Previously announced headlining support dates (with METZ) run December 7th-19th
On March 2nd, 2018, Moaning will release their impassioned self-titled debut, worldwide through Sub Pop. The 10-track album, featuring “Don’t Go” along with highlights “Artificial,” “The Same,” and “Misheard,” was recorded and engineered by Alex Newport in Los Angeles.
Moaning’s charmingly chaotic, black & white visual for “Don’t Go” was directed by Michael Schmelling. The video stars the band and a few of their dear friends, and was shot in Los Angeles in the waning days of summer.
Preorders for Moaning are available now on CD/LP/CS/DL through Sub Pop right here. LP pre-orders through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers will receive the limited Loser edition on pink vinyl (while supplies last), and new t-shirt design will also be available.
Moaning Tracklisting 1. Don’t Go 2. Tired 3. Artificial 4. Close 5. Does This Work for You 6. The Same 7. For Now 8. Useless 9. Misheard 10. Somewhere in There
Moaning’s previously announced tour schedule for 2017 begins December 6th in Eugene at The Blue Room and ends December 19th in Phoenix at LBX. For the dates spanning December 7th-15th, the band will act as direct support for labelmates METZ. Moaning will also appear at the 2018 edition of SXSW in Austin, Texas.
Dec. 06 - Eugene, OR - The Blue Room Dec. 07 - Seattle, WA - Neumos * Dec. 08 - Vancouver, BC - The Cobalt * Dec. 09 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir * Dec. 11 - San Francisco, CA - The Independent * Dec. 12 - Los Angeles, CA - The Teragram Ballroom * Dec. 13 - San Diego, CA - The Casbah * Dec. 15 - Austin, TX - the Mohawk *^ Dec. 16 - Dallas, TX - Transit Bicycle Co. Dec. 18 - Tucson, AZ - Club Congress Dec. 19 - Phoenix, AZ - LBX Mar. 12 - 18 - Austin, TX - SXSW *w/ METZ ^ w/ Cherubs
Moaning is a band defined by its duality. The abrasive, post punk trio comprised of Sean Solomon, Pascal Stevenson, and Andrew MacKelvie, began nearly a decade after they met in L.A.’s DIY music scene. Their debut album comes born out of the member’s experiences with love and distress, creating a sound uniquely dark and sincere. Although the band is just breaking out of their infancy, Moaning’s sleek and cavernous tone emphasizes the turmoil of the era they were born into. One where the endless possibility for art and creation is met with the fear and doubt of an uncertain future.
The trio began regularly frequenting DIY institutions like The Smell and Pehrspace, eventually selling out dozens of their own shows at both venues with their first few bands. Solomon recalls, after a brief hiatus from playing together, Moaning’s conception came when he sent Stevenson and MacKelvie the first demo for “Don’t Go,” setting the tone for the impulsive songwriting that would follow.
The three fleshed out Solomon’s primitive recordings, adding in MacKelvie’s heavy syncopated drumming, and Stevenson’s melodic driving bass and synth parts, capturing each member’s personality in their sparse and fuzzed out tracks. Like many of their previous collaborative projects, Moaning forces pain up against pleasure, using the complexity of personal heartbreak to inform the band’s conflicted sound. The band eventually landed on the apt moniker Moaning, admiring the ambiguity the name held and hoping to reference both an intimate wail and an anguished scream [read more here].
It’s that time of year where we thank you for being the best customers imaginable in the world of music-buying peoples far and wide.
In an effort to show our unending appreciation of you, we’ll now attempt to coerce you into spending even more of your hard earned shekels with us this holiday season… by offering 20% off on all*Sub Pop Mega Mart orders over $25 starting today and going all the way ‘til 11:59 pm on January 2nd. Believe us when we say that we’ve got some of the best midsize-indie-record-label-branded merchandise your heart can handle, and we’d really love to sell it to you and your loved ones this holiday season. Knit hats, gloves, and sweaters? We’ve got ‘em. Things designed to make you sweat (like sweatshirts and sweatpants, gutterbrain)? We’ve got those too. Trinkets and trash? Enough for everyone! We’ve also got a slew of really exciting 2017 releases that you might have missed out on from bands like Sleater-Kinney, Bully, Downtown Boys, Shabazz Palaces, Beach House, The Afghan Whigs, Porter Ray, Iron & Wine and so much more.
All orders placed by December 18th are guaranteed to ship out before we close up shop for the year, so get your orders in early and often. Related to this impending warehouse closure, any orders placed between December 19th and January 2nd will not ship out until after we are back in the office on January 3rd.
Thank you in advance for your impending (wildly overzealous, we hope) gift buying spree.
Love, Sub Pop.
*All Current and future pre-orders from excellent artists like Mudhoney, Hot Snakes, Kyle Craft and Lomaare excluded from this 20% off sale. These items do, however, count towards reaching your $25 qualifying order total, so definitely pick those up too!
Now hear a live version of “Judgement, Rage, Retribution and Thyme”.
Recorded live during their 2016 European tour at shows in Germany, Croatia, Sweden, Austria, Norway, and Slovenia LiE is the first unlimited-edition, non-bootleg live Mudhoney album to date.
2018 marks Mudhoney’s 30th anniversary, and this release is a fitting start to a year that will also see the release of a new Mudhoney full-length. (!!!) This album’s 11 tracks span the band’s storied career, and include their live cover of Roxy Music’s “Editions of You.”
[Photo Credit: Vincent van Nes]
Mudhoney’s LiE will be available on vinyl LP and through digital service providers worldwide on January 19th, 2018 [preorder now here]. And, in lieu of a Sub Pop Loser Edition of LiE, a 500-piece, limited-edition of the LP, on heavy, milky clear vinyl with a bonus 7” single included (“Touch Me I’m Sick” b/w “Where the Flavor Is”), and different packaging will be available for pre-order right here, while supplies last. There will also be new Mudhoney t-shirts available at megamart.subpop.com and mudhoneyonline.com.
Side A 1. Fuzz Gun ‘91 (Primosten, Croatia - from Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge) 2. Get Into Yours (Berlin, Germany - from Mudhoney) 3. Poisoned Water (Primosten, Croatia - from Tomorrow Hit Today) 4. The Final Course (Malmo, Sweden - from Vanishing Point) 5. What to Do With the Neutral (Malmo, Sweden - from Vanishing Point) 6. I’m Now (Malmo, Sweden - from The Lucky Ones)
Side B 7. Judgement, Rage,Retribution and Thyme (Vienna, Austria - fromMy Brother the Cow) 8. I Like It Small (Oslo, Norway - from Vanishing Point) 9. Suck You Dry (Malmo, Sweden - from Piece of Cake) 10. Editions of You (Ljubljana, Slovenia - from the “Butterfly Stroke” 7” and the March to Fuzz comp) 11. Broken Hands (Ljubljana, Slovenia - from Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge)
Walt Wagner’s Reworks – an album of renditions popularized by the likes of Band of Horses, DJ Shadow, My Bloody Valentine, Prince, Fleet Foxes, Phoenix, and more – is available now on CD / LP / DL worldwide from Sub Pop. The veteran pianist recorded the songs live on October 9th, 2016 at the famed Canlis Restaurant in Seattle, Washington [purchase here].
Charles Darwin said it best: adapt or die. Okay, maybe that’s not an exact quote, but the great English scientist was definitely on to something. Organisms that respond over time to the ever-changing environment are more likely to survive and thrive.
While you may not find this crazy idea in Junior’s textbooks these days, it’s audible in every facet of Walt Wagner’s Reworks. With its distinctive renditions of songs popularized by DJ Shadow, My Bloody Valentine, Fleet Foxes, and more, this live recording of the beloved pianist’s farewell performance shows how three Seattle institutions – Wagner, Canlis restaurant, and Sub Pop Records – have evolved over the years.
When veteran pianist Wagner first landed at Canlis in 1996, the Emerald City’s premiere destination for fine dining was in the midst of significant changes: a new chef, new uniforms, modifications to its iconic building overlooking Lake Union. That required a fresh approach to dinner music, too. “I knew what the status quo was, but the owners wanted new energy,” recalls Wagner.
Although he started out with a set heavy on the Great American Songbook and the occasional pop tune, that gradually gave way to more adaptations of modern fare. “Increasingly I kept working in more new, edgier music. In the beginning my sets were 90 percent standards. In the last few years, I was mostly playing very contemporary music.”
As young staff members recommended new artists and songs, Wagner’s repertoire grew deeper and more varied – especially after the next generation of the Canlis family took over in 2003. Yet whether the source material was Pink Floyd, Prince, Metallica, or the Weeknd, the challenge remained the same: “To distill the vibe on a record, the very essence of a song, into solo piano playing.” Performances as memorable yet tasteful as the cuisine, interiors, and views of Canlis [read more at Sub Pop].
Reworks
Tracklisting
1. Building Steam With a Grain of Salt (DJ Shadow) 2. I Only Said (My Bloody Valentine) 3. Desiree (The Left Banke) 4. Mykonos (Fleet Foxes) 5. 1901 (Phoenix) 6. Bondye (Goat) 7. No One’s Gonna Love You (Band of Horses) 8. Purple Rain (Prince) 9. The Funeral (Band of Horses) 10. Ever Fallen In Love (Buzzcocks)
Loma, the new project comprised of Jonathan Meiburg, best known as the singer of Shearwater, and Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski of Cross Record, will release their self-titled debut album on February 16th via Sub Pop. A product of a joint pilgrimage around the globe by fellow touring musicians, it’s a beautifully detailed and emotionally rich album that reveals a band obsessed with songs as sound. Today, the trio presents the video for the album’s final song and lead single, “Black Willow.”
[Photo Credit: Bryan C. Parker]
Meiburg, Duszynski and Cross became friends when Cross Record, on their first-ever tour, supported Shearwater throughout America and Europe in 2016. “I couldn’t believe all that sound was coming out of two people,” he says. “They were mesmerizing.” In the van or at soundchecks, they shared their musical knowledge and love of nature and animals, and after an especially memorable show in Belgium, Meiburg approached Cross and Duszynski about working together. “I fell in love with their music,” he admits, “and I wanted to know how they did it.”
The trio convened in a house in the Texas hill country to see what would happen, and quickly realized an album was imminent. “There was something powerful about the combination of the three of us,” Meiburg says, “and very different from either of our bands. But I think we were afraid to say so out loud, for fear of jinxing it.” For the next few months, Loma met for two weeks at a time, shaping and revising new songs and casting others away.
It was also a strangely charged time. When the album began, Cross and Duszynski were a married couple, but their relationship ended during the sessions—an atmosphere Meiburg found both challenging and inspiring—and the isolated house became the album’s muse. Dogs wander by the microphones; the sounds of birds and wind in junipers and live oaks hover at the borders of the songs, and a close listen reveals cicadas and frogs from a nearby stream. Except for Cross’s translucent voice in the foreground, there were no assigned roles on the album; each member of the trio played every instrument as needed.
This feeling of freedom let buried energies find expression. Cross wrung catharsis from Meiburg’s lyrics and melodies, while Duszynski immersed himself in the sonic details of engineering and mixing. In the end, the record became a document of an urgent and ephemeral place and time, and the strength that comes with letting go of something precious. It closes, fittingly, with the subtly defiant marching anthem of “Black Willow,” in which Cross’s voice, backed by a hypnotic bass and drums, offers a lesson in survival. “When I walk,” she sings, “I carry a diamond blade.” She means it.
The time is now to follow Loma everywhere in the known universe, on subpop.com and also Instagram | Twitter | Facebook.
Loma is now available for preorder from Sub Pop and select independent retailers right here. North American preorders of the limited Loser edition will be available on clear vinyl with red and black swirlies (while supplies last), and a lovely new t-shirt design will also be available.
Loma Tracklisting:
1. Who Is Speaking? 2. Dark Oscillations 3. Joy 4. I Don’t Want Children 5. Relay Runner 6. White Glass 7. Sundogs 8. Jornada 9. Shadow Relief 10. Black Willow
