Grayson Currin ·
2 Dec 2009, 3:20 PM ·
4 Comments
Assloads of cash. Assloads.
When Durham quartet Free Electric State booked studio time to make the follow-up to their excellent two-song debut demo, they aimed only for the next step in size: Cut an EP, and see if any labels were interested in a longer project. Turns out, they didn’t have to wait.
“Kyle and Steve said, ‘We’re not interested in putting out an EP. We’d rather do a full-length,’” says Free Electric State’s Shirlé Hale Koslowski of Kyle Miller and Steve Jones, who run the Durham label Churchkey Records. “We had the songs, so we said we would record more. It wasn’t our initial plan, but it made sense.”
The band cut the core of the LP over three days in late October at the Mebane studio of producer Jerry Kee. Over the last two-plus decades, Kee has worked with Superchunk, Ryan Adams, Bad Checks, Shark Quest and, oh, about half of the bands in the Triangle. In fact, Koslowski and husband David, who plays guitar and sings in Free Electric State, worked with him in their former band, Gerty! Just before Thanksgiving, they returned to Kee’s to add overdubs and finalize mixes. Chicago’s Carl Saff is currently mastering the disc.
The nine-song LP, titled Caress, features a reworked version of “Hawks,” from this year’s demo release, as well as two new songs that the band has yet to play locally, “Matching Scars” and “The Black Sea.” Those tunes will get their premiere Friday, when Free Electric State joins Irata and The White Cascade for a 10 p.m. show at Slim’s.
The record, though, will have to wait: Churchkey plans to drop Caress in mid-April 2010.“I feel like it’s so far away,” says Koslowski, laughing, “that we’ll have another album written by then.”
For Free Electric State’s alternate version of how the deal with Churchkey went down, hit the jump. Continue reading »
In the Studio, News flashes Churchkey Records, Free Electric State
Bryan Reed ·
25 Jun 2009, 12:19 PM ·
5 Comments
Red star.
In defense of Twitter: There are some pretty sweet tweets floating around, including one yesterday from @hnmtf. “We just released a new track from the looking for bruce recording session Do the Human - FREE!,” it read, offering a link to a bit of Web 2.0 marketing shared between Windows and ReverbNation—wherein one could, as promised, download “Do The Human.”
For local fans, “Do The Human” isn’t entirely new: It was (but isn’t any more) offered as a digital bonus for folks who ordered Hammer’s J. Robbins-produced Looking For Bruce directly from Churchkey Records, and I swear, I heard a demo of this song floating around more than a year ago. Hammer’s Duncan Webster backs me up. “‘Do The Human’ was actually the third song we ever wrote. I think we wrote it in January of 2007. It was on our demo CD.” Continue reading »
New Music Bull City, Churchkey Records, Future Kings of Nowhere, Hammer No More the Fingers, Microsoft, ReverbNation, Schooner, Sponsored Songs, Windows
Grayson Currin ·
16 Apr 2009, 7:21 PM ·
2 Comments
Ready out of the gutter: Superchunk at Cat's Cradle, Wednesday, April 15.
Superchunk, Hammer No More the Fingers
Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro
Wednesday, April 15
I’ve been trying to remember the last time Superchunk played, you know, a normal hometown gig, and I’m drawing a blank: Last year, they gigged for Barack Obama outdoors under the warm spring sun and for Cy Rawls inside a sweaty Cat’s Cradle; previously, there was the show with then-labelmates Dinosaur Jr. in which both bands only pulled from their first three albums, a Tsunami benefit, an Alejandro Escovedo benefit and Merge’s 15th anniversary party almost exactly five years ago.* But when’s the last time the quartet—closing in on two decades of two lineups and two names—simply got up on stage and played a casual set for the locals? Last night, April 15, actually.
Continue reading »
Live Actions: Reviews Churchkey Records, Hammer No More the Fingers, Merge Records, Superchunk
