Heartbreaking Bravery

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Tag: Godspeed You! Black Emperor

A Third of the Way: Full Streams, 2015

“2015 has been a monstrous year for new music”, or some deviation of that phrase, has become a refrain that continues to gain strength as the year progresses. We’ve already tackled a long list of the first quarter full lengths that captured our attention but, as is the case with any year, April afforded a chance to get caught up on some titles while the new ones kept emerging. I genuinely wish I had the time to go over all of these titles in details (and I may wind up expanding on a few of them when December rolls around) but, unfortunately, time’s proving to be a cruel factor. Over the first four months of the year, I was committed to a full-time position and then navigated the slow exit from that position in order to pursue a move to Brooklyn. During that time span, I was collecting everything as it appeared and began to pitch out to larger publications. At one point I was working  an average of 75 hours a week. I made sure to never lose sight of new music and began compiling a list of the things I came across that I genuinely loved.

Whether it be something regional like Strange Relations’ -Centrism, something highly publicized like METZ’s II, any number of records from bands that have earned the tag “site favorite” (Speedy Ortiz, Sheer Mag, Purple 7, Courtney Barnett, Mikal Cronin, etc), or something that should have picked up more press than it did (Mittenfield’s Optimists, Bent Denim’s Romances You, etc), there were a lot of records that deserved to be fully featured. Hell, there are even a handful that are going to be running on the ensuing post- but 75 already feels like a scary number for one list. That being the case, it’ll be impossible for someone to listen through to all of these titles in one sitting. It’s best left as a bookmark, something to return to for the purpose of exploring. It’s a list that isn’t restricted to just one genre, it covers close to the entire gamut of the styles of music that regularly get featured on this site, meaning you’re bound to find something you love buried in the wealth of titles.

So, explore at will. Buy the titles that catch your ear and keep celebrating great art.

Enjoy.


Sleeping in the Aviary – Young Love Is Easy (Unreleased Demos)
Pocket Hercules – Pocket Hercules
Personal Best – Arnos Vale
Dusk – Demos
Fred Thomas – All Are Saved
Strange Relations – -CENTRISM
Try The Pie – Total Domestication
Pupppy – Shit in the Apple Pie
Hop Along – Painted Shut
Speedy Ortiz – Foil Deer
Flout – Gims
ThinLips – Divorce Year
Seagoat – Seagoat

Weird Mob – Wizards
Creative Adult – Ring Around the Room
Tomten – Bitter Pill b/w Humdrum Doom Song
METZ – II
The Lees of Memory – Soft Places b/w Within A Dream II
The Splits – The Splits II
Um Are – Child Prodigy
Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk – Kill The Fuzz
Loose Tooth – Easy Easy East
Pale Angels – Imaginary People
Fleabite – TTYL
Cop – Render
Bill Fay – Who Is The Sender
Sheer Mag – II
Shopping – Consumer Complaints
Red Cosmos – Dreaming In Unison
Throw Vision – Were It Will
Steven King – Shakin In My Boots
Colin Stetson & Sarah Neufeld – Never Were The Way She Was
LA Font – Hangtime Vol. 1
Timeshares – Already Dead
Torres – Sprinter
Jacco Gardner – Hypnophobia
Bent Denim – Romance You
InfestDC – DZ Tapes
Violent Femmes – Happy New Year
Tomboy – Sweetie
Purple 7 – Gulf of the Afterglow
Elvis Depressedly – New Alhambra
Mouth – Mouth
Braids – Deep In the Iris
Yeesh – No Problem
Annalibera – Nevermind I Love You
Andy Gabbard – Fluff
Bay Uno – Catalina
Birches – Birches
Alimony Hustle – Gutter Gutter Strike Strike Gutter Gutter
The Black Ships – Dead Empires
Mac McCaughan – Non-Believers
Simon Joyner – Grass, Branch & Bone
Karate Dancer – Jyu Kumite EP
Toothtaker + Mestizo – Everybody’s Enemy
Sacred Paws – Six Songs
Mittenfields – Optimists
Pretty Pretty – Talkin’ To The Walls
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress
The Sleepwalkers – Mortimer b/w Choose Your Own Ending
Candy Darling – Going Straight b/w Waves
Soda Bomb – Wanna Jam?
Kuroma – Kuromarama
Waxahatchee – Ivy Tripp
Total Love – Total Love
Van Dammes – Better Than Sex
Michael Rault – Living Daylight
Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit
The Dead Ships – EP 1
Blue Blood – This Is The Life
DVS – DVTV
Tussilago – Holy Train
Earl Sweatshirt – Solace
Warm Soda – Symbolic Dream
Mikal Cronin – MCIII

Help Save Fort Foreclosure (Indiegogo Campaign)

Photos by Rich Dionne William Schaff is an internationally known artist who works mostly on commission and has designed dozens of album and CD covers, prints, posters and other works of art. His name cuts such a wide swath and carries such pull that he's had visitors travel from as far away as Sweden, unannounced, to meet him. But he considers himself as much a Warrenite as an artist of international acclaim.

Continuing tonight’s trend of unusual coverage is a very important cause: saving Fort Foreclosure, home of artist William Schaff. For those not familiar with Schaff, he’s the artist behind some of the best album artwork of the past 15 years, from Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven to Songs: Ohia’s Magnolia Electric Co. to all of Okkervil River’s artwork (the pieces he put together for the Black Sheep Boy series deserve to be celebrated into the next century). Unfortunately, Fort Foreclosure is currently living up to the latter portion of its name and he needs all the help he can get to change that.

That’s why Schaff’s started up an Indiegogo project that offers some unique rewards for very fair prices. From a stunning deck of individually designed playing cards ($9) to little books containing the sketches for Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven ($15) and sketches inspired by In the Aeroplane, Over the Sea ($10) to packages containing all three of those things in addition to a project-exclusive benefit CD full of project-exclusive songs from a variety of artists connected to Schaff ($60) to more decidedly extravagant rewards like a five day, five night residency at Fort Foreclosure with Schaff himself ($800). There are several other offers on the table and they’re all for a very worthy cause. Each offer can be viewed and selected here.

This is a serious situation that can yield serious rewards for both the artist and the contributors. It’s a unique project that deserves investment and a way to help one of this generation’s most gifted artists thrive. It’s an opportunity worth seizing for both the cause and the effect. Most importantly, it’s a good way to provide a healthy environment for the creation of great art- a cause that this place holds sacred. Stop waiting, contribute now, and make anyone and everyone aware that they can too. The clock is ticking.

A note from Schaff about the situation can be read both in the above link and below.

“My Name is William Schaff. As most of you here know, I have been a working artist for the the last 20 some odd years or so. I have started this campaign because the studio and home that both myself, and the band, Brown Bird, inhabit is again in Foreclosure. I am looking to make this stop, once and for all, and I am hoping you can help. Please check out the rewards I offer for contributing, and see if there is anything that catches your fancy. I’ve tried to make sure that each of you, no matter your situation, can be part of this effort. If we are not able to raise all the money, what is raised shall still go towards covering the mortgage, and dealing with the utilities. Keeping the Fort, out of foreclosure.

So please watch the attached video, see what you will be getting involved with. Share, and tell your friends. Become a part of the arts in a way you may not have before!

Thank you.”