✨ IC Community Weekly #32
ft. War Violet, Al Menne, Sarah Mary Chadwick and Subsonic Eye, Fire Talk Shop's grand opening, a blue smiley video, a Sarah Morrison interview, tours, events & more!
Hey and welcome to a new edition of IC Community Weekly!
In the week where the Debby Friday record GOOD LUCK won the 2023 Polaris Music Prize, the IC community, as usual, released lots of great music.
Keep scrolling for that, but first, some general community bits…
If you’re at Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, A2IM are hosting a B2Beer Garden Happy Hour event tonight between 5 and 6:30 at Weingarten (Spielbudenplatz 26, 20359) that’s open to all festival pass holders.
The grand opening party of the Fire Talk physical store in NYC, is tonight (Sept 22nd) between 6pm and 8pm. It’s at 67 West St. Greenpoint Brooklyn.
A reminder that Kill Rock Stars Nashville is hosting a Sumptuous Repast event as part of the AMERICANAFEST festivities this weekend in Nashville. It takes place tomorrow (Sept 23rd) at AB between 12pm-5pm and is open to the general public.
Catapult Recordings are looking for PR/publicist recommendations.
A2IM Indie Week panel provider & speaker suggestion forms for next year's event are now live.
NEW IC CATALOGS
A very warm 🤝 to…
Mama Bird Recording Co., an indie label based in an ancient schoolhouse just outside Portland, Oregon. It was set up in 2011 by Vikesh Kapoor, Barna Howard, and Vincent Bancheri and their catalog includes releases from Damien Jurado, Haley Heynderickx and Courtney Marie Andrews among many others.
Cursed To Blessed Music Entertainment, an NYC based publisher and distributor.
NEW RELEASES
If you’re an IC catalog or creator and there’s anything you want to be sure we include next time, just reply and let us know - this goes out to 2000+ inboxes every week!
ALBUMS
🎧 Double Double Whammy released Freak Accident, the new album by Al Menne (lead singer of the excellent Seattle band Great Grandpa) today. Menne said about the record’s lead track: “I grew up feeling like I didn’t really belong. I felt kind of like an outsider in my own family for a little bit. I’d ask myself, why do I feel so weird in all of these situations? And I think it’s because I’m trans, and I didn’t know it then.”
🎧 Kill Rock Stars released Messages To God, the eighth solo studio album by New Zealand singer-songwriter Sarah Mary Chadwick. The album was recently awarded a 7.5 rating from Pitchfork and 9/10 by The Line of Best Fit, who said the record’s “… a mighty impactful portrait of grief, recovery and vulnerability… alternately bruising, funny and thought-provoking, it is a testament to one of the 21st century’s most powerful songwriters.”
🎧 Earth Libraries released the self-titled debut album by Abby Johnson, a record that offers “…timeless folk songwriting teeming with a classic Nashville golden-era sheen” and is “… full of poetic clarity, positioning Johnson as a contemporary continuation of a seventies style birthed by the likes of Linda Ronstadt.” (Various Small Flames)
🎧 Topshelf Records released All Around You, the new record by Singaporean band Subsonic Eye, which sees them “…greet the anxieties of adulthood and refine their sensitive brand of indie rock with conviction” (NME)
🎧 Free Dirt released Imaginary People, the new record by indie roots duo Viv & Riley, which was produced by Alex Bingham of Hiss Golden Messenger and is a “musically complex and emotionally profound work.” (Folk Radio)
🎧 Blue Heart Records released Rose-colored Glasses Vol 2, the new record by Grammy nominees Teresa James & The Rhythm Tramps.
🎧 ZZK Records released the new record by Luzmila Carpio called Inti Watana: El Retorno del Sol, her first LP in a decade. The new album spans “… genres, generations and continents, with Luzmila’s sonorous, occasionally birdsong-inspired vocalizations gracefully gliding amongst ambient textures, programmed beats and (of course) a bevy of traditional instrumentation from around the globe.”
SINGLES
🎧 Chapter Music released a two track digital single by Melbourne punk-funk icons NO ZU. After breaking up officially earlier this year, the band decided to release a parting gift to fans, pairing a take on 1981 post-punk gem Last Words by 23 Skidoo with a remix of Heat Beat Head by Grim Up North
🎧 Polyvinyl released Dog Years / Queen of Comedy, a double single by Good Morning, in advance of their North American tour
+ they also released a new Squirrel Flower track Intheskatepark, from her forthcoming album Tomorrow’s Fire
🎧 PAN released Pretty Canary, a “blindingly bizarre” single by Tongue in the Mind, a new band ft. Juliana Huxtable, Jealous Orgasm and Via App
PRE-ORDERS
🎧 Kill Rock Stars announced that the new Cidny Bullens album Little Pieces will be out October 27th. The record “… explores Bullens’ transition and recent years through burnished twangy rock and immense hooks that will embed immediately into the heart”. Pre-order
🎧 Royal Mountain announced that Going Through It, the debut of LA-based songstress Eliza McLamb, is coming out on January 19th 2024. Pre-order
VIDEOS
🖥️ War Violet (Kill Rock Stars), the musical project of artist and multi-instrumentalist Olajumoke “Jummy” Aremu, released a video for her single Different Formations. She said of the track: “Different Formations is about coming to terms with the decay of our Earth and atmosphere, and our search for meaning… A letter to the wonderful and horrifying chaos of Earth, a place where there is extreme beauty, but also decay, all happening at once.”
🖥️ Topshelf Records released the video for coma by blue smiley, a Philly band who tragically lost their lead singer Brian Nowell in 2017. In order to give blue smiley the long-lasting legacy the band deserve, they partnered with Topshelf to reissue physical versions of their two LPs: ok and return, as well as sharing an official music video for their previously unreleased song, coma:
INTERVIEWS
🎙️ Sarah Morrison (Ramp Local) spoke to Foxy Digitalis about her earliest experienced with music, her interest in psychological horror films and what surprised her most about making her new record
FROM THE ARCHIVE
🖥️ The second outing of a new section where I'll choose a video I love from YouTube’s treasure trove of music videos, live performances and curiosities.
This time, the music video for Body’s In Trouble by Mary Margaret O’Hara (sister of the actress Catherine O'Hara), taken from her only full-length studio album to date, Miss America, which was released in 1988 by Virgin Records.
The record went through development hell (production took around 5 years) and despite critical acclaim wasn’t a success on release, but went on to gain cult status, with Laura Snapes, in her 2018 review of it for Pitchfork, writing that it ranks alongside "…David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones, and Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man as one of the 1980s' jarring noir masterpieces”
The video, directed by the late John Lloyd, features her signature eccentric dancing and may or may not have been an inspiration for the moves in the R.E.M. video for Losing my Religion. Either way Michael Stipe later called her “one of the most powerful singers I've ever heard" and a "performer of astonishing force."
SHOWS, TOURS + EVENTS
🗓️ After the grand opening of their Brooklyn physical store today, Fire Talk have some upcoming events taking place there:
🚌 Caleb Nichols (Kill Rock Stars) is touring his latest album over the next couple months | TICKETS
🚌 Kishi Bashi (Joyful Noise) is kicking off a US tour in November in support of his song film Omoiyari. Includes a screening of the film, followed by a live performance | TICKETS
📆 UPCOMING INDUSTRY EVENTS
+ check out the 🎟 Events Directory for more conferences, festivals, record fairs, webinars, etc!
Sept 20th - 23rd ‣ Reeperbahn (Hamburg, Germany)
Sept 21st - 24th ‣ Louder Than Life (Louisville, KY, USA)
Sept 26th - 28th ‣ Future Music Forum (Barcelona, Spain)
Sept 30th - Oct 1st ‣ Sound On Sound (Bridgeport, CT, US)
Oct 3rd - 5th ‣ Production Music Association Conference (LA, CA, US)
Oct 3rd - 6th ‣ Ireland Music Week (Dublin, Ireland)
Oct 6th - 8th ‣ Austin City Limits Music Festival (Weekend 1) (Austin, TX, US)
Oct 9th - 15th ‣ MUTEK (Mexico City, Mexico)
Oct 10th - 13th ‣ MONDO NYC (NY, US)
Oct 11th - 13th ‣ MAMA (Paris, France)
Oct 11th - 15th ‣ BreakOut West (Kelowna, BC, Canada)
Oct 13th - 15th ‣ Austin City Limits Music Festival (Weekend 2) (Austin, TX, US)
Oct 14th ‣ IMSTA FESTA Seoul (Seoul, South Korea)
Oct 18th - 22nd ‣ Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
That’s all for this one! Stay safe and we’ll catch you next week for more.
- Adam & the Infinite Catalog crew