Soft Abuse news Aug '10: Donovan Quinn & the 13th Month LP/CD, Car Commercials 7", Pigeons tour + more
Soft Abuse
Hi, Soft Abuse email list friends:
August already! Hope this message finds you well & happy.
Lots happening here despite our silence of late. For instance, we’ve got two new releases available as of tomorrow: Donovan Quinn & the 13th Month’s brilliant second album, Your Wicked Man, and a killer new 7” from Car Commercials, Prisoners of Type. Also, a few months back we re-released two Pumice albums on cassette – Quo and Pebbles are now available on glorious tape. Tomorrow is Alright, by Sonny & the Sunsets, has been repressed, too…
We recently received a few Pumice-related items to peddle; a book of Stefan’s dog drawings & the brand new 10” on Doubtful Sounds out of France. More info on each below…
Be in touch with questions, etc about anything below, and as always, let us know if you want off this list.
NOW AVAILABLE
(click on the artist/title to purchase, obtain more info, hear a sample, etc)
DONOVAN QUINN & THE 13TH MONTH Your Wicked Man LP + DL (SAB040)
San Francisco songwriter Donovan Quinn is anything but direct. With an enigmatic deadpan he delivers lyrics written in a dense and fragmentary style; the influence of writers such as Malcolm Lowry and Thomas Pynchon figures just as heavily on his craft as Robyn Hitchcock, Pavement, Robert Forster and Skip Spence.
Your Wicked Man is the second album from his primary band, Donovan Quinn & the 13th Month, created in collaboration with Nick Marcantonio on bass and Jason Quever (Papercuts) as producer and multi-instrumentalist. In much the same way his presence molded Cass McCombs’ early efforts, Quever’s contributions to Your Wicked Man serve Quinn’s narratives with arrangements that range from ornamental to rollicking to bare, pushing Quinn's embrace of rustic, poetic popcraft to the fore. The band's distinct take on art-pop forms re-imagines early efforts from Mekons, Nikki Sudden and John Cale as filtered through Californian folk-rock. 500 copies.
$15.00 ppd USA
$17.00 ppd Canada / Mexico
$25.00 ppd elsewhere
CAR COMMERCIALS Prisoner of Type 7” + DL (SAB042)
Car Commercials explore the personal / loner side of DIY with their singular take on no-chord strum & mumble rock n’ roll alienation. Dave Sutton and Daniel DiMaggio have created another soundtrack of suburban boredom & terminal paranoia; the stifling, mundane source of this music (geographically and psychologically speaking) is mirrored and regurgitated in these five tunes. Where once they tread a formless, lurching path, Car Commercials now tromp along with more-cohesive abandon. Moments of spontaneity & pure attitude are delivered in restrained spurts and jabs, and their chops seem better, too. All in all, Prisoner of Type extends the duo’s unsettling missives into (slightly) less-rudimentary corners. Each side offers a different, uh, side of the band. Its a savory listen. 300 copies.
$6.50 ppd USA
$7.50 ppd Canada / Mexico
$9.50 ppd elsewhere
STILL NEW
PUMICE Quo CS (SAB029) + Pebbles CS (SAB022)
The two most-recent Pumice full-length releases are now available on cassette. Pro dubbed & pro printed, these both look and sound great.
$6.00 ppd USA
$7.00 ppd Canada / Mexico
$9.00 ppd elsewhere
SONNY & THE SUNSETS Tomorrow is Alright LP (SAB039)
Repressed. Sonny & the Sunsets are a beautiful west coast thing. Birthed from the sand, the surf, and twilight campfires down in Ocean Beach, Sonny & the Sunsets’ busted beach-pop songs spark recollections of doo wop's otherworldly despair, the kitchen sink savoir faire of The Raincoats, a dose of goofball humor from the Michael Hurley school, and positive possibilities exuded by Jonathan Richman, with and without The Modern Lovers. Helmed by the acclaimed singer / songwriter, playwright, author & onetime troubadour pianoman Sonny Smith, The Sunsets have featured a revolving door lineup that now includes Kelley Stotlz and Tahlia Harbour. Still more friends and neighbors including John Dwyer, Tim Cohen and Shayde Sartin cosmically appeared to contribute to the debut LP, Tomorrow is Alright.
Tomorrow is Alright hits on all the right zones, from sly VU-like observations to the true bedlam explored by Holy Modal Rounders. All the while, Sonny’s pen is soaked with an EC comics sense of storytelling, touching equally on the macabre, the absurd, the humorous, and above all, the entertaining. A co-release with Secret Seven label out of San Francisco, the LP is limited to 500 copies. CD edition released via Fat Possum, August 31 2010.
$15.00 ppd USA
$17.00 ppd Canada
$25.00 ppd elsewhere
ULAAN KHOL III CD (SAB038)
"'III' is as immediate as a truck with failed brakes crashing through your living room wall. The third and final installment of a trilogy entitled Ceremony, its opening moments rage and wail, with distorted guitars pulling out in front of the drums like hellhounds that have slipped their master's leesh. But this isn't a mono-dimensional freak-out. Smith paces himself, pulling back into brooding drones and pensive picking before lashing out once more. As befits a journey that's taken three discs to unfold, it ends with a grand gesture; the final melody is as epic as Roy Montgomery's mid-'90s work, and it unfurls over a landscape of blasted wah-wah licks and feeback that somehow reconcile The Stooges and Popul Vuh." - Bill Meyer, Signal to Noise
$11.00 ppd USA
$12.00 ppd Canada / Mexico
$15.00 ppd elsewhere
HAPPENING SOON
OLYMPUS Bold Mould LP (SAB041) [released Sept/Oct 2010]
PIGEONS Visions of the Valley 7” (SAB043) [released Sept/Oct 2010]
PIGEONS Liasons CD/LP
NEW DISTRO
STEFAN NEVILLE Around the World in 80 Dogs BOOK (self-published)
Wonderful collection of dog drawings from Stefan Neville (Pumice). Some of these have appeared on Pumice releases, but most have only been found in his sketchbooks. Features a silkscreened cover (on a map!), released in a signed edition of 50. We've only got a few of these...
$10.00 ppd USA
$11.00 ppd Canada / Mexico
$14.00 ppd elsewhere
PUMICE s/t 10" (Doubtful Sounds)
"Some time ago, I got a message from Stefan Neville about this record: "I been workin on some recording for you. some dumb punk slop and some tape loop soup and a pretty love song." I couldn't describe the record better. It's maybe the end of an era for Pumice with his 8 track pushed to its maximum limits and dying soon after these recordings were finished. So the result is maybe one of the noisier Pumice records to date... with a pretty love song. Recorded in june 2009 in Sandringham, Auckland, NZ. And mixed in january 2010 at Mainz.
Black vinyl packed in black paper silkscreened by Cotoreich, with 2 postcards. Artwork by Stefan Neville. Mastering by Aigle noir. Limited to 500 copies." - Doubtful Sounds
French import, only a few available…
$15.00 ppd USA
$17.00 ppd Canada / Mexico
$25.00 ppd elsewhere
ARTIST NEWS
PIGEONS
After relocating to Paris, the band’s brilliant Si Faustine LP will be released by Olde English Spelling Bee in June. New 7” single on Soft Abuse is imminent, as is their Liason LP, and a full US tour with Fabulous Diamonds.
DONOVAN QUINN & THE 13TH MONTH
DQ himself made an incredible / creepy video for the song “Mom’s House” from his new album, see it here -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FHYzFzo6vg&feature=player_embedded
SONNY & THE SUNSETS
The band signed to Fat Possum; Tomorrow is Alright will see a CD/digital release from them 31 August.
LIVE EVENTS
PIGEONS
10/28 - Brooklyn, NY - Union Pool (with Fabulous Diamonds)
11/02 - Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle (with Fabulous Diamonds)
PUMICE
08/27 – Auckland, NZ – The High Seas (with Grouper)
THIS MAILING LIST
SEMI-CURRENT LISTENING
MICHAEL HURLEY Blue Hills LP (Mississippi)
MOTHER OF FIRE s/t LP (De Stijl)
JULIAN LYNCH Mare LP (OESB)
BLACK MAYONNAISE Dissi Pative Structure LP (Fedora Corpse)
THE MANTLES Pink Information 12” (Mexican Summer)
Thanks & sorry,
Chris / Soft Abuse
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SOFT ABUSE
www.softabuse.com