Winterpills - Love Songs - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Winterpills - Echolalia [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/14/2014

Winterpills first unknowingly convened in a room with no furniture, on a shiny, bare wood floor, in front of a large bay window, during a harsh recent winter, in a small New England town. The good cheap magnums of wine were in season, as were guitars, and friends in need, some typically dire. Out the bay window, the snow flurried past the yellow streetlights on a treeless street called Orchard. Philip lay on the floor, looked up and saw his friend Flora, and later, to her left, his friend Dennis. It was time to play anything they wanted, and play they did, often not stopping until the sun came up. The catalogs of the Beatles, Throwing Muses, Neil Young, Stephen Merritt, the Carter Family, Elliott Smith, and others were all explored with no other thoughts than the friends, the wine, and the snow, eyes closed. Stealthily and casually, a sleeping body of Philip's songs began creeping into the mix. Very late one night, Dave Hower appeared at the door and joined the others, completing a sound the four knew and understood. They touched the songs very lightly, as if pushing them too hard might cause them to disappear. Dennis' guitar echoed the notes beneath each passage. Philip and Flora's voices together made a third, new, unheard voice. Dave's subtle and swirling beats pulled the shapes of the songs like taffy into sweeter, brighter forms that stayed light and yet lived well in the dark and the cold. Much like the improbable bumblebee, a beautiful new band formed and chose to fly. With their debut, Winterpills deliver an album that marks the arrival of a quietly stunning new band. Philip's transcendent melodies have never sounded more compelling or been performed with such reverence. Showcasing intimate male female vocals, haunting electric guitar, and bold inventive drumming, the album captures the sound of a band that has discovered a rare alignment of musicianship. From

I was in a dream, but now I can see that change is the only law.With a credo adapted from science fiction author Octavia E. Butler, an album title from a collection of metaphysical poetry, and an expansion in consciousness brought on by personal crisis, guitarist and songwriter Shana Cleveland learns to embrace a changing world with unconditional love on News of the Universe, the new full-length from California rock band La Luz.News of the Universe is a record born of calamity, a work of dark, beautiful psychedelia reflecting Cleveland's experience of having her world blown apart by a breast cancer diagnosis just two years after the birth of her son. It's also a portrait of a band in flux, marking the first appearance for drummer Audrey Johnson and the final ones from longtime members bassist Lena Simon and keyboardist Alice Sandahl, whose contributions add a bittersweet edge to a record that is both elegy for an old world and cosmic road map to a strange new one.But is there any band in the world more suited to capturing the chaos of change in all it's messy beauty than La Luz? Formed by Cleveland in 2012, La Luz is beloved for their ability to balance bedlam and bliss, each new record another fine-tuning of the band's mix of swaggering riffs with angelic vocals borrowed from doo-wop and folk; a band so reliably great that it makes the huge step forward in confidence and sheer musicality that is News of the Universe all the more formidable. Cleveland, also a writer and painter, has developed into a truly original songwriter with her own canon of haunted psychedelia. Yet if Cleveland has spent years writing songs about ghosts, what lurks in the shadows of News of the Universe is nothing less than death itself. InchThere are moments on this album that sound to me like the last frantic confession before an asteroid destroys the earth,Inch says Cleveland. The powerful se