its first full-length earlier this year, and is gaining momentum with a new remix EP, a new video, and soon, a European tour.
The dark, soulful sound of the first Revival Hour LP, Scorpio Little Devil—sometimes nostalgic and warm, sometimes noisy and futuristic, but always densely, lavishly arranged—has garnered especially rapturous acclaim in the UK press. The Independent praised the duo’s “exotic musical creations,” and the Guardian argued that contrary to the name of the band, “five seconds of this stuff,” hardly a full sixty minutes, were all the Revival Hour needed to revive its listeners.
Now, two tracks from Scorpio, “Hold Back” and “Run Away,” have been remixed by Lost in Edit and the Earlies, respectively, for a 7″ available from Bandcamp and totally free to download until May 26. The smoky Memphis sound of “Hold Back” has also become a suitably sultry new music video, directed by the Antiphon Music Group and streaming on YouTube and Vimeo.
Coming up this fall, European audiences will get a chance to hear The Revival Hour make their music in person, with dates already announced at Vieland’s Into the Great Wide Open Festival on Sept. 6 and 9 in the Netherlands, at Radar in Aarhus, Denmark on the Sept. 11, and at London’s Sebright Arms on Sept. 17.
You can buy Revival Hour music all in one place here.
[youtube width=”542″ height=”305″]http://youtu.be/w4kEBx_8vA4[/youtube]
Denison Witmer’s New Album Out Now
May 2nd, 2013 , by Asthmatic Kitty
A decade and a half into his musical career, singer-guitarist Denison Witmer has released a self-titled album, and for Witmer, Denison Witmer comes as an occasion to reflect on the unusual lessons of a life spent as a quiet, underground success.
“Looking over the arc of a career, there are moments when you got it right,” he says, “and moments where you didn’t. For me, music’s always about the process. It’s not always about the final product; it’s more about the journey. You work song by song and album by album in pursuit of something—I really try to trust that approach.”
Building the Honey Jar studio with producer and collaborator Devin Greenwood has made it possible for him to create a recording using the same patient, intuitive processes that have driven his songwriting—and his career. Witmer was able to bring in trusted performers like Greenwood, William Fitzsimmons, Dawn Landes, and Sufjan Stevens, and give them free rein to realize his music.
The result is an organic musical self-portrait, drawing inspiration and consolation from sources as different as Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and the life of knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey, and weaving them into what is arguably Witmer’s most direct and personal album to date.
Denison Witmer is out today on Asthmatic Kitty Records.
Be sure to check out Denison on American Songwriter, where he’s Writer of the Week.
“One source of inspiration for this record was the story of the knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey . . . He said that some days you pitch it perfectly, other days you don’t. It’s so erratic that when the ball leaves your hand, you have to immediately accept that it might not be great or go where you want it to. You have to focus on the next pitch and let go of the mistakes behind you.” Denison Witmer, speaking to American Songwriter
New Video from Lily & Madeleine
May 2nd, 2013 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Along with the rest of the internet, we were immediately captivated by Lily & Madeleine the first time we saw “In The Middle” on YouTube (see that video here).
American Songwriter just released “Tired,” another video of Lily & Madeleine from the same acoustic session. It is just as striking and lovely. You can view it here, or below.
Other good news: we’re told that the 10″ vinyl of their forthcoming EP, The Weight of the Globe, is finished production and should be landing soon. We’re told it looks and sounds fantastic. You can reserve your copy of the 10″, which we’ll ship to you in June, here.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/sy-SzJow69I[/youtube]
‘Til I Die: New Single from Chris Schlarb
May 2nd, 2013 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Chris Schlarb’s new album, Psychic Temple II, arrives July 16th but you can hear the album’s first single now. “‘Til I Die” is Chris Schlarb et al’s take on one of the only Beach Boy songs written entirely by Brian Wilson (Wikipedia entry on the song here).
Chris enlisted the help of Nedelle Torrisi, Raymond Raposa of Castanets, and Sufjan Stevens for vocals, and Mars Volta keyboardist Ikey Owens, and Paul Masvidal.
SPIN has generously premiered the song. You can listen on SPIN.com here, below, or on Soundcloud here. If you’d like to take the song with you, you can download it here on Bandcamp.
[youtube width=”542″ height=”305″]http://youtu.be/u2JaCBnEzsM[/youtube]
All Skate: New Video from Fol Chen
April 13th, 2013 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Premiered by Impose Magazine here, and directed by Chris Wilcha, this new video of “I.O.U.” captures everything you love about roller skating and Fol Chen at the same time.
“I.O.U.” comes to us from Fol Chen’s new album, The False Alarms. Notably Canadian Exclaim wrote that “listening to The False Alarms is like hooking up an I.V. drip with maple syrup to your arm.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgXNCee77vE[/youtube]
Helado Negro Featured on Bandcamp.com Relaunch and Podcast
April 11th, 2013 , by Asthmatic Kitty
The inaugural podcast of a Bandcamp.com revamp features our very own Helado Negro.
We are big fans of Bandcamp, an online service that lets musicians release music directly to fans and one we use prolifically. The service revamped their front page this week, with a renewed focus on artists and creative content. Andrew Jervis, formerly of Ubiquity Records, is Bandcamp’s new “Chief Curator,” and he’ll be selecting content for their weekly podcast.
Helado Negro is in some good company in this first edition joining Hairy Hands, Baxamaxam, Wild Honey, Tramp Rec., and many other fantastic acts. We’re looking forward to the next installment of the podcast.
Oliver Barret tried his hand at illustrating Roberto Lange of Helado Negro, and we think he captured the spirit – and the hair – just right.
You can hear all of Helado Negro’s catalog for free (and buy his new record, Invisible Life, for $8) on Bandcamp right here.