Charlie Hickey - Count the Stairs - VINYL LP

Born in 1999, Charlie Hickey grew up in South Pasadena, just minutes from Downtown Los Angeles. Raised by two singer-songwriter parents, Charlie's second language was music since day one. As early as grade school, he was making sense of the world through songwriting, and by middle school he was writing, recording and performing songs that attracted a community of collaborators and could silence a room. A turning point for Charlie came at around the age of thirteen, when he covered a song by then up-and-coming artist Phoebe Bridgers, who was still in high school herself. The two quickly became friends and collaborators, setting Charlie on an exciting new musical path. Years later, Bridgers introduced Charlie to songwriter, drummer, producer and her bandmate Marshall Vore, who noticed something special about Charlie. The two began writing and recording songs together, and soon Charlie dropped out of school to work on his music full-time. Charlie Hickey's first proper single, out now, is InchNo Good At Lying.Inch The Marshall Vore-produced track introduces us to Charlie's evocative storytelling and features Phoebe Bridgers on backing vocals. InchI'm no good at lying / on my back or through my teeth / but I'm good at dreaming / I can do it in my sleep,Inch he sings over hushed guitars and a whimsical banjo, searching for truth as his unconscious mind runs wild and bleeds into reality. It's a slow, quiet, and understated peek to the world of Charlie Hickey, who is barely of legal drinking age, but taps into such universal themes that showcase a wisdom beyond his years and exudes promise for what's to come.

Dreams Laid Down brings to life the works of several acclaimed composers, evoking a tender, reflective atmosphere. Inspired by sources from the Beatles to the poetry of Rinehart's wife, the album creates an intimate aural experience that is as personal to the listener as it is to the artist himself. The title track, composed by Michael Karmon, is named after a book of poems by Rinehart's wife Janice Notland. Karmon animated six of her poems with thoughtful, evocative compositions. Contrast this with composer John Oliver's Ancient Heroes Suite. Oliver, inspired by ancient music conventions, worked with dance-oriented rhythms in experimental time signatures that recall melodies resonating through ancient halls, while filtering them through a modern context. Variaciones Sobre un Tema de Juan Lennon, written by New Brunswick composer Richard Gibson as a wedding gift for his daughter Julia, reimagines parts of a song originally written by John Lennon. Exploring shifts in key signatures, major and minor modes, and alternate harmonization, Gibson takes the pop song and breathes his unique perspective into it. The album is rounded out with works by two more well-established Canadian composers. Guitarist-composer William Beauvais contributes his improvisatory and rhythmic Beginning of the Day and Vancouver's David Gordon Duke explores the full range of guitaristic colors in his Soliloquies and Dreams. Dreams Laid Down tenderly beckons for the listener's attention with the lilting strains of classical guitar. Showcasing Rinehart's inspired musical gifts, the gentle performance warmly invites audiences into a serene listening experience.

Born into a musical family, as a child Charlie Hickey would obsessively watch videos of his parents on tour in their old band Uma, learning all the lyrics that he loved but didn't understand. This introduction to music sowed a seed, and Hickey was soon writing songs of his own, playing on the guitars that lay around him and singing about the little details of his school days. He continued throughout his teen years, his songs becoming an outlet for the growing anxieties that Hickey now understands to be Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This journey has led to Nervous At Night, Hickey's debut album which releases in the early Summer of 2022 via Phoebe Bridgers' Saddest Factory Records. Where 2021's Count The Stairs EP was an attempt to capture the rawness of his performance, Nervous At Night comes alive within it's production, Hickey and producer Marshall Vore leaning into their perfectionist endencies to find the best version of each track. InchHe's always interested in how you can push things further but also reigns them in when necessary,Inch Hickey says. InchI think that's the true hallmark of a good producer.Inch Hickey calls it a pop record but admits that sonically it moves in many directions, an amalgamation of his love for the folk singers of yesteryear and more contemporary peers, from Taylor Swift and The 1975 to the Californian songwriter and producer Blake Mills. This shifting of styles - from the album's quiet heavy-hearted ballads to it's more gleaming, hookled tracks - mirrors it's overarching theme life's graceless passage between teenage years and adulthood. And so we have 'Planet With Water', a plaintive love song that bristles with nostalgia, Hickey singing of phone calls after school, of hearing a neighbor's TV through the wall. Elsewhere 'Mid Air' holds a similar weight, Hickey singing of Inchspinning in mid-air, waiting for somewhere to land, or so