Ian Cat meows at the moon with debut album, âEast Coast New England Boyâ
The whole Salieri family is happy to welcome the debut LP by Ian Cat, 'East Coast New England Boy', into the world. Blending elements of prog-rock, shoegaze, and dreamy folk, Ian relates a sojourn through our gradually regressing America inside a heady sonic cocktail mixed with equal parts of maximalist ambition and thoughtful subtlety.
You can find the acclaimed album available on Spotify, Bandcamp, Amazon MP3, iTunes, and crimsonshq.com now! And don't forget to check out the release show (The Knock Ups / Ian Cat & The Crimsons / OTP / The Furs) at Midway Cafe tonight if you're in Boston...
I went to Barclays last month to see Florence + the Machine kill it after her very hyped opener, Grimes, abruptly ended her otherwise intriguing set. I had a bunch of thoughts.
Salieriâs own Matthew DeMello shares his thoughts on seeing two modern musical titans at Barclays.
The Sharp Shadows get some blog loving to close out this year's Brooklyn music festival.
Dean from Pancakes and Whiskey had nothing but nice things to say about our flagship power pop trioâs closing act at the Gutter during this past yearâs Northside Festival, among them:
â[The Sharp Shadows] bring the bitchinâ vigor to a show with vigorous flavors of Bob Mould and HĂŒsker DĂŒ as well as some Ramones and Replacements. That was pretty much the last of any drive I had left, and I was finally able to return home to blissfully slumber with a big grin across my face.â
âWhat do you call a dream that you wish you didnât have?/Is it a nightmare if it made you whole?â
Or so asks Steve Bailey, songwriter-in-chief of Brooklyn power pop trio The Sharp Shadows on their debut LP, Small Victories.
Letâs just get this out of the way right nowâsince the Hold Steadyâs âCharlemagne in Sweatpantsâ made riffing off of Springsteen lyrics with loser Gen Y pathos a thing ten years ago, there have been a lot of limp-dick attempts at this now seemingly standard trope of millennial white guy...er, indie rock. But in a punk nation full of Brian Fallon-style Boss wannabes waxing poetic about the "hard times" in a coded effort to score social media followers in the BuzzFeed nostalgia crowd, a hardworking guy willing to make the most out of (an albeit kind of disappointing) life on his own terms deserves some credit, no?
Unlike any aspiring post chill-wave trendsetters and chamber pop ensembles in their next three neighboring apartment complexes, Bailey's is a band purposely without that bullshit digital marketing term some rock writers call a âconcept.âThey are outspokenly neither the Drake- nor the Lena Dunham-types. There is nothing pre-programmed about them and no one will ever call them the voices of a generation. Like their everymen heroes in the Jam, the Wonders (yes, those Wonders), and even Springsteen himself, The Sharp Shadows make guitar-based music for record lovers who share their love of history and willingness to be surprised by tasteful flashes of finesse and craft.
And that craft is writing capital-S Songs; Songs with life-affirming intro guitar riffs, inquisitive yet pithy verse couplets, and choruses that swing for the proverbial fences. Thereâs also the occasional single-note rave-up guitar solo that goes over pretty well in small, recession-struck corner bars. In other words, if youâre looking for âweirdâ, deconstructionist approaches to tried and true pop formulas, then The Sharp Shadows are not your band and Small Victories is not your record.
The musical tidal wave therein begins with the chunk-tastic âGo it Aloneâ, an ode to braving the post-2008 job market armed with a riff that recalls the respective golden ages of Weezer and Sloan and the perfect number of âoooh la-la-laâs in its chorus to make any McCartney acolyte blush. Not a single song passes without giving you a riff or lyric to mumble in the shower for the next few days -- Â from the anguished yelps of "Don't Rely On Me" to the romantic tidings that populate the hip-swinging Fourth of July fantasy in "Reason to Remain". Six A-side-worthy tracks later, they burn the barn down with the five-minute jangle jam âMaybe I Started Somethingâ, peaking with a crescendo that is equal parts âAge of Consentâ by New Order and the Live at Leeds version of âMy Generationâ.
Clocking in at barely over 30 minutes without a ballad to be found, Small Victories is a concentrated dose of a band hell-bent not so much on reinventing the wheel, but perfecting it. Widespread blogosphere recognition be damned. Â
Stream and purchase the album on cassette and digital download via Bandcamp, iTunes, & Spotify now!
Very, very happy to share the new single from Ian Cat & his Crimsons, âBaggage Claimâ / âPurgatory Bluesâ for free download available on Bandcamp and SoundCloud. Check out the SoundCloud link above. Enjoy!
Five years have come and gone since the late great Boston quartet Forest Henderson last took the stage in 2010. Without much to speak of in the way of a proper discography, many of their finely crafted songs struck a chord with so many despite not being given the proper recording treatment befitting of their A-list songwriting. Subsequently, bootlegs of their final performance in August 2010 circulated New England singer-songwriter circles like a rock n' roll Jodorowsky's Dune -- a heaping fever dream of aesthetic perfection reduced to a mere sketch of what *might* have been.
Well today, as part of our monthly free download series, we at Salieri Records are proud to present you with a fully remastered recording of Forest Henderson's 'Last Waltz,' complete with bonus tracks. To all the good Boston folks who fell in love with such pitch-perfect numbers as "Supercollider (I Hardly Know Her)", "Just Cursed", "Aberdeen", and, of course, "Friday Night" -- here's a good reason to actually keep these songs on your iPod for the next ten years. Also included is a companion essay by Aviv Rubinstien, ex of Pray for Polanski.
Continuing our monthly tradition of free album download releases, Salieri is proud to present a remastered, 10th Anniversary edition of Stalemateâs debut album, Grand Experiment, an album once referred to as ââŠa 14-track masterpiece by the ultimate, slip-shod high school band from your wildest low-fi dreams.â Enjoy!
Welcome to the official Tumblr for Salieri Records, an upstart DIY record label fashioned from the fraternal bonds of a few part-time songwriters from coast-to-coast here in the U.S. If youâre checking us out for the first time, hereâs a few good places/records available online to help you get acquainted with our roster.
The Sharp Shadows EP - The Sharp Shadows
The debut release of Brooklyn power trio The Sharp Shadows, with heavy doses of â80s post-punk and what might be called âpower popâ in some circles. These four songs document the bandâs first year, tip-toeing a studious balance between uptempo rave-ups (âDonât Rely On Meâ) and barn-burning ballads (âWalking Back From Your Houseâ).
Thereâs No Place Like Nowhere - Matthew DeMello
The manic-depressive return of former Stalemate babysitter/songwriter Matthew DeMello, hailed by some in the blogosphere as âaggressively personal.â This album comes recommended especially for those who like their maximalistic Van Dyke Parks orchestral song-cycles filtered through as many MIDI instruments and guilty Catholic lyrics as possible.
Mystic Valley Parkway (10th Anniversary Edition) - The Federalists
Once upon a decade ago, a few teens from Dracut, Mass. sought to make a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot of their own, albeit straight from their basements. The results make for the ultimate DIY tour de force of wide-eyed ambition that is, much like its influences, truly greater than the sum of its parts.
