The eighteenth release by Los Angeles-based Lucky Dragons details the continuing pursuit of a humble and ecstatic, drippy and explosive, smoldering and upset music for our experience in America right now–messages of unrest have long failed to be clearly understood, solitude and empty organization have given way to a very current volcanic desire for togetherness. Genre has never been less important–influences and ideas are consumed and digested and released in the spirit of a culture larger than music as it is bought and sold. This is world music for a world that doesn’t care about “music” as we have packaged it for the last 100 years. You could call it post-noise, or post-anything you like, but we would prefer to call it pre-something.

Lucky Dragons came together in the spring of 2000 in an attempt to create a band that would never break up. The name is borrowed from a Japanese fishing vessel caught in the fallout of a US hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific ocean that became a focal point for world-wide anti-nuclear sentiment in the 20th century. With a constantly shifting group of participants, each recording is a record of a specific time and place, and of those present and active as a community in the creation of the recording. For this recording, the time is 2007-2008, the place is California. The name of the record refers to the landfill-island in Tokyo harbor where the original Lucky Dragon now lives–”dream island”, and to the creation of imaginary languages–”laughing language”–that can be used to express things our own languages can’t. As with Lucky Dragons’ legendary live performances, these recordings strive to create a space where community and memory and ritual and perspective all come together as a crystal and then vibrate and shatter.

LUCKY DRAGONS US TOUR DATES

3/27 Los Angeles, CA Hope Gallery
3/31 Los Angeles, CA Pehr Space
4/03 Baltimore, MD SCarey Studios
4/04 Washington, DC Hirshom Museum
4/05 Purchase, NY SUNY Purchase
5/23 New York, NY Whitney Museum
6/01 Los Angeles, CA The Smell
6/07 New York, NY East River Music Project

LUCKY DRAGONS - DREAM ISLAND LAUGHING LANGUAGE
OUT MAY 6, 2008 ON MARRIAGE RECORDS

TRACK LIST:

Side A

01 clipped gongs
02 starter culture
03 drinking dirty water
04 morning ritual
05 free guys by the sea
06 desert rose
07 mirror friends
08 band hammer
09 givers

Side B

10 my are singing
11 i keep waiting for earthquakes
12 typical hippies
13 wander birds
14 realistic rhythm
15 tune for wind dog
16 wooden cave loop
17 oh i understand

Bonus (CD only)

18 layer hater
19 what layer
20 where’s adam
21 very 1
22 very 2

FEATURED ARTISTS:

sarah rara - - singing, rocks, hands, flutes, mbira, poppies, mini bongos
luke fischbeck - - singing, rocks, rubber bands, mini dulcimer, flutes, bells, bowls, hands, mbira, poppies, necklaces, cassettes, piano, editing
tom van buskirk - - rocks, tambourine (on “free guys by the sea”)
annelise grimm - - rocks (on “free guys by the sea”)

PRESS QUOTES:

“Lucky Dragons… create ecstatic music that completely transcends genres. My attempts to describe what their music actually sounds like always fall short of the magic they are making. I guess you could say it sounds like-ecstatic magic. Challenging stereotypes that electronic music is cold and sterile, Lucky Dragons’ live show, though conducted via computers, is a truly great celebration of the human spirit, giving real hope for the techno-future our society is racing toward.”

-artforum

“a line between the handmade and the distanced digital… …a successful forging of the personal detritus, the mic-ed moments between moments”

-all music guide

“Lucky Dragons have managed to create a completely new strand of West Coast American psychedelia”

-frieze

DISCOGRAPHY:

dream island laughing language (marriage records / upset the rhythm / mistletone 2008) cd + 12″
speak your own language (glaciers of nice 2008) 7″ + book
layer hater (veneer magazine 2007) 5″ split with gaeoudjiparl
very (caff/flick 2007) 7″ picture disk
bleach on bleach (no label 2007) 12″ split with YACHT
widows (marriage records 2006)12″ + remixes cd
widows (states rights records 2006) cd
mini dream island (marriage records 2006) cd
heart stopping drums of passion (glaciers of nice 2006) cassette
future feelings (undereducated2006) luckydragons / sweet potatoes split cassette
a sewing circle (states rights records 2005) 47 track reissue compilation cd
live on radio centraal (ultra eczema 2004) split cd (withYACHT)
faults (hawks and sparrows 2004) full length cd-r
norteñas (pregnancy series 2004) enhanced cd ep
shh…! (555 recordings2004) 8″ lathe cut record
hawks and sparrows (hawks and sparrows 2003) full length cd-r + download
dark falcon (555 recordings 2002 (re-released cd + lp marriage records 2008)) cd
boys (english muffin records 2002) 7″ ep
f_uxus (english muffin records 2000) 7″ ep

LINKS:

Band Page: www.hawksandsparrows.org

Myspace: http://myspace.com/luckydragons

Label Page: http://www.marriagerecs.com

Lewis & Clarke is the nom de plume of Lou Rogai and current collaborators Eve Miller, Russell Higbee (also of contemporary groups Rachel’s and Man Man, respectively), and Dave Ulrich. The moniker has been described as metaphor for journey on many levels, including musical, spiritual, and physical. The name is also a reference to the fellowship and correspondence between C.S. Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke., not the 19th century explorers. Rogai is credited as composer/musician/songwriter as well as founder of La Société Expéditionnaire, an artist-based cooperative record label dedicated to exposing the wild and/or fragile music of colleagues. Rogai also regularly collaborates with Strand of Oaks and Moon & Moon.

The most recent musical styling of Lewis & Clarke can be described as avant chamber folk, or neo-baroque, while the first 2003 self-release Bright Light EP represents a reflective, dusty Americana sound. In 2003, MAGNET magazine declared Rogai as “a gifted newcomer”. Xavier Benoit, owner of the Belgian Delboy Records, discovered the early incarnation of Lewis & Clarke while on tour in the US, prompting Delboy to release Lewis & Clarke’s debut full length Bare Bones and Branches in Europe. This was supported by a short tour of the Benelux, and the album was met with critical acclaim. A live Lewis & Clarke track surfaced on a compilation issued by PIAS entitled Duyster, a “best of” compilation from Belgian National Radio’s program of the same name. Also featured were contemporaries Joanna Newsom, Mogwai, and Cat Power.

Rogai returned to Delaware Water Gap, PA, a mountain town steeped in rich musical history. A second full length, Blasts of Holy Birth, was initiated with Dave Ulrich, Miller and Higbee, also a native of Delaware Water Gap. During this process, The US version of Bare Bones and Branches (alternate takes, mixes, tracks and artwork) was released in 2005 by Summersteps, a micro-label most noted for their Jandek tribute albums. (Jandek himself expressed gratitude in a handwritten letter for particular tracks on Down in a Mirror Vol. II, including Lewis & Clarke’s cover of “Nancy Sings”)

La Société Expéditionnaire released Live on WPRB as live vinyl-only 12″ EP in the Fall of 2006. This recording captures the chemistry of Rogai, Ulrich and Higbee live on Princeton Radio, (without Miller, who was healing from an injury) and prepared listeners for Blasts of Holy Birth. It sets an ambiance including various chimes, vocals, new humans, eastern drones, harp, guitar, banjo, piano, percussion, and other whims, including the Expeditionary Grace Singers.

Bare Bones and Branches, originally released in the fall was called “The perfect Autumnal album” by the Associated Press. One can begin to detect clues and identify patterns of Lewis & Clarke as an organic, ever changing life’s work, with Blasts of Holy Birth being a major cornerstone defining the current Lewis & Clarke sound. Released in May 2007, it dovetails the symbolic nature of spring and birth, and represents themes found in a Taoist text called “Secret of the Golden Flower” (also the opening title track). Pitchfork calls it “Eight tracks of delicate Beauty” and notes Rogai as a “guitar connoisseur.”

LEWIS & CLARKE

03/26/08 - Pittsburgh, PA - Garfield Artworks
03/27/08 - Columbus, OH - Surly Girl w/ The Black Swans
03/28/08 - Chicago, IL - AV-aerie
03/29/08 - Madison, WI - The Annex w/ A Catapult Western, Matt Jennings, Patchwork
03/31/08 - Bloomington, IN - Art Hospital w/ Resting Rooster
04/02/08 - State College, PA - Roustabout! @ Bar Bleu
04/03/08 - Wilkes Barre, PA - Fixture @ Fuse w/ Illinois
04/04/08 - Philadelphia, PA - Circle of Hope w/Caroline Weeks + Mary Hampton
04/05/08 - Brooklyn, NY - Union Pool w/Caroline Weeks + Mary Hampton
04/06/08 - Cambridge, MA - The Lily Pad - w/Caroline Weeks + Mary Hampton
04/07/08 - New Britain, CT - The Art League of New Britain w/Caroline Weeks, Mary Hampton, + Mandrake

LINKS:

Band Page: www.lewisandclarkemusic.com

Myspace: www.myspace.com/lewisclarke

Press Materials: www.la-soc.com/blastspreview.html

Label Page: www.la-soc.com/lewis&clarke.html

After quietly releasing a number of highly-praised, mostly hand-traded cult releases over several years, Stars Like Fleas re-emerged recently with new clothing, sonic plastic surgery, and a desire to shed its underground trappings and engage audiences in the flesh. Almost instantly creating a stir and an overnight name for themselves in the overcrowded and sentiment-suspicious Brooklyn music scene, the Fleas began selling out exponentially larger shows in secret spaces as well as established venues. The group now has a brand new label home in the US, the esteemed Hometapes label which will release the band’s third album, The Ken Burns Effect on June 3, 2008.

Stars Like Fleas may truly represent a new branch on America’s phylogenetic musical tree, distinguishing themselves through an unlikely alchemy where anxiety and confrontation accompany something candid, joyous and unashamedly romantic. In already-mythic, transformational performances (praised in The Wire, Time Out, the Village Voice, etc, and countless blogs), Stars Like Fleas create music of its own haunted species; as accessible and humane as it is unsettling and extreme.

Having been compared to such far-flung groups as Xiu Xiu, Butch Morris, Animal Collective and Talk Talk, describing Stars Like Fleas is not a chore for the imagination-challenged: Pitchfork called Sun Lights Down On The Fence an uninhibited, “precognitive glimpse into the workings of the subconscious mind”; fellow Brooklynites Grizzly Bear called their live show “absolutely mind blowing” in a Dusted Magazine interview, and Salon.com said “few bands have the resolve to push their music as far toward formlessness, as well as the skill and concentration to coax that formlessness into something listenable, coherent and beautiful - brilliant”. Journalist Julianne Shepherd (Spin, XLR8R, Pitchfork) called Stars Like Fleas “possibly the best band i have seen in New York”; “quietly majestic”, said the Village Voice describing an electricity-free acoustic show in the Catskill Mountains.

The Ken Burns Effect, a document of the band’s growth over the past year, is an iconoclastic but more immediate, organic and lush album than its predecessors Sun Lights Down On The Fence, and Took The Ass For A Drive. When Fleas-fan, the composer Nico Muhly (arranger to Björk, Grizzly Bear, and Antony & The Jonsons) helped pass along early recordings drafts from The Ken Burns Effect to Björk producer/collaborator Valgeir Sigurðsson, the band were invited to Iceland to complete the record with him.

FUN FACT: Stars Like Fleas features (ex) members/contributors of TV on the Radio, Scarlett Johansson’s band, The Fiery Furnaces, Beirut, Tall Firs, Celebration, Mercury Rev, The Silent League and additional contributions by Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Sean Lennon, Fantomas)

STARS LIKE FLEAS - THE KEN BURNS EFFECT
OUT: JUNE 03, 2008 ON HOMETAPES

TRACK LIST:

1. Hoax Head
2. Karma’s Hoax
3. I Was Only Dancing
4. Falstaff
5. Early Riser
6. Berbers In Tennis Shoes
7. Toast Siren
8. See For The Woods
9. You Are My Memoir
10. Some Nettles

LINKS:

Band Page: www.slf.praemedia.com/

Myspace: www.myspace.com/starslikefleas

Label Page: www.home-tapes.com

Dear Spirit,

It may have been a while since you last heard from INDIAN JEWELRY.

In 2006, several members of the INDIAN JEWELRY songwriting and performance team found the bitch of fame licking them on the hand. Blinded by vanity, easy fame, self love, and the internet, they went into an early retirement.

For the last two years they have holed up between a private compound in Humboldt Park, Chicago and a private residence in Houston, Texas. There they put a light to the holes in their shoes and set to work on a perfect vision of the future.

In this time many people have attempted to wear their clothes and walk their dogs. Stop! These dogs can walk themselves.

Keep your ears open for the dulcet thunder. FREE GOLD! is just a key. A key to a perfect vision of the future. This vision is known by many names. Dog Cult. Many-headed persons. Blockhead.

FREE GOLD! was made to show you simple thing. You have the power! It is in your hand and it is within your reach.

You don’t have to walk alone.

INDIAN JEWELRY was gone, but now they’re coming back and there’s going to be a bloodbath.

Sir James Winnie

FREE GOLD! aka 120 KILOGRAMMS OF GOLD AND 10 KG OF DIAMOND

INDIAN JEWELRY - FREE GOLD!
OUT: MAY 20, 2008 ON WE ARE FREE

TRACK LIST:

1.SWANS
2.TEMPORARY FAMINE SHIP
3.SEASONAL ECONOMY
4.POMPEII
5.WALKING ON THE WATER
6.TOO MUCH HONKYTONKING
7.NONETHELESS
8.BIRD IS BROKE (WON’T SING)
9.SYLLABIC VIAAGRA
10.EVERYDAY
11.HELLO AFRICA
12.WERNER’S SUBTLE BODIES
13.OVERDRIVE
14.SEVENTH HEAVEN

LINKS:

Band Page: www.swarmofangels.com

Myspace: www.myspace.com/indianjewelry

Label Page: www.nowwearefree.com

Press Materials: www.nowwearefree.com/press/IJ.html