1. The Idler Wheel, Fiona Apple
2. Rhythm & Repose, Glen Hansard
3. The Lion, The Beast, The Beat, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
4. Myths, Pickwick
5. Bear Creek, Brandi Carlile
6. Americana, Neil Young and Crazy Horse
7. Oceania, The Smashing Pumpkins
8. Little Broken Hearts, Norah Jones
9. Clockwork Angels, Rush
10. What We Saw from the Cheap Seats, Regina Spektor
11. Synthetica, Metric
12. Welcome to the Fishbowl, Kenny Chesney
13. Bloom, Beach House
14. Heaven, The Walkmen
15. Big Station, Alejandro Escovedo
16. Valtari, Sigur Ros
17. Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, Justin Townes Earle
18. There’s No Leaving, The Tallest Man on Earth
19. Beltane, Beltane
20. In Our Heads, Hot Chip
PICKWICK IN-STORE SATURDAY, JUNE 23 (1PM); FREE, ALL-AGES AND AWESOME!
Seattle soul-rock revivalists and Treefort Music Fest favorites Pickwick will perform live at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise) at 1 p.m. Saturday, June 23. As always, this Record Exchange in-store performance is free and all ages. The band is performing at Neurolux Friday night and we have tickets for sale here at the store!
ABOUT PICKWICK
Pickwick was formed in 2008 when singer Galen Disston began writing songs on his acoustic guitar while drummer Matt Emmett kept time in the background. The duo settled on the name as an homage to ‘The Ostrich,’ an obscure dance song written by Lou Reed and released by Pickwick Records in 1964. With the later additions of Emmett’s childhood friend Cassady Lillstrom on keys, Kory Kruckenberg on vibraphone, and brothers Garrett and Michael Parker on bass and guitar, the six-piece began playing shows in small clubs around Seattle.
By the beginning of 2010 the band was in a state of disarray. Frustrated by the direction the music was taking, the band began having discussions about throwing in the towel and going their separate ways. Up until that point, band members had little to do with the writing process and simply added color to Disston’s songs. Ultimately, the band decided to throw out all of their old material and start over from scratch with a new collaborative approach to songwriting. This rebirth allowed the band to take a new look at their individual and collective strengths, as well as look to new places for inspiration.
Raised on indie rock and a love for lo-fi garage bands, the members of Pickwick found themselves entrenched in underground gospel and blues recordings from the 1950s and 60s as well as popular northern soul artists. This new reference point combined with a renewed appreciation for UK bands like The Animals, Spencer Davis Group, and The Zombies helped the members of Pickwick cultivate their own unique take on garage rock, gospel, and 60s-era pop while interpreting those genres through a modern lens.
Along with a shift in musical aesthetic, Disston began exploring darker, more complicated themes in the lyrics of his songs. Contrasting stories of murder, mental illness, and confused sexual identity with major chords, three-part harmonies, and church organs. This unlikely pairing quickly became a mainstay of the band’s approach to songwriting. “I’ve always been drawn to music that seems a bit schizophrenic,” says Disston.
Inspired by a new burst of creative output, the band wasted little time to self-release their music. Instead of waiting to record a full-length record, the band decided to do things on their own terms, putting their music out exclusively on vinyl with three installments of a 7-inch series. Each 45 was accompanied by a record release show at a different club in Seattle. With the release shows under their belt and a series of DIY live videos gaining attention online, the band had cultivated a strong local following by the middle of 2011.
By late 2011, Seattle independent radio station KEXP caught wind of what the band was doing and began playing the band’s music on-air. By the end of the year Pickwick’s 7-inch series ‘Myths’ was voted the #9 record of the year by KEXP listeners alongside artists such as TV on the Radio, Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Wilco, Adele and Radiohead.
The band is currently finishing up work on their debut LP and writing new material.
RECOMMENDED: BRANDI CARLILE
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BUY THE VINYL HERE
Were we ever gonna get out of this town? – “Just Kids” from Bear Creek
“If you start a band with me, I’ll get us signed and on the road within a year.” Not only did the determined, confident and tenacious 22-year-old Brandi Carlile come through with her promise to twin bothers and initially reluctant band members Phil and Tim Hanseroth, but she also exceeded their expectations. Carlile landed the prophesied record deal with Columbia Records one year later, and with the guidance of producer Rick Rubin, they recorded and released their eponymous debut album in early 2005.
Bear Creek, named after the studio where it was recorded, is certainly a departure from 2007’s breakthough The Story and its critically acclaimed follow-up, 2009’s Give Up the Ghost. Having been steered on her previous albums by super-producers T Bone Burnett and Rick Rubin, this time Carlile was determined to take the wheel. “I would liken working with A-list producers to going to college,” she says. “You don’t want to be a perpetual student. At some point, you need to apply your knowledge.” For the first time, Carlile was eager to work in a studio environment closer – both physically and in spirit – to her own rural abode. Bear Creek, a converted turn-of-the-century barn nestled among the tall trees of Woodinville, Washington, proved to be ideal. “Bear Creek is very similar to home for all three of us — musically, you’d be amazed at how you act when you feel at home.”
Embracing her own philosophy that “a live show should never sound like a record; a record should sound like a live show,” Carlile and the Twins brought in members of her “road family,” including cellist Josh Neumann and drummer Allison Miller, as well as her touring sound engineer and guitar tech. “We basically pulled our bus up to Bear Creek and then everyone got off of it and made a record, band, crew, cheap tour beer and everything … we wanted it that way for once.” Carlile also realized a long-held ambition to work with Grammy award-winning engineer and producer Trina Shoemaker, who fully embraced and nurtured the band’s live approach in the studio and “rough-around-the-edges sonic appeal.” They veered off into new musical territory, fusing classic rock ‘n’ roll, folk, bluegrass, and “Shoemaker-inspired soul” to create their own distinctive sound. Carlile and her band took full advantage of the vintage equipment at Bear Creek, dusting off “pianos that smell like Grandma’s house” and experimenting with bluegrass instruments “feeling no self-consciousness about the fact that we didn’t know how to play them … without a producer it was like ‘OK, now what are we gonna do while Dad’s gone?’”
Comprising of songs inspired by faith, heartache, addiction, childhood, accidental piano chords and thunderstorms, Bear Creek promises to be Carlile’s most revealing and personal record to date. “It scares me how much of who we are is in this album.” However, she admits, “I can talk about making records all day long, but what really drives me is what I’ve been doing on the road all this time. When we play these songs for you, what’s going to happen between you and us? That’s what matters most to me.”
Bear Creek stands as a major milestone for Carlile; the moment in which she and The Twins embraced simplicity, familiar faces and trusted musicianship to craft a stripped-back, honest and timeless record; perhaps her bravest work to date “because without anyone to hide behind or acclaimed cameos and guest appearances, it’s just us … terrifying but real life.” In fact, the only guest appearance comes from a chorus of frogs (courtesy of Bear Creek) who appear on the closing track of her most definitive album thus far – and listen all the way to the end? You most definitely will.
GLEN HANSARD'S SOLO DEBUT AND OTHER NEW RX CD RECOMMENDATIONS
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There’s a song on Rhythm and Repose, Glen Hansard’s first solo album, whose name is not just a song title but also a statement: “The Storm, It’s Coming”. The song arrives like its own warning, and it’s worth noting that it falls directly in the middle of Hansard’s new record, serving as a summary of the tense anxiety throughout the first half of the album or a warning of the dark storm looming in the second.
Much of the drama and tension amidst Rhythm and Repose functions similarly: Anticipatory or after the fact, the songs are either bubbling up or simmering down. For Hansard, that means more of his classic, slow-building full-band arrangements (“High Hope”, “Bird of Sorrow”) or gentle, sparse singer-songwriter moments driven by a single piano or guitar, gently accompanied by strings (“Races”, “Song of Good Hope”).
While Rhythm and Repose dives further into that same sense of turmoil Hansard has been exploring and toying with for most of his career, it also finds comfort in the type of well-earned contentment that years of struggle and unrest can provide. But Hansard can’t fully let go and show himself either. The balmy peace of “Love Don’t Leave Me Waiting” is put to a sharp rest by the nervous, paranoid “What Are We Gonna Do”, the very next song. Indeed, Rhythm and Repose is mostly an anxious record, often times living in its own head, creating drama when there isn’t any, looking for trouble if things are going too well — the desperate cry of a young man with everything to prove and the calm, slow pride of an older man who’s been through it all. It’s the rare solo record that tries on new clothes while still making sure the old ones fit. — Consequence of Sound
OTHER NEW RX CD RECOMMENDATIONS:
The Smashing Pumpkins Oceania
The Dirty Heads Cabin By the Sea
Can The Lost Tapes
Hacienda Shakedown
Kylie Minogue The Best of Kylie Minogue (deluxe edition also available)
Dying Fetus Reign Supreme
Whitechapel Whitechapel
LIT The View from the Bottom
Walk the Moon Walk the Moon
Chris Smither Hundred Dollar Valentine
HERE'S THE METAL: FREE TRAVEL MUG WITH PURCHASE OF ANY OF THESE CDs!
Our new Here’s the Metal program, which highlights select metal titles each month and offers you a free gift with purchase, continues in June with a fine selection of face-melting titles!
Purchase any of the following sale-priced titles and we’ll give you a free Here’s the Metal travel mug!
Mutilation Rites Empyrean $11.99
Six Feet Under Undead $11.99
Saint Vitus Lillie: F-65 $13.99 ($14.99 deluxe edition)
For Today Immortal $12.99
Opeth Blackwater Park: Legacy Edition $23.99
Agonist Prisoners $13.99
Meshuggah Koloss $13.99
Fear Factory The Industrialist $13.99