We’re hereby requesting all available kind thoughts, prayers, incantations, spell-weaving, positive vibes, and general well-wishing for our cat, Allister McVittes, as he goes into surgery this morning. He’s been with us for 12 years and around for at least 4 years before that and he means the world to us.
We’ll be playing this song on repeat until we get the guy back.
We’re happy to announce yet another collaboration with creative collective Pel (wrote up some other work we did with Pel a while back, including that Web site). This one’s less heavy or serious than our usual work together but, nonetheless, it’s one that’s close to both our hearts and that of Pel principal, Paul Signh.
A while back, Paul ran a music blog named Forgotten Favorite that endeavored to share with the world rediscovered classics (at least ten years old).
Now, so many years later, Pel and raven + crow studio are partnering up to bring Forgotten Favorite back to life.
The site’s namesake is “My Forgotten Favorite”, a song by seminal noise pop band and common favorite between us, Velocity Girl. The song also serves as the inaugural post by Paul. I follow it up with one of my all-time favorite bands, Huggy Bear.
We created the new design and site branding, pulling the color palette directly from the 1991 Slumberland single for “My Forgotten Favorite”.
You can read both write-ups and listen to the songs over at Forgotten Favorite.
Paul + I will be regularly posting new…old songs to the site and employing friends and fellow lovers of music to write up their own forgotten favorites, so stay tuned!
We wrote the band Stolen Jars up when we first heard their intricate, beautifully layered single, “Folded Out”, back last July. The young band’s working on their second full-length now, with a smattering of live dates in the NYC area, and we thought now was as good a time as any to talk with the band before they get all massively popular.
raven + crow: Alright, first thing’s first—where’s the name come from? Why would one steal jars—they’re so cheap!
Cody: When I was first making this music, I wasn’t quite sure where to begin. I found myself going back to all the different artists I had listened to over the years—Elvis Costello, Against Me!, Arcade Fire, Dirty Projectors—and trying to collect the different sounds that had made me love those songs. The first songs I wrote felt like these collections of sounds were manifesting themselves in new ways, as if they were held in small jars opening one at a time, each letting out a new riff. And that’s where the name came from!
Molly: Also, you don’t steal jars for the money-saving opportunities. You do it for the thrill and the street cred.
Good point, Molly. So how did you all form? I get the impression that it started as a solo bedroom pop kind of project for you, Cody, but since has built out both in the studio and with live shows.
Cody: You’re right.
Molly: Yep.
Cody: I originally started writing the music in my bedroom with a crappy USB mic. My friends Magda and John sang with me on the songs for the first album.
Molly: Yeah, Cody contacted me through a friend about singing for live shows in my junior year of high school, along with our friends Elena, Sam and Jonah. We started doing a lot of shows and somewhere along the way Cody asked me to sing on the recordings and it kind of spiraled from there.
Cool, cool. How is it, then, taking something that’s manageable on the small scale, recording songs on your own, and then translating that to a live performance with multiple performers?
Cody: Not easy. But luckily everyone who’s been in the band has been an amazing musician and has really helped to transform the sound of the music for the better. I used to loop a million different guitar parts for every song, which was impossible, but now there is less loop pedal involved. We re-orchestrated the songs in order to combine the huge number of parts into something four instrumentalists can actually play. I was lucky to find three really great musicians to be a part of Stolen Jars when I came to Brown; there’s Tristan Rodman on keys, Will Radin on drums and Greg Nissan on guitar.
Molly: Something that’s definitely been hard to figure out is how to represent the vocals live because, for some reason, we like doing a zillion harmonies all the time. Elena Juliano, who joined at the same time as me, can’t make all the shows but when she’s there it’s a beautiful thing. And Cody more recently has been doing a lot more of the live vocals which has been really exciting and has added a new dimension to how we’re performing I think.
Cody: Whoa.
Molly: What.
Cody: Haha that’s a lot of pressure.
Molly: Whatever.
Tell us about “Folded Out”—it’s such a layered, unique song. How did you all go about writing it?
Cody: We started writing Folded Out in the middle of the night. Molly and I had stayed up making Joseph Cornell-esque boxes. As the night went on, the boxes got better, the music got better. The song came out of that moment. I wrote the music first, short riffs and bits that came to me in 45-second increments over the next few months. Even before adding vocals with Molly, I had to record over a hundred tracks before I felt like the song was whole.
Molly: I remember we couldn’t figure out the harmonies for a really long time, it was so frustrating. Then I was driving in my car and it came on my iPod on shuffle and they just came to me! It was cool. They’re still my favorite harmonies on this album! I think. Actually I can’t decide. But I like them a lot.
Yeah, no, they’re great. And the lyrics of the song seem to follow the theme of the boxes you all were building but then venture out into larger themes. What’s behind the end thoughts on the song “I will not go; let’s be young again; keep your hands close”?
Cody: The whole album came out of leaving home, leaving things behind and remembering. This entire album feels like remembering to me, holding on to whatever or whomever you’ve left behind.
Well, it’s a great track. When can we expect more new material from you all?
Molly: That’s a really good question. I ask it all the time.
Cody: Soon. We haven’t nailed down a release date yet but the album is coming.
Is “Folded Out” indicative of what’s to come sonically?
Cody and Molly: Yeah!
Molly: I feel like the new album has a bit more emotional depth than the first one.
Cody: The songs are all related, but they vary a lot in intensity. I really paid attention to production on this album, trying to make it feel like a whole, and Eli Crews and Jeff Lipton, who mixed and mastered the album, pushed that feeling even further.
Molly: I think there are many songs on this upcoming album that try to create the same shifts in emotion that I feel when I listen to Folded Out, but in different ways.
And what’s that on the cover of the single? A piece of pumice? Some sort of subterranean animal shell?
Cody: It’s a section of this crazy crab shell. Real crazy. Real real crazy.
And the dog + cat drawing on your Facebook page? Where’d that come from?
Cody: Magda drew that one! They were a dog and cat from a dream she had. I think in the dream they were tied together by one leash. It always felt like it fit with the music for some reason. Though the one leash thing is definitely a little creepy.
It’s a cool drawing. Honestly, the dog looks a little upset with the cat, but such Technically speaking, what do you use to record your music in terms of software, et cetera?
Cody: As I said the first album was recorded on a crappy USB mic with Garageband (I hate that program), but the new album was recorded on Logic with an SM57 and some cheap condensers, mostly in my bedroom (I like it there). Also, I worked a bit with Will Radin, who drums in Stolen Jars, in Providence to record some drums and bass guitar.
Yeah, Garageband is so unintuitive, right? I share your sentiment on that software. Ya’ll are based in the NJ-NYC area, yeah? I assume you’re originally from thereabouts?
Cody: Yeah we are both from Montclair. Right now I go to Brown with the rest of the band (except Will who goes to RISD), so we are based out of Providence until I graduate in the Summer, when I go to NYC.
Molly: Well, I actually go to Wesleyan. Cody do you know where I go to school? And Elena goes to NYU which is why she can’t play with us all the time.
Cody: True.
You guys have met before, right? Do you see yourself staying put in the NYC area long term? I saw your description of the band’s music as being about finding a new home. I assume that’s more about spirituality and/or growing up than, say, actually moving.
Cody: Well I graduate soon, but I think I will be in NYC after school. Many of the other members will be nearby as well and we will keep playing shows.
Molly: I feel like the idea of finding home just comes out of this time in our lives. We leave home, go to college, figure out what we want to do… everything is really transitory. Nothing feels that permanent (at least to me). So I think the idea of finding home is more about that feeling than about actual geographical location.
Well-put, Molly. Having just transitioned from New York to LA ourselves, that rings really true, personally. Who are some bands that you all feel like influence the sound of Stolen Jars?
Cody: Definitely a lot of names to name here, but I guess a few would be Dan Deacon, Dirty Projectors, Steve Reich, Elvis Costello and five hundred other artists.
Molly: Amber Coffman is my God.
Nice. I know you all have been playing sporadic shows in the NYC area—any plans to do a larger tour? Maybe hit the west coast and in-between states?
Molly: Touring has been hard to figure out since we are all in school and in so many different ones at that. But hopefully we will be able to get a bigger tour together soon. That’s something I think we all want to do.
Cody: Yeah.
Cool. Thanks so much for talking with us. Can’t wait to hear more from you all.
Molly: It’s been a real pleasure Troy!
Cody: Yes, a real one.
You can purchase Stolen Jars’ first full-length and their single, “Folded Out”, on their band camp page, where you can name your price for either. Brooklyn—they’ll be playing Baby’s All Right this Sunday night with Lazyeyes. Stay tuned for the band’s new LP and some more tour dates.
It’s been nearly two-and-a-half years since Frank Ocean broke onto the music scene with his game-changing, Grammy award-winning studio debut, Channel ORANGE.
Now, Ocean’s breaking a relatively long stretch of silence with “Memrise”, a strikingly beautiful, lo-fi atmospheric snippet of music that has us excited for what’s to come in 2015.
According to Pitchfork:
“The title of Frank Ocean’s next album hasn’t yet been announced, but some details have emerged: Ocean is in the studio with Hit-Boy (“Niggas in Paris”, Drake, Nicki Minaj) and Rodney Jerkins (Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Destiny’s Child), according to Billboard. Back in June, Hit-Boy shared a snippet of “No Such Thing As Black Jesus”, a Nas song featuring Ocean’s vocals.”
You can listen to “Memrise” via Ocean’s Tumblr page below.
And keep it coming, Frank.
Keep it coming.
On our way down south to visit family recently we heard what has to be our new favorite Christmas song. New meaning new to us—the song, “Christmas Day” by Squeeze, was released back in 1979, and then only in the UK to a lukewarm-at-best reception.
One of our favorite curators of music, Daniel Gill of Force Field PR, seems to have been well ahead of us on this find though. He featured it amidst other holiday hits in his 2012 holiday mixtape.
The media player below starts in from the beginning of Daniel’s mixtape, all of which is well worth the listen, but the Squeeze song hits at about 37:45 if you want to skip ahead to it. You can click here to get right to it too.
Daniel’s got another great holiday mix going this year too—check it out here.
So merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, joyful Kwanzaa, and, if none of that hits home for you, jubilant Time Off Work Spent with Friends + Family to you. That’s the best one, really. Just needs a pithier name.
Music today from New York City’s Niia Bertino, better known by her simplified stage name, Niia.
Niia was chosen as one of ten breakout artists of 2014 by our very own Mr. Jason Bentley, czar of all things musical in Los Angeles and music director at our local public radio station, KCRW. With her smooth, soulful voice and impressive pop hooks, we’d be inclined to agree with Mr. Bentley on his choice. Case in point, her single “Body”, from her Generation Blue EP, released this past October. It’s tamely likable enough to appeal to everyone from edgy seekers of breakout pop to the moms of edgy seekers of breakout pop and its catchy chorus will likely have you humming the tune all day long.
Scrolling through Niia’s soundcloud page, she’s got quite a few songs that are available for free download, including a number of pretty great covers (anyone who knows, much less covers, Jai Paul’s BTSTU is good by me) to some impressive just-released collaborations between Niia and Providence producer, The Range (AKA James Hinton).
As if being a celebrated up-and-coming artist, coming from a long line highly talented musicians, and being a Bond girl (singer) wasn’t enough, Niia’s also given a Ted Talk on how she overcame severe stage fright and connecting with your audience. It’s actually really funny/touching—check it out below too.
Just in case anyone was hazy on the matter, our old band, Speedwell, was officially emo.
This according to the new Web site, Is This Band Emo?, created by our friend Tom Mullen over at Washed Up Emo, a site that celebrates and covers the mid-ninties + early aughts emo scene before it all fell into the popular culture and morphed into the bubblegum chaos that is mall emo.
You can actually listen to an early interview Tom did with me in 2011 on Speedwell and the indie emo scene of the time on Washed Up Emo.
The simple idea behind Tom’s new venture—type in the name of a band and find out if they’re ‘legitimately’ emo or not. Christie Front Drive? Emo. Knapsack? Emo. Panic at the Disco? Not emo.
Some results, like what you get when you ask the site if Journey is emo, even come with a little audio/video back-up to the claim.
Though originally hailing from Michigan, the artist simply known as BØRNS, is said to have moved to a treehouse on the east side of Los Angeles in the past year, eschewing Great Lakes, walls of snow, and wolverines for palm trees, near year-round sun, and tacos for as far as the eye can see. Seems like a no-brainer to this fellow Angeleno.
BØRNS is the project of Garrett Borns, the performing name evidently derived from the native ancestral spelling of Garrett’s surname. And—treehouse hooks in press releases aside—Borns shows some exciting promise with his recently released Candy EP, particularly with the lead single, “10,000 Emerald Pools”. The smoothy rolling rhythms, light synth, simple guitars, and choral backing vocals provide a beautifully straightforward pop backbone for Borns’ soft, somewhat androgynous falsetto.
Give “10,000 Emerald Pools” a listen below. You can purchase his new EP via iTunes and check out coming tour dates (starting in late February) on BØRNS’ Facebook page.
For a really long time, when you spoke of Icelandic pop music, you were likely referring to Björk or a performer closely associated with her. In the past years though, it seems like that tiny, isolated gem of creativity between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic can’t stop churning out beautifully original independent music.
The latest find, Júníus Meyvant, creates catchy, orchestral pop that—like much of Iceland’ music—sounds rooted, still, in the traditional frameworks and instrumentation of that country. In his new single, Meyvant adds his gently gruff voice to a bed of music full of orchestral hits + horn lines that, along with the subtly syncopated rhythm section and overall bright feel of the song, creates a sound that’s oddly reminiscent of 60s folk-pop.
We’ve talked before, in a phone interview with fellow Icelander, Sindri Már Sigfússon (AKA Sin Fang) about the oddity of such a small population producing such huge waves in music, but it still wows us every time we stumble across a new one. We’re always glad when we do though.
Listen to Meyvant’s single “Color Decay” below; you can buy the song via iTunes with that gift card you’re about to get in a couple weeks.
Sad news in the world of intelligently enjoyable indie pop came our way Friday—longtime favorite band, Yellow Ostrich, officially called it quits after a little over four years and roughly 250 live shows.
We’ve been fans for most of that time—you can read this past March’s interview we conducted with frontman, Alex Schaaf (above), to learn more about the band and listen to excerpts from 2014’s Cosmos—so we’re obviously sad to see them go.
But we’re also excited at what’s to come. As with other outwardly negative events in everyone’s lives, these kind of things tend to push some of us toward choices or situations into which we may not have otherwise ventured.
And it seems like that may be the case with Schaaf’s new musical venture, Human Heat, which, for now, exists as a bedroom studio project for Schaaf, who plans to begin work on building it into a full-fledged band with live shows to come. So far, though, the project shows promise and has us excited to hear more, taking some of Yellow Ostrich’s distinct sound at pushing it out of its comfort zone, relying a little more on electronics and bringing in some nice guest vocals from T. Lieberson + Tei Shi.
Listen to Human Heat’s debut EP below and buy it for $4 on bandcamp.
If you’re in New York City December 8, you can catch Yellow Ostrich’s final performance at Glasslands.
