What is the Sub Pop Podcast and why did we make it? Furthermore, you may be asking yourself, “What is this ‘Sub’ ‘Pop’ the narrator of this press release keeps throwing at me?!?” You have questions, we have answers. We also have questions. (But we asked ours to the guests of the Sub Pop Podcast. That’s where you and we differ.)
Firstly: Sub Pop Records is the premier medium-sized, Seattle-based record label, and has been (in existence) since 1988. This is what people refer to as “pre-Internet.”
And then secondly: We are herewith launching The Sub Pop Podcast, where you can hear the stories from inside, outside, and adjacent to Sub Pop, straight from the source. You’ll get conversations with our artists, people who work at/with/around Sub Pop, and anyone else willing or gullible enough to talk to us. And don’t forget our sibling label Hardly Art. They get props, too.
Here’s why a podcast. It’s time to tell the Sub Pop story in our own way. But we realize the Sub Pop story is a fractally diverging, untamed thing that can’t properly be approached from just one viewpoint or in a strictly linear fashion. Everyone we’ve ever been involved with has their own “Sub Pop story,” and that’s how we’re choosing to tell it: through the people in our past, present, and maybe even future. The podcast is the perfect vehicle to try to contain this sprawl in a (we think) entertaining way. And just like Sub Pop itself, the podcast will certainly change as it grows(“certainly”because, on the 1 to 10 “we know what we’re doing” scale, we’re currently registering at about 2, *maybe* 2.5).
And let’s get this straight: When we say “we” are making a podcast (and we’ve been saying that a lot), we mean actual real people who really actually work at Sub Pop Records are making it. It’s produced and hosted by Alissa Atkins (long-time and indispensable Sub Pop employee) and Arwen Nicks (recently hired, no less indispensable). We even constructed a “studio” in a broom closet out of discarded blankets, secondhand burlap, and maybe a microphone or two. So you know we’re serious.
Here are the key facts on the ground: we’re releasing the first TWO episodes today, and until around the beginning of April 2016 we’re releasing a new episode every Wednesday. Once that process is finished we’re going to get a second season together and start this whole process over again.
Visit subpop.fm to listen to the first fruits of our labor, subscribe to the podcast, sign up for the podcast mailing list, or to get in touch with us.
The Sub Pop Podcast: Absolutely nothing sounds better.
So Pitted have premiered a new live video featuring the songs “holding the void” & “the sickness”, from neo, their forthcoming Sub Pop debut. The new visual was directed by Seattle director Ty Ziskis.
Brooklyn Vegan had this to say of the video, “a fitting visual accompaniment to the band’s melted sound. (see premiere Tuesday, February 2nd).”
So Pitted’s previously announced tour schedule for 2016 spans February 19th in Seattle at Everyday Music and now ends March 20th in Austin for SXSW. Highlights include: February 25th in San Francisco at Noise Pop (at Brick & Mortar Music Hall with The Thermals); and a European tour March 4th-12th. (See dates below.)
Sub Pop will release neo on CD / LP / DL worldwide on February 19th, 2016. The album, featuring the highlights “rot in hell”, “holding the void”, and “feed me”, was co-produced & mixed by So Pitted & Dylan Wall and recorded at The Old Fire House, Media Lab, Spruce Haus, the band’s practice space and Tastefully Loud in Seattle. neo was also engineered by Wall at Tastefully Loud and mastered by Eric Boulanger at The Bakery in Los Angeles.
So Pitted’s neo is now available for preorder from Sub Pop Mega Mart, iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp and Google Play. LP preorders of neo through megamart.subpop.com will receive the limited “Loser”edition on white vinyl. There will also be a time-limited edition T-shirt, hand-bleached by So Pitted, that will be available only during pre-order; also available with LP and CD bundles (during pre-order only).
More about So Pitted’s neo: These eleven tracks are lean and snarling rebukes, torch songs not in the traditional, unrequited-love sense, but songs thatwilltorch your fucking house down. Screams and howls overtake chants and muttering, equal parts dejection, rejection, and convection, the hot, muggy air circling continuously. It’s fuzzy, angular, throbbing, and pounding, and still, ingrained in the songs by their makers, breathes that catchy quality present in so much of the music they love. Songs like “holding the void,” “rot in hell,” and “woe” crash over and over, turning under themselves like waves, but as the measures tick off, the dog-eared melodies and familiar themes begin to reveal (read more at Sub Pop).
[Photo Credit: Sarah Cass]
What “they” have said about So Pitted:
“Ragged, nonlinear, a little dangerous, “rot in hell” was one of the first tracks So Pitted wrote together, and the video is funny and surreal, featuring a friend of the band playing various band members. It feels like being at home at a basement show, ready to hit your head on a low ceiling bringing your amp down the stairs, buzzing with a little bit of nausea and excitement. It burns with the urgency of the music you need to make or you’ll crumple, music you’d be making whether other people heard it or not.” [“rot in hell”] - Impose
“Maddeningly loud, loosely formed, disgusting like a romantic weekend trip down the local sewers.” - DIY
“Snotty, snarling and belligerent.” - Uncut
“It’s grimy and tormented all right, but intent on subverting the many adolescent cliches and connotations that come with grunge.” [“rot in hell”] -The Guardian
“…A raucous, inspiring noise, the buzzsaw melody is matched to wailing feedback - imagine Bikini Kill set against early Mary Chain and you’d probably be in the same ballpark.” [‘rot in hell”] - Clash Music
“…making a name for themselves with a sneery, warped, post-apocalyptic punk sound and wild stage show.” - Brooklyn Vegan
“It’s early in the year to make this sort of claim, but we can say with confidence that in ten months’ time you’ll be looking back on neoas one of 2016’s best debuts, by some distance.” - The Skinny
“So Pitted’s set called to mind Metz, Minutemen, Big Black, Pere Ubu, and Nirvana at their wildest” - FLOOD
“So Pitted are poised to start a riot that’s very much their own.” -Record Collector
“[A] Seattle trio who are basically unmatched in terms of sheer gonzo ingenuity. Live, the band combines anarchic heaps of guitar and childish melodies with plodding, sludgy rhythms. They understand just how powerful their live show is, too” - Portland Mercury
“What’s special and unique about So Pitted is that they not only clench to the demonic punk downpour and logger-heavy rock of the Northwest, but also to the nihilistic musical cannibalism of San Francisco weirdos Chrome and late-’90s San Diego artcore groups like the VSS and the Gravity Records camp. There’s a caustic demo quality to their sound that’s alien and distorted, liquidated to move units at the Gross Out. It’s not only thorny, horny, and repulsive, but angular, tangled and mangled.” - The Stranger
Tour Dates Feb. 19 - Seattle, WA - Everyday Music Feb. 25 - San Francisco, CA - Noise Pop / Brick & Mortar Music Hall* Mar. 04 - Paris, FR - La Mecanique Ondulatoire Mar. 05 - Amsterdam, NL - Butcher’s Tears Mar. 07 - London, UK - Shacklewell Arms Mar. 08 - Leeds, UK - Brudenell Games Room Mar. 09 - Brighton, UK - Green Door Store Mar. 10 - Lille, UK - La Peniche Mar. 11 -Brussells, BE - Homeplugged Mar. 12 - Berlin, DE - West Germany Mar. 15 - Austin, TX - SXSW Mar. 16 - Austin, TX - SXSW Mar. 17 - Austin, TX - SXSW Mar. 18 - Austin, TX - SXSW Mar. 19 - Austin, TX - SXSW Mar. 20 - Austin, TX - SXSW * w/ The Thermals
“Sour Silk” is the newest standout track from New Misery, Cullen Omori’s forthcoming Sub Pop debut coming out on March 18th.
Stereogum had this to say of the track, “Though Omori’s vocals prevail in the forefront of this single, perhaps its most impressive aspect is a backdrop where every component is defined yet bleeds into each other seamlessly. Throughout the entire song, a number of ever-varying guitar parts pan across the plain of his composition, each with its own unique but cohesive sound. Omori constantly adds and subtracts sounds, maintaining his hook without allowing it to go stale. And as soon as you think you’ve pegged his song as smooth and almost psychedelic, Omori adds crunchier, rock-inspired guitar tones plus a goddamn trumpet.
“Remember the scene in Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off where Eddie pretty much combines his entire kitchen in a blender and ends up with a purple sauce that’s somehow delicious? “Sour Silk” is the combination of sounds you weren’t sure could be mixed, blended into a song that sounds both effortless and endlessly faceted (see premiere Tuesday, February 2nd).”
Omori began working on solo material in early 2014 which has now fully materialized as New Misery, a collection of 11 songs building upon his own musical past while reaching towards the future of what guitar rock could be. His songs marry dark yet blissful pop with vocal melodies and hooks that are at once immediate yet demand to be heard again and again.
Omori’s previously announced 4-week spring tour in support of New Misery starts March 24th in Chicago, IL at Lincoln Hall and currently ends April 24th in Toronto, ON at the Horseshoe Tavern. Preceding the tour is a string of midwestern dates this week, beginning February 3rd in Indianapolis at The Hi Fi through February 5th in Champaign, IL at The Accord. Additionally, Cullen will appear at the 2016 edition of SXSW in Austin, Texas. (See dates below.)
[Photo Credit: Alexa Lopez]
More on Cullen Omori:
“I had this overwhelming feeling that perhaps the apex of my life both as a musician and as an individual would be relegated to five years in my late teens/early 20s,” says Cullen Omori, who was launched into the music industry when the Smith Westerns, who started in high school in Chicago, became fast-rising indie stars. “This fear really forced me to work hard as to not see the Smith Westerns as an end but as a point along a bigger trajectory.”
While New Misery grew out of a difficult personal and professional time for Omori, he says the title reflects “not so much the distress that comes with failure, but the troubles and complexities that come with any type of success. No matter what you get you’re going to want more, you’re going to want something different. That’s the catch.”
The title track is a dreamy, resonant reflection on these feelings, but is also a guidepost for Omori’s musical evolution. “The song starts slow and then builds with two solos,” he says. “There’s the guitar solo which is very much a Smith Westerns thing. The next solo is on the keyboard, which is a shift to a lot of what I’m trying to do.” Synths play a much larger role in Omori’s new music than in the Smith Westerns’ guitar-fueled rock, as do a wide range of influences including Roxy Music, INXS, Spiritualized, Wilco, Garbage, Hall & Oates, Kate Bush, U2, and Sparks. There’s also a more deliberate pop streak, inspired by the top-40 radio that would play while Omori worked at a medical supply company cleaning stretchers and wheelchairs.
“There is so much dirt in hospitals and fuzz and lint and dried blood on these things. We’d clean them down, which in a way is kind of therapeutic, and listen to the radio. Then we’d go back to Adam’s (Adam Gil, current live band member) house and record demos for what was to become the skeleton of New Misery. I can’t sit down and say I’m going to write a Sam Smith or an Adele song or whatever. The closest I can get to that is making like this weird hybrid of what I think is a pop song.” The strongest example of this is the new wave-tinged single “Cinnamon,” which Omori describes as “dark pop–it’s poppy, it’s fast, but it also has all the colors and tones that are kind of dark. It’s self-deprecating, which was kind of where I was at emotionally. That, you know, I could have this poppy song or whatever but I don’t think I’m a pop star. I’m closer to thinking I’m a piece of shit than I am a pop star (read more at Sub Pop).
New Misery will be available worldwide on CD / LP / DL/ CASS through Sub Pop Records on March 18th, and is now available for pre-order through Sub Pop Mega Mart, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon and Bandcamp. LP pre-orders though megamart.subpop.com will receive the limited “Loser” edition on clear vinyl with black, white and gold swirls (while supplies last).
The album was recorded by Shane Stoneback (Sleigh Bells, Fucked Up, and Vampire Weekend) at the now defunct Treefort Studios, and was mastered by Emily Lazar (Sia, HAIM, Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire, and Bjork) at The Lodge.
What people are saying about Cullen Omori:
“Shimmering beauty” [“Cinnamon”/ “New Music of the Day”] - NME
“It’s bittersweet, blissful pop with an ’80s hue - vocal melodies and hooks that are at once immediate yet demand to be heard again and again. Job well done, Cullen.” [“Cinnamon”] - The 405
“Led by dreamy, glimmering guitars, it takes Smith Westerns’ knack for a poppy hook to the next level.” [“Cinnamon”] -Consequence of Sound
Tour Dates
Feb. 03 - Indianapolis, IN - The Hi-Fi Feb. 04 - Milwaukee, WI - Cactus Club Feb. 05 - Champaign, IL - The Accord Mar. 14 - Columbia, MO - Rose Music Hall Mar. 15 - Norman, OK - Opolis Mar. 16 - Austin, TX - SXSW Mar. 17 - Austin, TX - SXSW Mar. 18 - Austin, TX - SXSW Mar. 19- Austin, TX - SXSW Mar. 20 - Austin, TX - SXSW Mar. 24 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall Mar. 25 - Madison, WI - High Noon Mar. 26 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th St. Entry Mar. 28 - Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge Mar. 29 - Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge Mar. 30 - Boise, ID - Neurolux Apr. 01 - Seattle, WA - Barboza Apr. 02 - Vancouver, BC - Fortune Sound Club Apr. 03 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Apr. 05 - San Francisco, CA - The Independent Apr. 07 - Los Angeles, CA - Teragram Ballroom Apr. 08 - San Diego, CA - Casbah Apr. 09 - Phoenix, AZ - Valley Bar Apr. 11 - Austin, TX - Stubb’s Jr Apr. 12 - Dallas, TX - Prophet Bar Apr. 13 - Houston, TX - Raven Tower Apr. 15 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl Apr. 16 - Nashville, TN - High Watt Apr. 17 - Columbus, OH - The Basement Apr. 18 - DC, Washington - DC9 Apr. 19 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle Apr. 21 - Boston, MA - Great Scott Apr. 22 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom Apr. 23 - Montreal, QC - Le Divan Orange Apr. 24 - Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern
We suggest that you click on over and listen to “Your Hollows”, the new track from Heron Oblivion’s self-titled debut, premiering today (please and thanks).
Loud & Quietsays of the track, “‘Your Hollows’ is a six-minute snake of a song culminating in a hurricane of distortion. Baird’s delicate voice still, somehow, manages to rise above it all. It’s impressive stuff (see track premiere Monday, February 1st).”
Heron Oblivion’s previously announced U.S. tour schedule spans February 7th-May 1st. Shows include: February 7th in Portland at Sabertooth Music Festival (with Built to Spill and Mikal Cronin); an album release show on March 3rd in Oakland at Starline Social Club; March 5th in Los Angeles at Resident (with labelmate Morgan Delt); And March 6th in San Diego at ‘Til Two. Additionally, Heron Oblivion will appear at Marfa Myths in Marfa, Texas on March 11th and Austin’s Levitation Festival April 29th-May 1st. (complete dates below.)
Heron Oblivion will be released on CD / LP / DL / CASS worldwide March 4th through Sub Pop, and is now available for preorder from the Sub Pop Mega Mart, iTunes,Amazon, Google Play and Bandcamp. LP preorders from megamart.subpop.com will receive the limited “Loser” edition on clear vinyl with a white swirl (while supplies last).
The album, which features the highlights ”Oriar”, “Beneath Fields”, ”Your Hollows” and “Sudden Lament”, was produced and mixed by the band in San Francisco at The Mansion.
More on Heron Oblivion from WFMU’s Brian Turner: Pastoral pummel. Listening to Heron Oblivion’s album feels like sitting in a lovely meadow in the shadow of a dam that’s gonna heave-ho’ any minute. Members of this new San Francisco combo have put in time in both raging and relatively tranquil psychedelic sound units—this is the premise and the synergy behind this very unique and special new album (read more at Sub Pop).
Tour Dates: Feb. 07 - Portland, OR - Sabertooth Music Festival (Crystal Ballroom)* Mar. 03 - Oakland, CA - Starline Social Club Mar. 05 - Los Angeles, CA - Resident** Mar. 06 - San Diego, CA - ‘Til Two Mar. 11 - Marfa, TX - Marfa Myths Apr. 29 - May 01 - Austin, TX - Levitation Festival * w/ Built to Spill, Mikal Cronin, Snakes ** w/ Morgan Delt
Low has delivered a new video for “Into You,” a standout from Ones and Sixes, their acclaimed 2015 album. The visual was directed by Jim Burns and Beth Chalmers, and filmed while on location in Glasgow, Scotland.
The directors had this to say of the video: “Inspired by the hypnotic reflections of the River Clyde on the archways beneath Glasgow’s city bridges, this film draws parallels between the power of a single beam of sunlight and the deeply affecting personal experience one feels during Low’s live performance. Despite being part of a crowd, Low’s music invokes within you a profound and unique individual perspective.”
Low’s 2016 tour schedule in support of Ones and Sixes is underway with a show tonight, February 1st in Philadelphia, PA at Johnny Brenda’s and runs through June 11th in Kværndrup, DK at Heartland Festival. New tour highlights include a tour of Australia and New Zealand from April 1st-9th. (see dates below.)
Low’s Ones and Sixes is available for purchase from the Sub Pop Mega Mart, iTunes, Amazon, and Bandcamp. Now completely sold-out through megamart.subpop.com, the limited “Loser Edition” of the double-LP on yellow vinyl and packaged in a variant slipcase cover is available from select independent stores and from the band themselves at upcoming tour dates, while supplies last. There are also two new T-shirt designs available at megamart.subpop.com, both as individual items and as part of CD and LP bundles.
Ones and Sixes garnered year-end praise from the likes of NPR Music (50 Best Albums and “Readers Poll”), Music OMH (#10), MOJO (#13), Drowned in Sound (#16), Under The Radar (#24), The Skinny (#28), Uncut (#37), and Village Voice “Pazz & Jop” (#46). It also earned the group’s first-ever U.K. Top 40 album spot, coming in at #35 on the official albums chart, and entered at #68 here in the U.S. on SoundScan’s Top Current Albums charts. Ones and Sixes also peaked at #7 on the CMJ Top 200 chart.
[Photo Credit :: Zoran Orlic]
What ‘the people’ are saying about Low’s Ones and Sixes:
“It’s one thing for Low to have made a rewarding career of spare, dramatic, glacially paced music…It’s another to make those ingredients sound so incredibly dynamic; to spend 20-plus years making a dozen albums that each feel distinct, and that each introduce new ideas, twists and ways to wring drama out of the space between notes…Throughout Ones and Sixes, the Minnesota trio somehow gives weight to airiness as comfort and discord orbit each other like a binary star. But every time the portent threatens to become overbearing — just as the mix of prettiness and heaviness tips a little too far out of alignment — Low punctures it with a burst of cleansing aggression or some pristine, exquisite surprise. Anything to keep us off balance.” [“First Listen”] - NPR Music
“The band’s strengths are here in abundance, but they are reimagined, twisted into new shapes and given a visceral intensity that is utterly irresistible.” [9/10] - CLASH
“…Striking a balance between their majestic, slow-moving melancholy and harsher experimental noise.” [4/5] - The Guardian
“One of the most impressive albums of their career” [4/5] - MOJO
“‘What Part of Me,’ with its upbeat percussion, fuzzy guitar textures andsweet harmonized lyrics about relationship boundaries (‘What part of me don’t you own?’), feels like a sideways response to the post-1989 maximalism of today’s Top 40; “Into You” is a gospel-inflected, subtly sexy slow jam; and “The Innocents” sets accusatory vocals over a crunching electro-industrial beat, all to excellent effect. Elsewhere, on the gentle, pained duet “Lies,” Low remind us they’re still masters of doing a lot with a little.” - Rolling Stone
”Ones and Sixes is all at once beautiful, ugly, tense, warm, inviting and repellent. It’s an emotional and sonic juggling act where even the slightest bum-note would draw attention to itself. As always with Low, the beauty is all about the details” - Pitchfork
‘Ones and Sixes is an ear-pricking listen.’ [Album of the Week] - The Observer
“Ones and Sixes finds them producing some of their best work in years” - The Quietus
“It’sanothersubtly heart-rending effort from a band that remains one of the very finest in the world. If you needed a reminder of why Low are an institution then this is it.” [8/10] - Drowned in Sound
“Somehow, with each new release (and they come regularly, every two or three years), Low manage to find new ways of protracting their deceptively beautiful melodies.” [4.5/5] - Music OMH
“Ones and Sixes hinges on tension that courses throughout these 12 songs. The drums land with a thud, as if transferred from modern R&B and hip-hop. They anchor songs that crackle with bits of distortion and chiming guitars that somehow feel disembodied from everything surrounding them. Then, in keeping with a signature Low move, there is the spectral spark created by Parker and Sparhawk singing together; their alchemy is otherworldly and downright intoxicating.” - Boston Globe
“With Ones and Sixes they’ve pulled together many of their disparate sides in a masterful survey of what makes them one of the great rock bands of their era.” - Dusted
“Ones and Sixes sees Low churning out some of their most accessible work, with “What Part of Me” having the potential to be an unlikely hit. As ever, strong stuff in every way.” [4/5] - Record Collector
“Low’s always been good at making records where it sounds like every note and beat contains some degree of pain and hope you’ve felt.Sohopefully it’s compelling when this one stands out even more as one of their best.” [8.1 /10] - PASTE
“Low remain as vital as ever” - DIY
“After two decades, a band that could easily feel part of the wallpaper remain hungry to show that you never know what lies beneath” [8/10] - Uncut
“Comfortably ahead of the pop pack” - TheSunday Times
“Masters of transforming emptiness into swelling, sweeping orchestrations of musical and mental noise, Low are truly intense and joyful on their newest exhibition of off-kilter, subterranean pop.” [4/5] -NOW
Tour Dates
Feb. 01 - Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s Feb. 02 - Baltimore, MD - Creative Alliance (Seated) Feb. 03 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle Feb. 04 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl Feb. 05 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn Feb. 06 - New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jacks Feb. 08 - Houston, TX - Walter’s Downtown Feb. 09 - Austin, TX - The Parish Feb. 10 - Dallas, TX - The Kessler Theatre Feb. 11 - Hot Springs, AR - Low Key Arts Feb. 12 - Nashville, TN - City Winery Feb. 13 - St. Louis, MO - Off Broadway Mar. 12 - Mexico City, MX - Festival NRML Apr. 01 - Wellington, NZ - Bodega Apr. 02 - Auckland, NZ - King’s Arms Apr. 04 - Southbank, AU - Melbourne Recital Centre Apr. 05 - North Fremantle, AU - Mojos Fremantle Apr. 07 - Fortitude Valley, AU - Black Bear Lodge Apr. 08 - Sydney, AU - Oxford Art Factory Apr. 09 - Hobart, AU - Eros & Thanatos (at the Museum of Old and New Art) Jun. 11 - Kværndrup, DK - Heartland Festival * w/ Andy Shauf
