41+ members strong — the Joan of Arc extended family comes together for 18 exclusive songs curated by Joan of Arc frontman Tim Kinsella. Released today (January, 26th) on Polyvinyl Records!
Joan of Arc Presents: Don’t Mind Control features new songs by 18 rad artists who have played in Joan of Arc at one time or another including Empty Cellar’s very own Pillars and Tongues and The Cairo Gang!
Track Listing:
1. Litesalive: Uwar
2. Disappears: Guider
3. Birdshow: Privacy
4. A Tundra: The Doug McComb Over
5. Owen: No More No Where
6. White/Light: Kickstart
7. Euphone w/Tim Kinsella: Friend in Common
8. Slick Conditions: Spit in Layers
9. Cale Parks: Long Looks
10. Joshua Abrams: Blanes Echo Blirds, Bless Echo Blouds
11. The Cairo Gang: Oh Solo
12. Tim Kinsella: Roots Dug into Dunes = Landslide
13. Jeremy Boyle: Second Door From the Left
14. The Zoo Wheel: Flicker
15. Vacations: Friday the 13th Part 2
16. Pillars and Tongues: Oakey
17. Ghosts and Vodka: Gameshow Buzzer
18. Birthmark: Drivin’ Me Crazy
Empty Cellar Records is stoked to announce the release date for Pillars and Tongues – Lay Of Pilgrim Park: February 9th, 2010!
Reserve your presale copy now at the Endless Nest Store. All presale orders ship before the release date.
About the record:
After spending more than a third of 2009 touring the United States and Europe, including a month-long tour supporting Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Pillars and Tongues returned to Chicago and executed, in two days, Lay of Pilgrim Park. Recorded primarily live, Lay of Pilgrim Park reads like a map, like a document of a certain space. Rich string textures molded by violinist Beth Remis and bassist Evan Hydzik and fluid vocal improvisations by all three members of the trio flow alongside deep, primal, danceable grooves; percussionist/singer Mark Trecka’s bold lyrical enterprises, styled like a cross between Pandit Pran Nath and Tim Buckley, explore concepts of constant mystery, the impossibility of absolute knowledge, and the purging of those unwanted or crippling things acquired along the way. The music on this record is not easily situated within genre constraints, but has drawn comparisons to music as varied as Dirty Three, Dead Can Dance, the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir and Moondog. Pillars and Tongues has shared the stage with a great variety of artists, from Tuvan
throat-singing icons Chirgilchin to feral instrumental-rock pioneers the Dirty Three. This Empty Cellar release of Lay of Pilgrim Park marks the band’s first time on vinyl. This LP comes with a free CD-quality digital download of the entire album. Limited to 500 copies.
The Sandwitches will be performing TWO epic sets at the oldest bar on the west coast tonight, brought to you by Indian Summer Music. If you live in the Bay Area and have a hankerin’ for a healthy and intimate dose of the Sandwitches, then cruise through the fog and over Mt. Tam to Smiley’s Schooner Saloon.
For those of you who don’t know about Bolinas… it is a secluded northern California beach town located in the heart of the Red Triangle (a region known for its high density of great white sharks and pot farms).
Bob Boilen, the creator and host of NPR’s All Songs Considered, selected the Dry Spells’ “Too Soon For Flowers” yesterday as his pick for “Album of the Year”. Congratulations to the Dry Spells!
Listen to a stream of the show “Discussion: The Year In Music, 2009” HERE
Purchase the LP + Download at the Endless Nest store HERE
…and check out what other people have been saying recently:
“Lush, eerie, dreamy and haunting, gorgeous vocal harmonies, minimal percussion, equal parts seventies British folk and seventies Laurel Canyon pop, woven into a witchy gothic brew that is totally enchanting. Strings soar, unfurling melancholy melodies, and guitars jangle, but it’s the female vocals that seal the deal, a la Sandy Denny, Jacqui McShee of Pentangle, Bobbie Watson from Comus, Stevie Nicks, you get the idea, bewitching and ethereal, raw and powerful and emotional, and the harmonies, so captivating and otherworldly, wow. The Dry Spells manage to sound so timeless, this record definitely sounds contemporary, but if the lush production was dialed back just a little, this could easily have been some lost seventies psych folk reissue. Absolutely stunning. ” – Aquarius Records
“They balance folk and the kind smoldering 70’s rock balladry that moved Stevie Nicks’ shawl to action, bent strings in Pentangle and Fairport and has more recently been embraced by fellow Frisco-dwellers The Sandwitches. […] The band manages to wring soaring emotion and sadness out with a triumphant and wide-flung delivery rather than adopt the tendency of latter day folk-rock to wrestle with and finally succumb to overwhelming melancholy. A definite rare surprise in a bewilderingly narrowing field of entrancing folk.” – Raven Sings The Blues
Pillars and Tongues will be releasing a full length LP, Lay of Pilgrim Park, and The Cairo Gang will be releasing a 7″ e.p., Holy Clover, this winter on Empy Cellar Records (Holy Clover is released in collaboration with Tin Angel Records). It will be the first – long overdue – vinyl release by either of these artists. Paul Oldham recently finished mastering both records, which will be at the pressing plant next week, and available sometime in January. Until then, you can watch the lo-fi gem above by The American Opry of The Cairo Gang performing “Holy Clover” in New Mexico.
Both bands hail, at least in part, from Chicago and have played with each other across the country. Their music is some of the most thoughtful material we have heard in a long time… so, we are genuinely stoked! Coincidentally, they are both featured on Joan of Arc’s forthcoming release Don’t Mind Control.
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