Bye Bye 17, the anticipated new album from acclaimed singer, songwriter and performer Har Mar Superstar (aka Sean Tillmann), is set to be released April 23 on Cult Records. This is Tillmann’s fifth full-length release as Har Mar Superstar and follows his critically acclaimed 2009 release, Dark Touches. Of the release, the BBC heralds, “Dark Touches is a hook-packed, skillfully produced guilty pleasure of a record that it’s almost impossible not to enjoy,” while the Cincinnati CityBeat declares, “simply further proof of Sean Tillmann’s astonishingly broad-yet-laser-guided sense of humor and flawless musical bag of tricks.”
 
Of asking him to join the label, Cult Records founder Julian Casablancas notes, “First time I saw Sean was at the Mercury Lounge years back, and I was blown away by his voice, his confidence and his showmanship. When he recently played me his new record, I felt it was something we could help make truly great. He’s the man with the golden voice, and we’re excited to try and turn people on to that fact… Like the dude himself, the record’s just tough, sad, hilarious and rad.”
 
Written in New York City, the 10-song album was recorded at co-producer Jim Eno‘s (Spoon) Austin studio with a full live band. Focusing this time more on his voice, Tillmann says, “I was listening to a lot of Otis Redding and Sam Cooke at the time, and I’ve always been obsessed with those guys… ‘Restless Leg,’ ‘We Don’t Sleep,’ ‘Prisoner’ and ‘Rhythm Bruises’ came out of people playing together. But the rest were just like me in a room, gettin’ weird, by myself.” See below for full track-listing.
 
Tillmann named his flamboyant alter-ego after the Har Mar mall in suburban St. Paul, MN where he spent his youth watching movies and writing songs about passers-by in the food court. Tillman explains, “Har Mar Superstar used to be a different person. It used to be my excuse to get away with the more fantastic things in life… It was easier to get onstage as this other guy and be outrageous and have it be glorified. I guess the confidence I got from being Har Mar Superstar translated into my real life, so now we’re one and the same.”
 
Har Mar Superstar will be touring the USA in March, April & May 2013.
 
Har Mar Superstar official site

theyoungthings.net
theyoungthings.net/

There are bands, and then there are brotherhoods. The former does not the latter make, but the five members of Nightbox grew up in the same town, went to the same school and fell in love with the same sounds. Then three years ago they moved to Toronto together, shacked up in an old Kensington Market red-brick and got down to business making sounds of their own.

 
Their bond is uncommonly deep and so is their musicality. Attend a Nightbox show and you’ll be struck by just how many ideas are expressed in tandem, all constructed to fit together like some bizarre Techno-color pop puzzle. You’ll marvel at their music’s ability to gyrate your body and brain at the same time, and you’ll experience a sort of synesthesia where you can’t tell which instrument is keeping time and which is sounding a melody; bass lines, guitar licks and tom fills all ducking and weaving around each other in a helix of awesome. You will no doubt, begin to get a sense of the glorious noise these five young Irish lads are creating.

 

And the world is starting to take notice. After releasing their debut EP in 2011, critical and commercial reaction was noteworthy on a world scale. The music video for single “Pyramid” earned heavy rotation on Canadian music television stations, and the track was selected to appear on the prestigious French label Kitsune’s Maison Compilation 11. It was chosen by NME as a Top-10 download, stating it takes on “a fresh sound of its own”, while UK’s Dazed & Confused magazine raved it “takes a hedonistic approach with high energy results on a new breed of dance.” The EP’s release in Japan on Rallye Label, sold out 1,000 copies on its initial offering.

 
Nightbox proceeded to tear up festival tent stages on both sides of the Atlantic, most notably during their barnstorming sets for packed houses at Reading & Leeds and Ireland’s Electric Picnic Festival, where BBC exclaimed “The glitchy synths and the guitars sound delightful… and by jove do they know how to write a hook”, ranking Nightbox’s performance Top-10 of the entire festival. Chops were honed, experience was gained, and bonds were formed with thousands of new fans.


 
Nightbox have retreated to the studio for the last six months to record their first full-length album with MSTRKRFT production wiz Al-P. An ardent, burgeoning fan base and a raft of industry power brokers are all eager to get their ear-mitts on the results. Recent direct support slots for Ellie Goulding, Cults, Death From Above 1979, and Canadian & UK tours with Juno Award winner Lights, have confirmed that this band’s positioned to make some serious waves in 2013. Dance floors will be soaked. Bring a mop.
 

Nightbox official site
Nightbox on Youtube