THE FENWAY RECORDINGS SESSIONS CONTINUES SUMMER SESSIONS WITH MALE BONDING ON WEDNESDAY, 8/31;
ANNOUNCES NEW FALL LINEUP
Upcoming Fenway Recordings Sessions:
#138 :: Aug. 31 -- Male Bonding w/ Love Inks and Girlfriends @ BMH (Tickets)
#139 :: Sept. 13 -- Grouplove w/ Young Man @ BMH (Tickets)
#140 :: Sept. 14 -- You Am I /Sloan w/ Taylor Locke & the Roughs @ BMH (Tickets)
#141 :: Sept. 29 -- Tribes @ Great Scott (Tickets)
#142 :: Oct. 3 -- The Horrors w/ The Stepkids @ BMH (Tickets)
#143 :: Oct. 20 – BRAIDS w/ Pepper Rabbit and Born Gold @ Great Scott (Tickets)
#144 :: Nov. 9 -- Bobby Long @ Great Scott (Tickets)
#145 :: Nov. 17 -- Keep Shelly In Athens @ Brighton Music Hall (Tickets)
Boston, MA – The Fenway Recordings Sessions is excited to continue its 2011 series with MALE BONDING next Wednesday, 8/31 at Brighton Music Hall. And the addition of several new shows, including GROUPLOVE on 9/13 at Brighton Music Hall, TRIBES on 9/29 and BOBBY LONG on 11/9, both at Great Scott, will keep the series rolling well into the fall.
Next Wednesday, August 31st, UK noise rockers MALE BONDING will play Brighton Music Hall for Fenway Recordings Sessions #138. The trio, singer/guitarist John Arthur Webb, bassist Kevin Hendrick and drummer Robin Silas Christian join us from East London to support their August 30th release, Endless Now, on Sub Pop.
Male Bonding worked with producer John Angello at Dreamland Recording Studio onEndless Now, the band’s second release on Sub Pop. The band has said that use of Dreamland Recordings’ facilities allowed them to push themselves further than ever. The album is marked by shrill electric guitars, fuzzy feedback and buzzing riffs, all of which translate well in their live, high-energy punk shows. With roots as true DIY-ers in London, the band has worked its way onto global tours supporting artists including, No Age, Vivian Girls, and Japandroids. When they started out, the band created their own label, Paradise Vendors, to put out a 7” that they lamented “no one else seemed interested in.” Now, they are now signed to Sub Pop, a label “they only dreamt would contact them.” The Austin-based LOVE INKS and local garage rockers GIRLFRIENDS will support Male Bonding on this bill. Love Inks, who released their self recorded 10 song debut album, E.S.P. in May on Hell, Yes!/ City Slang, were chosen as an NME Radar Band of the Week, and have played with Real Estate, Boyfriend, Pure X. Girlfriends, awarded “Best Garage/Psych Band” in the 2010 Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll, will open the show. The band is currently working on their debut full-length album, a follow up to their two self-released and buzz-worthy 7” single and cassette releases.
Kicking off the Fewnay Recordings Sessions fall lineup, GROUPLOVE will be at Brighton Music Hall on Tuesday, September 13th for Sessions #139. The SoCal fivesome, whose back story includes a chance first meeting on the Greek island of Crete, released their self-titled EP in 2010 on Canvasback. They toured the US with Florence + The Machine in support of the EP, which earned nods from NME and Drowned in Sound, who wrote of the release, “the potential as to what Grouplove could capably achieve is astounding.” Offering a sound that NME called “sugary and sunny and stuffed with melodies,” Grouplove’s unique mix of crisp, clean guitars and restrained folk influences have drawn comparisons to bands as diverse as Vampire Weekend, Modest Mouse, The Pixies, and Broken Social Scene. Grouplove’s appearance at Brighton Music Hall is the third on a massive North American tour following a busy summer of festivals all in support of their debut full-length album, Never Trust a Happy Song. The album, slated to be released on September 13th (Canvasback/Atlatnic) marks an evolution in Grouplove’s sound, blending their signature upbeat vocals and jangling guitars with electronic experimentation, and has already secured an “All Things Considered” distinction from NPR. Supporting Grouplove is YOUNG MAN, Chicago native Colin Caulfield’s solo project. First gaining attention for his mesmerizing YouTube covers of popular indie songs, Caulfield achieved notoriety when his cover of Deerhunter’s “Rainwater Cassette Exchanged” caught the attention of Deerhunter themselves, who called the cover “fantastically superior to the original” on their blog. Young Man’s first EP, Boy, (Frenchkiss Records) released in 2010, was praised by Pitchfork for its “hypnotic production of guitars, spacey synth organs, and various percussive flourishes.” Caulfield will be promoting his debut full-length album, Ideas of Distance, out September 27th on Frenchkiss Records.
The very next night, Wednesday, September 14th, legendary Australian rockers YOU AM I join Toronto’s SLOAN for a co-headline bill at Brighton Music Hall. This show will be the 140th Fenway Recordings Session. Touring behind their 2010 self-titled release, YOU AM I will be in Allston following stops at the Music Fest NW in Portland and Bumbershoot in Seattle. The band; Davey Lane on guitar, Rusty Hopkinson on drums, Andy Kent on bass, and Tim Rogers on vocals and guitar, is known for its charged live show, which has been honed over its 20+ year, nine-album career. Danny Murphy of Rolling Stone has said of Rodgers, “…at his best there is no better frontman on Earth.” Often compared to the Replacements, the Kinks, and the Velvet Underground, the foursome has made a career of delivering consistently solid releases, including three consecutive #1 debuts on Australia’s ARIA charts, the first Australian band to achieve this feat. Their ninth and latest LP, You Am I, blends new with old, an accomplishment that Rolling Stone praises, writing that the album “does the impossible trick of sounding both fresh and part of the band’s classic catalogue.”
Joining the September 14th roster is another veteran group, Toronto-based rock quartet SLOAN. Over a more than two-decade career, members Jay Ferguson, Patrick Pentland, Chris Murphy, and Andrew Scott have distinguished themselves with humble integrity. For Sloan, music making is a truly collaborative endeavor as each member shares songwriting responsibilities and trades instruments accordingly when playing live. With 2011 marking their 20th anniversary, Sloan recently released their tenth album,The Double Cross, in May on Yep Roc Records. Boasting an unaltered line-up since they started, Sloan has consistently released critically-acclaimed material during their lengthy career. Their third album, One Chord to Another, won a Juno Award for Best Alternative Album and their latest album was nominated for a 2011 Polaris Music Pride Award. Presently touring North America to promote their album’s release, Sloan has shared the stage with The Rolling Stones, Pete Yorn and Lenny Kravitz.
Next in the fall Fenway Recordings Sessions lineup, British indie rockers TRIBES will take the stage at Great Scott on Thursday, September 29th for Session #141. The UK quartet, consisting of Johnny Lloyd, Dan White, Jim Cratchley and Miguel Demelo, will release their debut full-length album later this year on Island Records and will play at Great Scott as part of a North American tour in support of the forthcoming release. The band formed in the summer of 2009 and initially shied from popular attention in hopes of staying focused on creating music. “We want it to happen word-of-mouth, you can’t find us on the Internet, you have look at posters to know when the gigs are,” Lloyd told NME in 2010. Despite their efforts to keep a low profile, Tribes’ Nirvana-meets-The Libertines sensibilities soon created plenty of buzz in the indie music blogosphere. With the release of their first EP, We Were Children, earlier this year, and with the eponymous single “We Were Children” being named “Hottest Record of the Week” by Zane Lowe of BBC Radio, the band has quickly become hard to ignore. Praised as one of NME’s 2011 “Artists You Need to Hear,” Tribes was subsequently singled out by NME and BBC Radio 1 to record at the BBC’s legendary Maide Vale Studios.
Next up, THE HORRORS will play Brighton Music Hall on Monday, October 3rd for their second Fenway Recordings Session show, and the 142nd in the series. The band; Faris Badwan, Joshua Hayward, Tom Cowan, Rhys Webb and Joseph Spurgeon, released their third full length album, Skying, on August 9th in the US. The album, which they produced themselves, was also recorded in their own recently built studio. Their previous albums, Strange House and Primary Colours, reached number 37 and number 25 in the U.K., respectively, and in 2009 Primary Colours was named album of the year by NME. Of their most recent release, Mike Diver of BBC Music writes, “There’s no fault to be found with Skying – truly, every song here hits its mark... From the most incongruous of beginnings, The Horrors have become national treasures in waiting, and now possess the ability to realise any ambitions.” NME praises the album’s multifaceted components, applauding its funky drumming, guitars that squeal and chime, and mesmerizing synth-hooks, concluding this album is further evidence that The Horrors are “one of this generation’s most important bands.”
Beginning a US tour in September, the band will be playing a number of festivals including the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park before their arrival to Brighton Music Hall. They have previously toured with The Kills, Nine inch Nails, and Muse. Offering a captivating live show with frontman Faris Badwan at the helm, the Horrors are notorious for their often unpredictable and ferocious energy on stage. Opening for The Horrors will be Connecticut trio, THE STEPKIDS, a band The Guardian has called the band “spiritual heirs to an era when funk was far-out and soul went psychadelic.” The Stepkids will be touring in support of their debut album, out in September on Stones Throw Records.
Following The Horrors, on Thursday, October 20th, Canadian quartet BRAIDS will play Sessions #143 at Brighton Music Hall. Following the critical success of the band’s self-produced debut album, Native Speakers, Braids was hailed by NME as number ten on their list of 2011’s best new bands. Championing lush atmospheric melodies which the band christens “texture pop,” Braids—formally called the Neighborhood Council—delivers good on their new name, deftly weaving delicate lo-fi soundscapes in intertwining threads which explode in psychedelic storms. The foursome’s quality of integrated unity is found both in style as well as form with each member contributing vocals and secondary instrumentation through extravagant electronic looping and contrapuntal flair. The result is an expansive, exploratory sound which has often caused this Montreal-via-Calgary group to be mistaken for a much larger band, reminiscent, suggests The Guardian, of fellow Canadian indie heroes Broken Social Scene.
However, Braids is quick to shy away from such comparisons or easy definitions of their unique sound, like “dream pop,” a term Drummer Austin Tufts rejects in favor of “visual, cinematic music.” Indeed, the sumptuous electronic swells that Braids articulates over the seven marathon tracks of Native Speakers (each averages around seven minutes long) strikes one as tactile and full of momentum, creating an sonic experience that Spin Music Editor Charles Aarron writes, “feel[s] gutsier and more distinctive the more you listen.”
Joining Braids is L.A. duo PEPPER RABBIT whose sophomore album, Red Velvet Snow Ball, came out August 9th. Marked by an eclectic arsenal of instruments including ukuleles, clarinets, analog loops, and horns, Pepper Rabbit’s experimental sound is sure to be remembered.
Finally, on Wednesday, November 9th, BOBBY LONG will be at Great Scott for Sessions #144. Long earned his way to success with a grass roots approach that saw him sell over 10,000 copies of his bootleg EP Dirty Pond Songs over the course of 160 shows in seven months and seven countries. Pollstar noted that he “continues to amaze audiences with a bare-bones sound reminiscent of early Bob Dylan.” The Boston Herald praises his “likeable, rough, hewn voice.” Long toured this summer with the Dave Matthews Band Caravan and before leaving on a tour of Europe, he will be playing the upcoming Austin City Limits Music Festival. ATO Records released his debut full-length album, A Winter Tale in February 2011, and Long is already back working on a follow up release.
