Featuring Woods, Blank Dogs, Crystal Stilts, Kurt Vile, Vivian Girls, The Oh Sees, Dum Dum Girls, Ganglians, The Mayfair Set, Real Estate, The Fresh & Onlys, Tyvek, Cause Co-Motion! and many more!
Since forming in early 2007, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart have become one of the most talked about pop bands in years. Their distinctive brand of noisy pop is a tidy distillation of all the great noise-pop precedents - early MBV, House of Love, Pale Saints, Rocketship - but with that incredible exuberance and energy that the Pains bring to every song. They have released a handful of singles on classy labels like Slumberland, Fortuna Pop!, Atomic Beat and Cloudberry, each one issued to greater anticipation and even wilder reception. Critical acclaim has come from such varied quarters as Stereogum, Fader, Big Takeover, Indie Pages, Skatterbrain, Drowned In Sound, Indie-MP3, Clash Magazine and uncountable others.
Following up the band’s ace “Everything With You” single and whirlwind Swedish tour, we are delighted to bring you their self-titled debut album. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart is an instant classic, packed with brilliantly-executed pop gems that blend the rush of youthful enthusiasm with crafty arrangements, well-honed tunes and buckets of guitar racket. Drawing on the sparkling legacy of the best of 80s and 90s pop, POBPAH update the timeless noisy pop template with a thoroughly modern viewpoint and a very distinctive, playful personality. There is something instantly identifiable about a Pains tune, and it is the essential “rightness” of their records that has captured the attention of pop fans around the world and raised anticipation levels for this album to a near-fever pitch.
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart delivers on this promise with perfect assurance. Smashing tunes like “Come Saturday” and “Young Adult Friction” are classic three minute masterpieces that simply beg to be played on repeat. “Stay Alive” and “Gentle Sons” show the band can slow it down and still rock it, and “Hey Paul” is as brash a slice of noise-blast guitar pop as you’ll hear all year. Weighing in at a flawlessly-conceived ten songs, this is all the album that Pains fans had hoped for. Handily transcending easy pigeonholes like “indie pop” and “indie rock,” it is just a great album that shows a smart young band fulfilling their potential and crafting a very convincing statement of purpose.
THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART
Jun 18 2009 Cake Shop New York, New York #
July 10 2009 South Street Seaport New York, New York % (FREE)
July 18 2009 Pitchfork Fest Chicago, Illinois
July 20 2009 The Echo Los Angeles, California *
July 21 2009 The Rickshaw Stop San Fransisco, California *
July 23 2009 Backspace Portland, Oregon *
July 24 2009 Biltmore Cabaret Vancouver, BC *
July 25 2009 Capitol Hill Block Party Seattle, Washington
Sep 05 2009 Middle East Downstairs, Boston, Massachusetts &+
Sep 06 2009 La Sala Rossa Montreal, Quebec &+
Sep 07 2009 Horeshoe Tavern Toronto, Ontario &+
Sep 08 2009 Logan Square Auditorium Chicago, Illinois &+
Sep 09 2009 Stage Door at the Orpheum Madison, Wisconsin &+
Sep 10 2009 The Slowdown Omaha, Nebraska &+
Sep 12 2009 Monolith Festival Morrison, Colorado
Sep 13 2009 Kilby Court Salt Lake City, Utah &+
Sep 14 2009 Neurolux Boise, Idaho &+
Sep 17 2009 MFNW / Doug Fir Portland, Oregon &+
Sep 21 2009 Casbah San Diego, California &+
Sep 22 2009 Club Congress Tucson, Arizona &+
Sep 24 2009 Lola’s Fort Worth, Texas &+
Sep 25 2009 The Mohawk Austin, Texas &+
Sep 26 2009 One Eyed Jacks New Orleans, Louisiana &+
Sep 27 2009 Club Downunder Tallahassee, Florida &+
Sep 28 2009 The Earl Atlanta, Georgia &+
Sep 29 2009 Local 506 Chapel Hill, North Carolina &+
Sep 30 2009 Black Cat, Washington DC &+
Oct 01 2009 Ottobar Baltimore, Maryland &+
Oct 05 2009 First Unitarian Church Philadelphia, Pennsylvania &+
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart S/T
(Slumberland)
Street date: Feb. 03, 2009
1.Contender
2.Come Saturday
3.Young Adult Friction
4.This Love is Fucking Right!
5.The Tenure Itch
6.Stay Alive
7.Everything With You
8.A Teenager in Love
9.Hey Paul
10.Gentle Sons
What if the sound of wind through trees could be translated into human words? What is it saying?
For WIND’S POEM by Mount Eerie, Phil Elverum spent almost two years out behind the house, at the edge of the woods, listening into the night and finding these words. Songs of impermanence, dark change, destruction, temporary blossoming, mortality, and an immense river of air tearing through the world make up the 3rd official album by Mount Eerie.
A hundred kinds of distortion, oceans of synth, and clouds of bass are the elements these twelve songs are built from, with moments of clarity occasionally revealing soft harmonies (featuring Nick Krgovich from Vancouver’s NO KIDS) reverently attempting to describe a dark mystery. The album holds a large debt to the music and world of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, as well as to some of the more innovative artists on the edges of ambient, colossal Black Metal. Like these influences, WIND’S POEM also drifts back and forth between a “dream world”, where the wind screams about fleeting existence, and reality, standing on the street, wide awake, looking at the hills outside town, remembering.
The album is well built, resting on the stone-solid production of Mount Eerie’s only actual member, Phil Elverum, recorded at various locations around his hometown of Anacortes, Washington. In large walls of warm noise you can hear the wind, or is it flames?, or cymbals?, voice-like through the fog. And then all at once the clouds part and a song hangs in the air, soft and clear.
WIND’S POEM comes on double clear vinyl in an old-style gatefold jacket with bronze foil stamping and a pull out lyric poster, or on CD or digital. Mount Eerie will be touring in a full band version all over the US in support of this album in the fall of 2009, featuring (among other things) 2 drummers, some gongs, and a wall of amps. Songs of impermanence sung huge, distorted, and warm.
MOUNT EERIE
Mon. June 15th- Bellingham, WA The Nightlight
Thu. June 25th- Calgary, AB Central United Church / Sled Island Fest
July 17th, 18th & 19th- Anacortes, WA What The Heck Fest
July 31st to August 2nd- Sackville, NB Sappy Fest
Aug. 13th - 15th- Asheville, NC Transfigurations
Mount Eerie Wind’s Poem
(P.W. Elverum and Sun)
formats: 2xLP, CD, digital
themes: erosion/mortality
1. Wind’s Dark Poem
2. Through the Trees
3. My Heart Is Not at Peace
4. The Hidden Stone
5. Wind Speaks
6. Summons
7. The Mouth of Sky
8. Between Two Mysteries
9. Ancient Questions
10. (something)
11. Lost Wisdom Pt. 2
12. Stone’s Ode
The fourth full length by Woods, Songs of Shame, rips deeper with both 90-second and 10-minute forays into skeletal psychedelia. This is not to say the idiosyncratic songwriting style and vocalizing of Jeremy Earl is not present in spades but expanded, colored, and twisted into a tie-dye of soundscapes. Having toured incessantly over the last 12 months as a four piece (Jarvis Taveniere, G. Lucas Crane and Kevin Morby round out the band), many of the songs on Shame benefit from having been road worn, windblown, and deeply grooved. Released on Earl’s own Woodsist label (Wavves, Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts) and on digital formats by the cassette culture poineers, Shrimper Records.
“Songs of Shame performs some sleight-of-hand by sounding private and homespun yet also not just accessible but immediately lovable… has that almost subliminal ability to make one want to move in to listen more closely. And once you’ve been drawn in for a good listen, it becomes difficult not to want to come back for many more.” -Pitchfork
“Tons of great acts played the Woodsist/Todd P. showcase at Mrs. Beas (No Age, Crystal Stilts, The Oh Sees and Blank Dogs just to name a few), but the one that struck the biggest chord with me was this Brooklyn group. Crafting tight and beautifully lighthearted ghostly folkish songs - they are one of the finest bands playing in the unbelievably deep Brooklyn scene. I’ve seen them a bunch, and each time I get more excited about their sound.” - MTV.com, Buzzworthy
WOODS
06/12 Westport, CT 58 Post Road East *
06/13 Brooklyn, NY The Shank #
07/04 Brooklyn, NY 979 Broadway / Woodsist & Captured Tracks Fest
07/15 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom $
07/16 Brooklyn, NY Cameo Gallery - Mexican Summer / Insound
07/24 New York, NY Whitney Museum
* = w/ Danielson
# = w/ Blues Control, Kurt Vile
$ = w/ WAVVES, Real Estate
Woods Songs of Shame
(Woodsist / Shrimper)
1. To Clean
2. The Hold
3. The Number
4. September with Pete
5. Down This Road
6. Military Madness
7. Born to Lose
8. Echo Lake
9. Rain On
10. Gypsy Hand
11. Where and What Are You?
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Mount Eerie
Woods