(le) poisson rouge

On March 9, Dark Dark Dark releases the stunning six-song EP Bright Bright Bright on Supply and Demand Music. Hailing from New Orleans, New York, and Minneapolis, the chamber-folk sextet have yielded a lush and intoxicating follow-up to their 2008 full-length debut, the Snow Magic. On the new record the band moves beyond lost love, heartache, and loneliness toward more hopeful horizons. “These songs are about new beginnings, and usually have a little triumphant twist in them,” says band member Marshall LaCount. “The songs are often about a character finding a place in the world, and the strange interactions that happen along the way.”

The EP is also about finding and creating beauty. “Lyrically we’ve grown,” says LaCount. “We’re working on the new songs the way a painter might work. Each of us adds a different shade or texture to the canvas.” The resulting songs are expansive and dynamic, layered with serious overtones but with joy at the center.

After a successful run opening for the band WHY? last fall, Dark Dark Dark recorded the new EP at Sacred Heart Studios in a former church overlooking Lake Superior, and worked with Minneapolis producer Tom Herbers (WHY?, Low, Retribution Gospel Choir, The Jayhawks, Fog). Herbers engineered, produced, and mixed Bright Bright Bright on analog equipment from start to finish. He encouraged the band to record live as opposed to tracking instruments separately, taking advantage of the band’s unique chemistry and using the chapel’s natural reverb to amplify the power of their live performances. LaCount explains, “Recording like this allowed so much room for musicality, warmth, and energy. It’s the most honest way we’ve ever worked.”

Bright Bright Bright also features new additions to the band, resulting in a much fuller and melodic sound. Multi-instrumentalist Walt McClements, of the New Orleans bands Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship and Panorama Jazz Band plays trumpet, accordion, and piano. Brett Bullion, a member of the Minneapolis outfit Tarlton, adds percussion.

Dark Dark Dark is currently recording new material for their sophomore album (due Fall of 2010) at the historic Music Box Theatre in Minneapolis with Tom Herbers again producing. Once completed, the band will tour in support of the EP, beginning with three SXSW showcases in Austin this March.

Check out the Daytrotter Session with Dark Dark Dark.

Download the title track from Bright Bright Bright here.

From dreams, nature, film, and architecture to music both ancient and contemporary, Twi the Humble Feather compose under a spectrum of influences. Cousins and close friends since childhood, Anthony Lebron and Hector Fontanez partner in depicting the adventures of Twi, a mythical interstellar traveler. In this musical dialogue, their focus remains to create a timeless sound for a multi-generational audience.

www.twithehumblefeather.com

Twi The Humble Feather on Bandcamp

Every so often, a great band comes along that sounds like nothing happening around them. Upon listening to Cavalier Rose’s demos, it may come as a surprise that the band was brought to life in Brooklyn. Cavalier Rose formed during the winter of 2009. After getting together a handful of times at each others’ apartments to exchange musical ideas, the group gathered in the basement of Sarah’s house for its first full-band rehearsal in late February. As it was immediately apparent that this collaboration was yielding prolific musical creation, a recording session and gig were scheduled. In late March – after just 7 full band rehearsals – the band traveled to a 19th century sheep farm on the Connecticut River to record. Three days later, they returned to New York, where they played their first gig to a capacity crowd at Pianos. Two weeks later, The Deli Magazine named Cavalier Rose NYC Artist of the Month. In December the band embarked on a tour to Rock Island, IL to record a Daytrotter session, playing shows in Pittsburgh, Ann Arbor, Chicago and Madison. In these very early stages of Cavalier Rose’s existence, they are beginning to hone in on their goal: to change the face of music.

"Cavalier Rose make sounds that you must take loudly, ingest them as you would the roar of a thunderstorm pelting a roof and windows with a storm that is trying desperately to get into your house, to reach you and knock you out. It's something new and something primal...we're talking here about every emotion - all of them."
-Daytrotter

"Although they are a fairly new band in the musical epicenter called Brooklyn, Cavalier Rose’s sound could fool anyone into thinking they’ve been a professional band for decades...Seeing a band who deserves critical acclaim is one thing. Seeing a band like that in their earlier stages is another story that is very rare and humbling." -Beat Crave

Cavalier Rose Daytrotter session

Ryan and Sara met Don at a show at Melvin's, a bar on St. Claude in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. Ryan and Sara had just begun writing and recording songs together on an old 4-track with a mic hanging from the blade of a ceiling fan in the middle of that stifling sweaty summer, but they would soon part ways and leave New Orleans. Over the next couple of years they relocated to Providence together and later settled in Brooklyn where Don had also settled after Katrina.

Life of Love is the first collection of songs Callers wrote and recorded exclusively in New York as a three-piece. Naturally the band's sound grew in volume in response to the volume of the city; however, they held on to what makes them so consistently affecting: their raw spartan style, anchored by Sara's sensually tough vocals, and Ryan and Don's Southern-honed chops as multi-instrumentalists.

The album started with the band's cover of Wire's "Heartbeat", and the idea of creating something simple and cathartic. Using borrowed amps and mics, in bedrooms and in studios, and by the grace of their good friends, Callers recorded Life of Love in intense spurts over the course of a year. Unlike the experimental ballads on their debut Fortune, the new songs pulse with gritty urgency, colored by the sounds of damaged gear and the earnest spirit of a middle-school gospel choir. The result is an album stripped to the core, an expression of the inexpressible space between us and the places we inhabit and the people we share those places with."