#sparrow steeple

[dustedandsocial]

FAKE RADIO, Vol. 23

Pictured: SIDA Tracklist: 01. SIR E.U - Maybe 02. SIDA - Tu es mort 03. Badaboum - Rap 04. Isotope Soap - I Saved You From Jesus 05. Courge - Big Benne 06. BECKY & THE POLITICIANS - buckling trends 07. neutrals - swiss 08. Skull Cult - Stab Me With a Knife 09. Stratocastors - Portable 10. Schrairaum - No No No 11. Disco 3000 - Designed To Contextualize 12. Sweat Tongue - Dark Star 13. Pool People - You Git That Family Thung 14. Yersinia Pestis - Sekhmet 15. X-Ray Fiends - Deep Space Shark Attack (Live) 16. DREAMDECAY - IAN 17. Rutger Hauser - n-n-n-n 18. PRC - Drift 19. No Waves - Feet On The Brim Of My Board 20. Lie Ins - You Don't Deserve to Wear Glasses

Download: Zippyshare / MEGA

FAKE RADIO, Vol. 24 Pictured: Rank/Xerox

Tracklist: 01. Stefan Christensen - Braille 02. Sparrow Steeple - Mantis 03. David Nance - Accept Nothing [orig. 2013. just “reissued” on Bandcamp) 04. PoulainJar - Paris 05. CREAPOPOLVSQVE - A Fairy Cock Tale 06. Hive of Wires - Emotional Labor [Side A Excerpt] 07. Gates - Vīvum 08. Equipment Pointed Ankh - ABRAHAM TO-GO 09. La Baracande - Tout en me promenant 10. FRKSE - Hammering Bliss 11. 100% - Lost Youth 12. Gianni Giublena Rosacroce - Declino 13. Live Low - Antiplot 14. THE JOHN MERRICKS - Magdalena 15. RANK/XEROX - M.y.t.h. 16. Naked (On Drugs) - Boudoir Fingers 17. ARTO LINDSAY - DECK 18. Léonore Boulanger & Maam-Li Merati - Avaz​-​e Bayat Esfahan (Tasnif​-​e Shab​-​e Mahtab) 19. GROUP DOUEH & CHEVEU - TOUT DROIT 20. Starlito - Streets Want That (feat. Mista Cain)

Download: Zippyshare / MEGA

(Downloaded all previous mixes)

[ifeellikeaporsche]

Long time comin’ for this Sparrow Steeple LP, kept afloat by whispers of ex-Strapping Fieldhands gigging around Philly but little else for those outside of southeast PA to sink their teeth into. Who else but Richie Records rolled Steeple Two out in a triptych of releases, alongside Mark Feehan’s jarring and hypnotic M.F. II and the rambling, dusty longing of Mordecai’s Abstract Recipe. It’s a formidable threesome for sure, but Feehan and Mordecai nearly drowned out the comparatively slight (or so it seemed) Sparrow Steeple for a bit. Took me a few weeks - others, not so much: this was the first LP that sold out direct from Richie - but Steeple Two might just be my favorite of the three. Clearly there is a strong Strapping Fieldhands influence here, ‘cept where the Fieldhands could play standing slouched over, Sparrow Steeple has laid back in the recliner for this new outing. This is loose, light music; guitar lines float in through your apartment from passing cars, percussion and flute scribbling out patterns under and over the wispy wah. It congeals beautifully underneath the vocals, which sound like Bryan Ferry with a very serious need to sing about food. The whole record might sound like some abandoned jam session without the warbling, emotive vocals, which lend a lotta charm to very somber songs about getting egg rolls to go and “Hamlet Egg Sandwich”es (above). It’s goofy as hell, but I doubt you’ll hear anyone enjoying themselves on record more than Sparrow Steeple anytime soon. Besides, there are songs like “Caspar’s Robe” and “Valerie Verb” to keep the beard-stroking astute listener comin’ back. It’s the kind of record made for evening porch sessions and people that might’ve loved Shawn David McMillen’s On the Clock w/ JJ & Mitch as much as @fuckinrecordreviews did back in 2015. It’s tense out there; Steeple Two is the necessary counterbalance.

As mentioned, Richie is outta all three of the new releases for now. Do not fret: Midheaven is stocked, which means any store with good taste near you should also be stocked. You can also stream one more song, the lilting “Domino Mary,” here.

[bandcampsnoop]

3/5/24.

Sparrow Steeple (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) rose from the ashes of Strapping Fieldhands. That's a bit dramatic, but it's kind of true. The band shares the exact same members. Sparrow Steeple seem to be more straightforward and less experimental. Not to say this is pop. The songs are definitely catchy and melodic, but more in a Syd Barrett, Caleb Landry Jones or The Incredible String Band way. I like that AllMusic states that the "vocals that suggest a mannered bargain-store version of Bryan Ferry."

"Tin Top Sorcerer" was released a few years ago by the venerable label Trouble In Mind Records.

[dustedmagazine]

Sparrow Steeple — Tin Top Sorcerer (Trouble in Mind)

Tin Top Sorcerer by Sparrow Steeple

Sparrow Steeple was born out of Strapping Fieldhands, a band that in its 1990s heyday merged the hippy folk world music aspiration of the Incredible String Band with the idiot savant pop fuzziness of Guided by Voices and the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. The band shares members—Jeff Werner, Jacy Webster and Bob Dickie — with the lately revived Strapping Fieldhands, as well as a certain wild-eyed, magic-folk-through-burnt-amps aura. The wispy voiced and whimsical singer is Barry Goldberg, a visual artist of some repute in the band’s home town of Philadelphia.

Tin Top Sorcerer is Sparrow Steeple’s third full-length, following 2005’s Rangefinder and 2017’s Steeple Two , and it seems, after a quick run through the Bandcamp back catalogue a bit more gleefully overstuffed and amplified than previous material. “Roll Baby,” the opener blows out the honkytonk blues with guitars distorted into fuzzy bludgeons and a harmonica (played by Philadelphia regular Harmonica Dan Balcer) blared to shreds. A hornet’s nest of conflicting ideas buzzes around the block simple chorus “roll baby, roll baby, roll,” in a machine-age roil of feedback and dissonance. It is far less pastoral and folky than cuts like “Hamlet Egg Sandwich,” though just as bug-eyed eccentric.

Sparrow Steeple is either sending up or wholly committed to late 1960s hobbit-y folk metal mythology, imagining wizards at war in the backwards-guitar woozy “Stabbing Wizards” and retelling the “Elves and the Shoemaker” story in “Leprechaun Gold.” This latter is a wild, wiggy ride through wah wah’d guitar licks and arch, Donovan-ish trilled vocals, its round-the-maypole melody subsumed in psychedelic distortion. Think, for comparison, of the Bevis Frond at his folkiest, then think of him on a lot of acid.  

Even relatively modern references come dipped in a folkloric coating, as in “The Wolfman of Mayberry,” where Sparrow Steeple conflates the lycanthropic legend with The Andy Griffith Show. Isobel Sollenberger of Bardo Pond makes a guest appearance on this cut, blowing wild flourishes of psychedelic flute and echoing Goldberg’s equally out-there vocal flights of fancy. “Gomer’s acting strange…Goober’s actually deranged…Floyd the barber’s insane,” they sing in loose call and response, and indeed, there is something not quite right in Mayberry.  

Tin Top Sorcerer rides a rambunctious energy that, in general, overcomes a tendency towards preciousness. It’s busy and noisy and full of a momentum that makes you forget that these are grown men singing about fairy tales and shoehorning exotic instruments (Hulusi, bouzouki) into folk melodies. Think about it too long and it might seem silly, but fortunately, there’s not much time or space for contemplation.

Jennifer Kelly

[the13thtrack]

Sparrow Steeple - Tin Top Sorcerer (Trouble In Mind)

Sparrow Steeple – Tin Top Sorcerer (Trouble In Mind)

Sparrow Steeple’s Tin Top Sorcerer is the group’s debut for best label Trouble In Mind, and it’s a tight collection of some real gone Philadelphia-style psychedelic stompers.  The kind they don’t really make anymore.  You can almost hear the cans of watery domestic ales popping between takes, and picture the ramshackle recording set up these guys committed these whoppers to tape on.  These guys…

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[ever-never-records]

Out today ! on Ever/Never ! Two excellent EPs from Dan Melchior & Sparrow Steeple on the superior 12′‘ 45RPM Format.

Listen/Buy here ///  https://evernever-records.bandcamp.com/

[homeblitz]

Philadelphia - Peter Bellamy

Peter Bellamy sings Rudyard Kipling's poem. From the 1970 album Oak, Ash and Thorn. I believe Kipling lived in America for a time in his life. I suppose he c...

This Saturday, April 9th, HOME BLITZ plays at the Philly Record Exchange in Philadelphia with new group SPARROW STEEPLE.