Category: Bands/Comps/Splits
Jacob Haller – Cabin Fever
75OL-209 Jacob Haller – Cabin Fever CD
$10.00 S&H Included
Limited to 50 copies on compact disc. All cd purchases will receive an immediate download code for digital download. Forty of these were pre-ordered through a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Track Listing
1. My Little Lobster
2. I’m Sick (of This American Life) (by John Linnell and John Flansburgh)
3. Maybe I Know (by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich)
4. I Wish That I Was Vegan
5. Swat the Bees
During the winter of 2015, Rhode Island songwriter Jacob Haller kept his spirits up by sharing some old and new home recordings with his friends. Once the weather calmed down a bit, he and 75orLess Records sorted through the recordings, picked out five or their favorites, and put them together to form ‘Cabin Fever’. Despite the brevity of the album, there’s a lot of variety here, from the disco beats of ‘My Little Lobster’, to the accordion-and-drum-machine blues cover of the They Might Be Giants song ‘I’m Sick (of This American Life)’, to the Lesley Gore acoustic tribute ‘Maybe I Know’, to the folksy singalong of ‘I Wish That I Was Vegan’, to the spoken word insanity of ‘Swat the Bees’.
Praise for Jacob Haller
“Providence musician Jacob Haller is as unique as his lyrics are clever.”
– Annie Messier, Providence Daily Dose, 10 May 2012
“Jacob Haller does music as though he were the secret love-child of Warren Zevon and Burl Ives.”
– Jeffrey Channing Wells, Skin Horse co-author
The Noise reviews I am Tom Cummins, Suicide Bill & the Liquors, and Coma Coma
SUICIDE BILL & THE LIQUORS Cricket Wisdom
12 tracks
Low-budget Big Star worship abounds here. The fact that this is their fifth album and it sounds like a clunky demo might be worrisome to some, but I think it works. They never land square on the beat, their timing is always slightly off, the solos have duff lines here and there, the vocals slip out of tune, and it always sounds like it’s all happening in a basement next to a leaky water heater. These guys are not swashbucklers, they’re bunglers, but endearing bunglers with decent record collections and open hearts who probably remember their friends’ birthdays. Most of the songs are about how girls don’t dig them, which is cool. A few of the songs – funny/sad power-popper “No Friends,” the Husker-y “Cool Fail” – would be hits if somebody, you know, more competent recorded them. Overall, I’d say Cricket Wisdom squeaks by on low-watt charm. It’s not as good as I’d like it to be, but what is these days? (Sleazegrinder)
I AM TOM CUMMINS Holiday 3-Pak
3 tracks
A cruel person might suggest that “Squirrel Song,” with its ukulele accompaniment and spacy keyboards, is like something a mentally challenged person might conjure up—but I beg to differ; it takes a good deal of talent to come up with and put across this faux-naif approach. “Downy Woodpecker” is another supposedly poignant encomium to the natural world, replete with aah-ing chorus. “Resolve to Start Again” is a bit like a terminally depressed Mr. Rogers decrying the commercialism of the Christmas season. Short and sweet, but, all in all, a bit twee for my taste. (Francis DiMenno)
COMA COMA The New American Dream
10 tracks
If you like indie rock, I would say this album is above par. I’m not sure why, I just feel like if you like stuff like this, it’s a prime example. The end. (Sleazegrinder)
Seacoast Online Interviews Nate Laban
Spotlight: What got you into playing music?
Laban: My mother bought a piano at an estate sale for $50 when I was in third grade. She brought it home and tried playing it for a week and then it just sat there unused with a red book on it that said, “How To Play Piano.” So, I read the book and tried to pick things up. I still have the piano and it’s one of few instruments that I have a good relationship with.
Spotlight: You’re like the punk rock version of Elvis Costello. That said, I want to know who and/or what actually influences your writing/singing/playing.
Laban: I am most influenced by sincere compositions either in rock, pop or R&B, but lately I’ve been listening to a whole lot of Black Sabbath and Red Fang. I also listen to a lot of female songwriters across a lot of genres.
Spotlight: Besides music, you seem to like to fish a lot. Is fishing a more calming release than hammering away at power chords? Any funny fishing stories?
Laban: I fish to honor my father. Fishing is the only thing that has ever completely satisfied my curiosity when it comes to nature. Story? When I was a small boy I was fishing in the Salmon Falls River that ran behind my childhood home in Rochester. I hooked a big lamprey eel but I didn’t know it until I yanked its whole body out of the water. The eel hit my bare leg and wrapped around it. I screamed and started running dragging the eel and my pole several feet before the eel rolled off onto the ground. I found the biggest rock I could find and beat the thing to death with the hook still in its mouth while I cried hysterically.
Well, I think that’s a funny story anyway.
Spotlight: You’re a relatively new “proud poppa.” How does parenthood change your perspective on things, artistically or otherwise?
Laban: My daughter Ernestine is three now. She has completely changed my perspective on music. I don’t write autobiographical songs anymore. I wrote those for years and years … very serious tunes about my own problems or social problems or whatever. After Ernie entered the picture, I write more using people I see or meet as characters and dress them up in situations I dream up. Of course, on the other end of that is Sam Hill (the metal band) where we tackle topics such as ice giants, serpents and stuff like that. It makes me feel like I’m a teenager again. I feel incredibly lucky that way. I don’t feel old.
Spotlight: Father John Misty. I hear you’re a massive fan. How’d he catch your ear? What’s he doing right?
Laban: Eric Ott turned me on to him and we went to see him in Boston the other year. He opened up the night by playing drums for the opening band without introducing himself. I thought that was pretty great and then he came on and killed it. He kind of has the whole package: Great lyrics, sincere songs and he is a funny performer. His first record I would put on my top five favorite records of all time list and the latest one is almost as good. He is a strong representative of our current 25- to 35-year-old generation and is saying things in his songs that are part of the casual national conversation, such as the over-prescribing of medications, student loans, drug use, unequal distribution of wealth, as well as poetic love. I think this has endeared him to a lot of people. Couldn’t recommend him enough. Especially to those dopes who say music isn’t any good anymore. Man, I hate that. What a bunch of lazies.
Jodie Treloar and Allysen Callery at The Spot Underground
with Kris Hansen, Outer Style
Spot Underground
Providence, RI
7pm
Bonnaventure James – Not By A Mile
75OL-210 Bonnaventure James – Not By A Mile CD
$10.00 S&H Included
Digital download is available here
Track Listing
1. Not By A Mile
2. Space In Lost
3. Summer ’86
4. Chinuuk
Though dabbling with music creation software since the days of Windows 98, the singer and producer now known as Bonnaventure James did not become the artist he is today until an assignment in avant-garde music composition reignited his interest in music production. Now, Bonnaventure James makes melancholic, bedroom-pop with the help of his trusty laptop and an assortment of synths, samplers and electronic noise makers. His new EP features tongue-in-cheek lyrics that reference pop-culture and modern relationships, laid over lo-fi beats constructed using an array of samples, plug-ins and shoddy equipment.
Bonnaventure James (Bonnaventure, or Bonnie to his friends) stole his name from a movie. We assure you it has nothing to do with the Lake or Drive in Calgary (where he now makes his home). Influences include Caribou, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Panda Bear, James Murphy, and other dudes who sing into microphones over electronic beats.
Bradford Kendall – Hot Spuranka Chocket, Words & Drawings book
75OL-207 Bradford Kendall – Hot Spuranka Chocket, Words & Drawings signed book
[sold out]
A privately printed book that features 100 pages of surrealist drawings, poems, and general violations of logic. All remaining copies available through the 75orLess website are signed by the author.
samples from the book
Feng Shui Police’s ‘Thank You’ EP Review at Space Rock Mountain
Feng Shui Police – Thank You (2015)
As I listened to this EP I very soon felt I was hearing a college kids, yet as I kept on it seems that might be an artful feint. So while I cannot be sure that Providence, RI’s Feng Shui Police has anyone in college among its members, it was “Recorded in Dash’s basement, powered by coffee and Thai food.” Basically that sentence summarizes all I can remember about college anyway. What they’ve done here is make an acoustic garage rock album, if your mind can handle that concept. But it totally is, the drums are lower to make the guitars audible, the singing is lyric-centered like a young man liberated by use of language ought to embrace. Clever, in an cool, funny way.
Sick Pills – Under My Skin
75OL-204 Sick Pills – Under My Skin CD
$10.00 S&H Included
Digital download is available here
Track listing
1. You Make Me Sick
2. Black Skies
3. Close To You
4. Leeches
5. Don’t Know What To Do
6. All Day
7. Get Away From Me
8. I Got Nothing
9. Wasted Time of Your Life
10. Gone
11. Take It All
Under My Skin is the second full-length release from New Bedford, MA band Sick Pills. Sick Pills play indie rock and roll heavily influenced by 1980’s college rock/post-punk. Features members of Chris Evil and the Taints and The Blood Moons.
Dama/Libra – Claw Vinyl LP
75OL-200 Dama/Libra – Claw Vinyl LP with download code
$30.00 S&H Included
500 copies pressed on 180 gram black vinyl by Rainbo Records in Canoga Park, CA in Deluxe Gatefold Packaging
Digital download or compact disc is available here
Track Listing
1. Moonshine and Lion
2. Stravinsky
3. Boy, Dock
4. The Chant
5. Been to the Water
6. 3C1
7. Death Rattle
8. Destroy
9. Only Medicine
10. Thine
DAMA/LIBRA is the enthralling new collaboration between two revered veterans of the national indie and avant rock scenes, Joel R.L. Phelps (formerly of underground rock legends, Silkworm, and currently working with his own band, The Downer Trio) and G. Stuart Dahlquist (formerly of doom metal progenitors, Burning Witch/SunnO))), and currently of Asva). They are proud to be releasing their first full-length album as a duo, Claw, on compact disc on Northern Spy Records in Summer 2014. Combining the unique talents of both artists, Claw is a pronouncement of lush composition – teeming with a quiet intensity, subtle beauty, and pulsating with moments of raw, emotional catharsis
Upon hearing the 2011 collaboration between Asva and French avant artist, Phillipe Petit, Phelps reached out to Dahlquist and proposed the addition of his vocals to an instrumental track he had found particularly moving. Despite having been friends and colleagues for nearly 25 years, discussions about working on a serious project together for the very first time began when a listen through the resulting piece (entitled “Thine”) nearly brought Dahlquist and his wife to tears. With Phelps living in British Columbia and Dahlquist residing in Seattle, all recording and composition for Claw was conducted in their respective home studios and transmitted via email over an 18-month period. The results are a profound representation of their individual yet somehow synchronous growth and maturity as artists. The mutual respect and trust both musicians have for and share with one another is evident in how far they pushed themselves to realize their combined work’s full potential and create what may be the strongest material either of them have ever put forth.
Reviews of Claw
Pitchfork
Stereogum
Louder Than War
photos of the LP packaging below
April issue of Boston’s The Noise has a review of Monument Thief’s ‘Your Castle Comes Down’
MONUMENT THIEF – Your Castle Comes Down 13 tracks
Jeremy Withers and Bill Paukert have a long history of making music together, but their latest project, Monument Thief, is probably their most direct and forward-thinking act to date. The band’s trademark sound is a fresh blend of pure and uncompromising rock ’n’ roll that borrows eclectically from the vast vernacular of the genre, incorporating elements of punk, hard rock and alternative.
One of the most interesting things about Your Castle Comes Down is that it allows listeners to take a peek into the kaleidoscopic song-writing sensibilities of the band. Tracks such as “Every Time” or “A Scene” are as gritty and punchy as early Nirvana, while songs the likes of “All On Me” or “Endless Debut” showcase the band’s ability to create memorable melodies, unlike artists such as The Cure or R.E.M.
Your Castle Comes Down is a classic-sounding yet remarkably diverse album that truly makes for an engaging and intriguing listening experience for fans of alternative music spanning all ages and currents.