Sub Pop will release Subjective Concepts, the full-length debut by Strange Wilds, on CD/LP/DL worldwide on Friday July 24th. The album, featuring the highlights “Pronoia,” “Disdain,” and “Egophillia,” was recorded & produced by the band and Jackson Long at Robert Lang Studios, mixed by Long at Hear Me Shimmer, and mastered at RFI, all located in Seattle, Washington. Subjective Concepts follows the band’s Wet EP on Inimical Records (2014), and “Standing”  7” single (2015), also available now from Sub Pop.
 
Stereogum premiered Subjective Concepts lead single “Pronoia,” and had this to say: “First single “Pronoia” toggles between a coiled-snake groove and the kind of full scream-along ferocity that makes you want to thrash around in a small, dark room with a bunch of sweaty strangers. This is noisy, heavy, grimy music, and it’s great (see April 28th premiere).”
 
Preorders for Strange Wilds’ Subjective Concepts are now available from Sub Pop Mega Mart, iTunes, Amazon and Bandcamp. All customers who pre-order the LP version of Subjective Concepts from megamart.subpop.com will receive the limited “Loser Edition” on white vinyl, with a limited-edition poster. There will also be a new T-shirt design available individually and as part of a bundle with the new record.

 
About Strange Wilds:
Strange Wilds is a musical power-trio from Olympia, Washington.

There are three members: Allen, who plays drums; Sean, who plays bass; and Steven, who sings and plays the guitar. There is also a freight train, several buzzsaws, a banshee, and some heavy, heavy Pacific doom-and-gloom up in the mix.

The group formed in 2012, when Steven met Sean while Sean’s band from Boise was playing a gig in a house where Steven lived. They became friends, and several months later Steven called Sean, who had just relocated to Olympia for college, to form the band. They were called Wet, and gigged around the West Coast as a four-piece. Allen was added as a full-time member in 2014 after a line-up change, and the band changed its name to Strange Wilds to release a 4-song EP and tour immediately. Sub Pop came calling, and signed the band last fall. The band is now set to release its full-length debut, Subjective Concepts, this summer.

Strange Wilds slays with the hellish fury of the Northwest hardcore scene’s best, the heavenly scuzz of a Bleach-era Nirvana, and the purgatorial punishment of Touch & Go post-rock meets Devo’s de-evolution machine. The 11 songs here bleed with the hybrid DNA of Seattle’s past and future, disparate scenes fused together with sneering menace and intelligent fury in equal shares (read more at Sub Pop).
 

Strange Wilds
Subjective Concepts
Tracklisting:
1. Pronoia
2. Starved For
3. Autothysis
4. Don’t Have To
5. Egophillia
6. Oneirophobe
7. Disdain
8. Pareidolia
9. Terrible
10. Lost and Found
11. Outercourse

You can now listen to Daughn Gibson’s “It Wants Everything,” a new offering to from Carnation, his forthcoming album.  The Line Of Best Fit says of the track, “It’s a slinky, sizzling piece of Southern Gothic cowboy-pop: whiskey-soaked guitars slither through rattlesnake rhythms and Gibson’s inimitable baritone croon - imagine if Ian Curtis was raised in Louisiana. It’s a subtle track, never wavering into over-cooked pastiche, instead slowly bubbling up and over the pan… although overtly sinister, Gibson’s new single is indescribably erotic. This is Carnation’s bad boy, dressed in leather and smouldering in your ears (see song premiere April 30th).”

Daughn Gibson’s third record, Carnation, is out June 2nd on your (presumably) favorite Seattle record label, Sub Pop. Pre-order here.

Donation Page

Now there’s one more good reason to ride your bike all the way from rainy Seattle to Portland, OR, and that is to raise money. Sub Pop Records employees will join in the 202-mile Seattle to Portland (STP) Bicycle Classic held on July 11 -12, 2015. Now in its 36th year, the STP is the largest multi-day ride in the Northwest with up to 10,000 riders making the journey through Western Washington and Oregon.

In January of 2013, Sub Pop Records Co-Founder Jonathan Poneman was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In a 2013 Seattle Times article, Poneman states, “I accept that I have this disease, but that doesn’t give me the right to be passive.” In response, Sub Pop Records employees will be raising money for the Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation (NWPF) by doing the infamous STP bike ride.

What We Need & What You Get

Since being diagnosed, our President has done everything he can to show others that there is life beyond Parkinson’s. He actually explains it as sort of a blessing. Parkinson’s has allowed him to “recalibrate” important values.

“As ironic as it sounds, I am truly grateful to the disease.” Poneman explains further that, “My love of life and its precious elements became more vivid at the thought of seeing them fade away.”

The Impact

Your donation will go directly to the Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation. NWPF is the only independent regional Parkinson’s organization serving Washington State. NWPF aims to establish optimal quality of life for the Northwest Parkinson’s community through awareness, education, advocacy and care.

Located in Seattle, NWPF proudly invests every dollar in local programs to support the Northwest Parkinson’s community. NWPF plays a vital role in helping people with Parkinson’s live meaningfully with the disease. In addition, NWPF provides information that gives patients and their families the tools they need to find quality medical care, better manage their disease and take charge of their daily lives.

Sub Pop has a long history of supporting non-profit organizations around the globe but prefers to focus on local organizations in the Pacific Northwest. We have been involved in fundraisers for the uncompensated care for Seattle Children’s Hospital, donated food and funds to Northwest Harvest, given time, support, and funds to the all-ages music venue ‘The Vera Project’, supported the campaign for marriage equality in Washington state, among many more. We believe in supporting the community that has always supported us. The Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation is an organization we feel proud to be riding for. 

Other Ways You Can Help

Selective Listening: Notes from the desk of the General Manager, May 2015

Sub Pop Sea-Tac Gives You So Much More

In a move that inadvertently gave clearance to shameless overuse of flight-related metaphors and jargon both here and elsewhere (but mostly here), on May 1st of last year we at Seattle’s biggest group of fans of Sub Pop Records (aka Sub Pop Records) gave wing to our latest and greatest brazen scheme with the opening of the Sub Pop store at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. And, though we didn’t name it either Sub Pop Rock City or Terminal G (both excellent options), and landed instead on the simpler, more direct “Sub Pop,” this thing has really taken off!

In celebration of this feat, today, May 1st, at noon, the very excellent Hardly Art recording artist S will be performing as a duo for free at the Sub Pop store at Sea-Tac! As you are assuredly already aware, but really only rhetorically so, the following: S is the operational alias of Seattle-based superstar Jenn Ghetto. Cool Choices is the name of the most recent and very good S album, released on Hardly Art in September of 2014. Hardly Art is the younger, thinner, better-looking, and frankly-starting-to-get-a-little-smug-about-all-that sibling label to Sub Pop Records. The Sub Pop store at Sea-Tac is located on the secure side of security near the C Gate at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and is open for Business Time from 6 am to 10 pm every g-d day.

But! Before all that (and for a few weeks after - this is a monthly column…), here a few, quick highlights from our first year of retail residence at Sea-Tac…

- Somewhat and even outright famous people, who have recorded for Sub Pop or not have come in to the store and have often allowed us to take their pictures there! People like: Jack White, Elvis Costello, Jemaine Clement, Duff McKagan, Dave Grohl, Courtney Barnett, Tom Douglas, Corin Tucker, Tunde and Kyp from TV on the Radio, Elijah Wood, J Mascis, Nardwuar, and the list goes on, though not much further! Sometimes these people have even bought things from the store!

- In addition to the records, t-shirts, posters, hats and mittens that one might expect from a bona fide, professional record label, we have learned how to make, or affix our logo to, a whole bunch of unlikely stuff! Stuff like: pencils, combs, bags for vomit, pillows for necks, koozies for cans, glasses (both shot and pint), cards (both greeting and post), blankets, beach towels, and that is already way more than enough for illustrative purposes. We’re talking about real airport shit here! But Sub Pop airport shit!

- We now find ourselves fortunate enough to have an extended family of co-workers at Sub Pop at SeaTac who are tirelessly congenial and enthused, and who interact with visitors to the store in a way that speaks way better of us than we likely deserve (even if some large percentage of those visitors have little to no idea what Sub Pop might be). These co-workers are a genuine source of inspiration and pride and we hope that our vampiric attachment does not drain them of these qualities.

-  Shocking to no one more than ourselves, we have managed to get and retain alarming security clearances!

I’m headed through Sea-Tac this week on my way to Toronto to see METZ play their two sold-out hometown record release shows, and even though I am only allowed to fly late at night and the store will be closed when I’m there, I will still stop by, loiter around the front of the place, recall fondly the time in April of last year when I passed by the as-yet-to-open shop with my two kids (the younger of whom: “Do you work here now? It’s AWESOME!”) and marvel at the wild improbability of it all.

Minus the part where you recall anything whatsoever about my kids, fondly or otherwise, you should do the same. Maybe buy yourself a comb?