Child, we ain’t from this world: SPIN premieres Matthew E. White “Brazos”
The climactic live video from Matthew E. White’s Hopscotch Music Festival performance
“‘Brazos’ is the kind of clip that speaks for itself…Matthew E. White, if you don’t know, is a Richmond, Virginia-bred singer-songwriter with a real John Lennon vibe going, both in terms of his ambition and his rolling, psychedelic soul music. White is joined by 30 musicians in this live rendition of his new Big Inner LP’s 11-minute closer…Righteous.” -SPIN
WATCH at SPIN:
Matthew E. White “Brazos” Live at Hopscotch Music Festival 2012
Presented by Spacebomb and Hometapes.
Special thanks to Kamp Grizzly.
Director: Hometapes
Camera: Anthony Forgey, Yogi Hakim, Adam Heathcott, xTonyx Wallace
Editor: xTonyx Wallace
DOWNLOAD/STREAM: Matthew E. White “One Incantation Under God”
The entire Hopscotch performance was recorded by NYC Taper. You can take it with you.
TOUR DATES: Matthew E. White heads out on the road with The Mountain Goats in one week. Click here for the complete date list.
More tour dates announced! To The South, where my people are from. To The Southwest, the Land of Enchantment, and to The West, the destination of idyllic mid-century westward expansion and refuge for 20th century composers exiled from European totalitarianism.
Here’s the full list of Matthew E. White dates, including the nationwide tour with The Mountain Goats — and a few special engagements…
Matthew E. White Tour Dates
- 10/09/12 - Richmond, VA @ The National *
- 10/10/12 - Baltimore, MD @ The Ottobar *
- 10/11/12 - Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts *
- 10/12/12 - Hudson, NY @ Helsinki Hudson
- 10/13/12 - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg *
- 10/14/12 - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg *
- 10/15/12 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom *
- 10/16/12 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom *
- 10/18/12 - Boston, MA @ House of Blues *
- 10/19/12 - Ithaca, NY @ The Haunt *
- 10/20/12 - Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre *
- 10/21/12 - Guelph, ON @ E-Bar
- 10/22/12 - Grand Rapids, MI @ The Ladies Literary Club *
- 10/23/12 - Milwaukee, WI @ Pabst Theater *
- 10/24/12 - Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater *
- 10/26/12 - Iowa City, IA @ The Blue Moose Taphouse *
- 10/27/12 - Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre *
- 11/17/12 - Saxapahaw, NC @Haw River Ballroom #
- 11/29/12 - Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West *
- 11/30/12 - Asheville, TN @ Grey Eagle *
- 12/01/12 - Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge *
- 12/03/12 - Tulsa, OK @ Cain’s Ballroom *
- 12/04/12 - Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater *
- 12/05/12 - Austin, TX @ Emo’s East *
- 12/07/12 - Santa Fe, NM @ Santa Fe Brewing Co. *
- 12/08/12 - Phoenix, AZ @ Crecent Ballroom *
- 12/09/12 - Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress *
- 12/10/12 - San Diego, CA @ Irenic *
- 12/13/12 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Troubador *
- 12/14/12 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore *
- 12/16/12 - Portland, OR @ The Aladdin Theater *
- 12/17/12 - Seattle, WA @ The Showbox Theater *
* w/ The Mountain Goats
# w/ Midtown Dickens
via matthewewhite
Whenever I travel, always in some wild Hometapes spirit, the relief map of my life experiences a frantic uplift of mountain ranges, a swift, time-defying formation of valleys, and new, deep rivers rushing down through it all.
From that first embrace in that faraway place, to the shuffle of dozens of feet onto a stage, to the music, oh the music. Emails drift into hills as I grip the steering wheel, the computer in my pocket hums with voices and pictures pile up like road signs. You learn to remember as you live, to think and speak and write and hold it together — while you take deep breath after deep breath and do entirely new things, acting on the experience of every year, every day, every moment lived before.
And then you come home, or at least to your steady address, and find your world multiplied. Your true home is expanded across a whole nation and a group of people in your heart. And you want to share it. But you’ve gotta find the light to do it by — ‘cause the sun’s dipped behind the peaks. Those peaks you pushed up out of the earth, yourself, days before.
Returning from a week in North Carolina, we carried with us hundreds of pictures, gigs on gigs on gigs of video footage, new names, old names, thousands of words-turned-into-stories, and every stay-up-til-sunrise feeling to match. We went with a mission, built around Hopscotch Fest, where Matthew E. White and 30 performers converged on stage for a performance dubbed One Incantation Under God, a transcendent-and-still-resonating manifestation of the album Big Inner and all the parts that built it: the rhythm section, the horns, the strings, the choir, the art team, the label team, the family, and the friends. Matthew, as always — in his artist shape, or the label shape of Spacebomb — went straight-up nuclear, exploding into a new old light alongside everyone that continues to help construct this particular landscape of New American Music. Yeah, I’ll capitalize it. And I’ll go so far as to say that Music can stand for much more than notions of sound alone. Every sense sings its own song.
So we sang into the following day and created our third North Carolina Friend Island (and I think it may be the tenth in Island History, hot damn). Held in a church, light shining through stained glass, soft carpet underfoot, hushed voices layering in the space before the show began with Snow Panda’s brilliant invocation, Friend Island was the long exhale we all needed — from the night before, from the year before. The tour of our universe that followed — Matthew E. White (with the Spacebomb choir ladies joining in), Hiss Golden Messenger, Sunless (Hometapes’ own Adam Heathcott) — tended toward the stopping of time. You sat there. You looked up. You looked over. You closed your eyes. You could be alone or together.
You could argue this was all foreplay for the climax of Death Blues. Jon Mueller and his band took to the stage and traveled through every inch of the space and — by way of hammered guitars, upright bass, voice, and Mueller’s language of percussion — through every person in the space. Talk about senses. Outside, Slingshot Coffee Co. and Crumb administered our own brand of communion. By the end of Friend Island, I’m questioning what a “release” truly is. Depending on the conditions, a record is a performance is a conversation is a t-shirt is a look-in-the-eye is a cup of coffee is the closing of a van door after a long, long day.
The night came on quick. We ate at Chuck’s (I had a Bear In Heaven), walked down the street in Raleigh, and recognized almost everyone we saw. Waking up at 5am the next morning, the dream state took us over fully, and we dove into a twelve hour music video shoot, on the streets of Durham, for Matthew E. White. The guys from Kamp Grizzly make eye music — and Adam and I guided them through our quiet but constant world of architecture+nature, into our friends’ houses, toward walls of clouds, to Cook Out. We continued the wild tale of Big Inner, alongside Matthew E. White himself. I shot pictures on film all day. We listened to the same song over and over — and all I wanna do is hear it again. That same day, Megafaun was having their party in Raleigh, the likes of Adam Granduciel (War on Drugs), Chris Corsano, and William Tyler joining them on stage. That night, we saw Megafaun do a galaxy spiral alongside Arnold Dreyblatt. Then we ran to drink in No BS Brass, “the best live band in America.” Nearly sleepless for days, I still couldn’t let the night go…til the sun burst through the clouds — and I was flying right through them.
Between these words and pictures is the whole story. I could say I wish you were there, but, if you’re reading this right now, you know, you were.
__________
Big love to Jeremy M. Lange and Abigail Stinnett for a couple of the pictures you see above, as well as to everyone who was in front of my camera.
This month, we pulled back the curtains covering the big windows of a little house in the middle of nearly-nowhere. Ormonde’s debut album Machine sits inside that small bungalow, glowing in green and blue and pink. These are the colors of the earth and sky in Marfa, Texas, where Anna-Lynne Williams and Robert Gomez traveled to create an album — half out of platonic-yet-intimate collaboration, half out of desert magic.
Mere days ago, Robert traveled from his Texas home to Anna-Lynne’s place in Seattle. The duo revived their Marfa ways, writing, directing, and acting in their own video — and filming it all on an iPhone. Today we share the window-view with you: watch Ormonde in “I Can’t Imagine” and find them on different terrain — perhaps as themselves or perhaps as different people entirely.
VIDEO: Ormonde “I Can’t Imagine”
MP3: Ormonde “I Can’t Imagine”
If I could wish for one thing, it’s that you could see what I’ve seen on the road to Big Inner. Matthew E. White’s debut album, released on Tuesday into the loving arms of the world, leaves a seat at the table for you: your memories, your worries, your red-faced reactions to notions of the body and the spirit — and the tropical place in your mind where those converge. Matt’s voice is that warm wind, and the Spacebomb House Band, Horns, Strings, and Choir is the light rain that starts up, cooling you down and drenching you in something far beyond a simple seven-song record.
I think you’re all seeing it, especially as of this past week. From loving notes in my inbox, to the prose of a veritable wave of reviews — writing that goes beyond sheer reporting into realms of straight-up testimony. I wish there was an “abstract idea or feeling” post option on Tumblr. I wish I could go beyond my own stumbling words to let you know what it’s like to have the world believing beside you, not just in Matthew E. White and Big Inner, but in everything Hometapes has ever sweat and bled for. It’s all here.
I can get close. I shot a video at Mercury Lounge on Monday, when Matthew E. White performed on the eve of the album release for an electric (and beautifully silent) room of New Yorkers, so many friends among them. It’s the last song, “Brazos,” and it not only features the culminating vibe of an amazing show, it features Matt’s friend and mentor, Steven Bernstein. He, along with Cameron, Pinson, Trey, Scott, and Gabe, brought it all around. And around. And around.
So, see what I see:
WATCH: Matthew E. White “Brazos” @ Mercury Lounge, 8/20/12
And:
“Resplendently somnolent funk” - Rolling Stone “Artist to Watch”
“Bottomless columns of ethereal soul…magical” - Pitchfork (8.1)
“A dramatic pop-gospel record that hits extremes of the mood spectrum: very easygoing and very obsessive” - NY Times
“A veritable bouillabaisse of sound” - Aquarium Drunkard
“Slow and spacious” - NY Daily News
“A brilliant debut” - Consequence of Sound “Top Star”
“Truly special” - Blurt (9/10 review)
“A trip through the record crates” - WXPN
“Matthew E. White brings together the warm, haunted tones of Leonard Cohen, Terry Reilly, and Dr. John” - Stereogum
“Fully steeped in the nuanced, vigilant and incisive songcraft of totemic American tunesmiths…magnificent” - eMusic
They say youth is a vision, that we can’t see til we’re old.
One of these days.
Yeah?
Big love.
I can feel it.
Will you love me?
Yes.
Gone away.
I know.
Steady pace.
We’re good at it.
Hot toddies.I think it’s time.
Brazos.
Wade across it.
Matthew E. White.
Big Inner.
Out today on Spacebomb and Hometapes.
Ape School : Show ‘n Tell
Album release parties & a mixtape guide to the archaeology of Junior Violence
The vast magic of releasing a new record isn’t just reserved for the moment you get a box of vinyl on your porch or for the concentrated hurrah of release day. It’s always two weeks later, when the record is traveling free into hearts and heads, when you’re shipping mailorders, when you hear your friends singing along.
And then there are the shows. Last Friday, Ape School celebrated the release of Junior Violence in their hometown of Philadephia. They had a gong. They projected Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii. It was perfect. Proof:
WATCH: Ape School “A New Low! It Sucks Itself!” Live at Johnny Brendas, 8/17/12
This Tuesday, they bring the Violence to NYC. Catch them at Glasslands in Brooklyn. Grab tickets here.
And:
Last week, Impose Magazine revealed a cave full of Junior Violence fossils. In sixteen tracks, Ape School’s Michael Johnson has prepared your guidebook and brain lubricant for the new album. It’s a speed-dating session — and Gong, Beefheart, and Scott Walker are all waiting for you to talk to them.
LISTEN: Ape School’s Fresh Fudge Mixtape (via Impose Magazine)
Ape School Junior Violence is available now on LP and CD from Hometapes, as well as at your favorite digital and brick-and-mortar stores everywhere.
Someone’s knockin’ at the door:
Matthew E. White Big Inner now streaming on YouTube
Seven days before its official release, the distant rumble of Big Inner has arrived on your doorstep, suitcase in hand, ready to stay for a while.
Do me a favor
Open the door and let em in
Today, love is as easy as clicking play.
STREAM THE ALBUM: Matthew E. White Big Inner (via YouTube)
Pre-order the LP or CD all week long and receive an instant-grat album download upon order confirmation. We also have a sweet hookup going on at iTunes.
PRE-ORDER:
Matthew E. White Big Inner LP/CD (and receive a download of the album today!)
Matthew E. White Big Inner on iTunes (for only $5.99 through Sept. 11)
BONUS ROUND:
Matthew E. White’s debut NYC performance is next Monday at Mercury Lounge. And today, two additional NYC dates were added to Matthew E. White’s tour with The Mountain Goats:
10/13/12 - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
10/16/12 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Lucky NYC.
See full tour date listing here.
Every night and every day now:
Matthew E. White Big Inner pre-order underway + Matthew covering two of his favorite songs for Aquarium Drunkard’s Lagniappe Sessions
The wind’s picking up. You can hear a little thunder. The release of Matthew E. White’s earthshaking debut is just over a week away.
This week, we launched the pre-order for Big Inner. Order now and we’ll ship your record on Monday August 13. And even better: we’ll send you a full album download on Monday, too (a week before release!). Pictured above: the exquisite LP packaging (read more about the LP and CD packaging right here).
PRE-ORDER:
Matthew E. White Big Inner LP/CD
Matthew E. White Big Inner on iTunes (for only $5.99 through Sept. 11)
Can we give you something else?
This week, Aquarium Drunkard featured two new Matthew E. White songs — cover songs — in their Lagniappe Sessions series. These little windows into the world of Matthew E. White, from the music that shaped him to the sonic power of the Spacebomb family (yeah, you’re hearing a choir, yeah, you’re hearing horns), are a sparkling treasure as we march toward the release of Big Inner.
In other words, get excited.
LISTEN / DOWNLOAD / READ:
Matthew E. White The Lagniappe Sessions
Featuring…
“Games People Play” (Joe South/Lee Dorsey Cover)
“I’ll Be Home” (Randy Newman Cover)
You don’t know you don’t know: Ape School Junior Violence comes alive.
Junior Violence is the edge of a cliff, of a knife, of the bed you rolled out of this morning. It’s wandering into a pine forest at dusk, to smoke and make out and get scared. It kneels at the altar of rock-fucking-music, opening its eyes during the prayer to put its arm around you and say, “you wanna get outta here?”
Cut class and go with us to Ape School today. We’re celebrating the release of an album that, if you listen and look closely, says it all.
BUY:
Ape School Junior Violence LP/CD
Ape School Junior Violence DIGITAL
STREAM:
Ape School Junior Violence via WXPN & Hometapes
WATCH:
Ape School “Weak in the Teeth” Live In-Studio Video
(and check out the premiere of the song on MTV Hive yesterday)
“Junior Violence: An aural treatise on the unintentional evolution of a clueless jackass. Don’t blame me. Who said it ever came easy? You don’t know you don’t know. Who cares, we all die. You can’t take the dirty out of me. It’s not the same place you remember. Did you know you fucked yourself? Suck it up and blow it all away. The outside got loose and the inside got hollow. I’ve got sourpuss down to a science. I apologize. Thanks for listening. RIP Early Retirement.” - Michael Johnson, Ape School
I think it’s only us that breathe: Ormonde Machine out today, and forever.
How do you release a feeling? A whispered story?
A nervous shuffle? A sunrise?
Ormonde’s debut album, a roadside marker on Hometapes’ most scenic route, is looking you in the eye today. From the curve of the rider’s back to your own shimmering reflection in the vinyl, we’ve built a diorama to exalt what it means to wake up and hold something beautiful.
BUY:
Ormonde Machine LP/CD
Ormonde Machine DIGITAL
STREAM THE ALBUM:
Ormonde Machine via Paste Magazine
“Anna-Lynne and Robert Gomez have created something so psychologically mind bending and innovative that it is going to absolutely mesmerize you…one of the best albums to be released in the last decade, and definitely one of the finest of 2012.” - Fensepost
“gorgeously intimate and haunting” - My Old Kentucky Blog
“Ormonde will breathe down your neck, whisper in your ear and hold you closer than most – which is precisely why it’s one of the debuts of the year.” - Bowlegs
Ormonde Releases New Song “Cherry Blossom” via NPR, Machine Out Next Tuesday!
STREAM / DOWNLOAD: Ormonde “Cherry Blossom”
Check it out on NPR’s All Songs Considered
“Anna-Lynne Williams and Robert Gomez have created something so psychologically mind bending and innovative that it is going to absolutely mesmerize you” - Fensepost
Days before our release of their debut album Machine, Ormonde is already on fire. Today, the duo is sharing a seductive new single “Cherry Blossom” — also featured yesterday on All Songs Considered. Dig in and time travel with Anna-Lynne Williams and Robert Gomez to Marfa, Texas, where the album was crafted — half collaboration, half desert magic.
Also…
STREAM / DOWNLOAD: Ormonde “I Can’t Imagine”
“gorgeously intimate and haunting” - My Old Kentucky Blog
Matthew E. White Announces Fall Tour with The Mountain Goats!
…and Big Inner release show in NYC in August.
Big Inner doesn’t care that the days are getting shorter. Matthew E. White’s debut album is your summer expansion pack — and today, with the announcement of a very special tour with The Mountain Goats, you can stay in the water as long as you like. Come October, Matthew E. White and his band — including a three-piece horn section — will bring Big Inner to life across North America. That same horn section will join The Mountain Goats every night, manifesting the striking horn arrangements that Matthew E. White wrote for The Mountain Goat’s new album Transcendental Youth. The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle had this to say about it today: “One of my fondest memories of the Transcendental Youth recording sessions is listening in the control room as Matthew and his players brought his horn arrangements to life on the other side of the glass. Me and Peter and Jon just sat there with our jaws on the floor. We can’t wait to hear it come together live.”
LISTEN: The Mountain Goats “Cry for Judas”
» Featuring Horn Arrangements by Matthew E. White
LISTEN: Matthew E. White “One of These Days”
LISTEN: Matthew E. White “Big Love”
WATCH: Big Inner Teaser Video
Matthew E. White Tour Dates
08/20/12 - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
09/06/12 - Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Music Festival
10/09/12 - Richmond, VA @ The National *
10/10/12 - Baltimore, MD @ The Ottobar *
10/11/12 - Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts *
10/14/12 - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg *
10/15/12 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom *
10/18/12 - Boston, MA @ House of Blues *
10/19/12 - Ithaca, NY @ The Haunt *
10/20/12 - Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre *
10/22/12 - Grand Rapids, MI @ The Ladies Literary Club *
10/23/12 - Milwaukee, WI @ Pabst Theater *
10/24/12 - Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater *
10/26/12 - Iowa City, IA @ The Blue Moose Taphouse *
10/27/12 - Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre *
* w/ The Mountain Goats
_________
Above: Matthew E. White on July 24, 2012. “One of These Days” 7” Release Show at Balliceaux, Richmond, VA. Photo by Sara Padgett.
COCAINE & GUNS ASAP :: the new song from Ape School
Junior Violence out August 7, available for pre-order today!
MP3: Ape School “Cocaine & Guns ASAP” (via Rolling Stone)
It’s about being the cream of the crop, but the crop is rotten…I wanted the drums to be like basketballs. It worked. Always envisioned the two characters slapping each other in the New Order “True Faith” video slapping each other to this song too. In other words, please slap your friends while listening. -Michael Johnson, Ape School
PRE-ORDER: Ape School Junior Violence LP/CD
KEEP LISTENING: Ape School “Marijuana’s on the Phone”
It’s hard to look away: Matthew E. White’s debut 7” single out now
Celebrate Spacebomb’s first release and cross the bridge to Big Inner
Every record has a road to it. I drive down it, sometimes a little faster than I should. I pull over to watch the sun set into it. I wake up in the morning just to get back on it again.
In the passenger’s seat is Matthew E. White. He’s got his guitar on one knee and his laptop on the other. The artist behind one of the finest albums of all time (with the Spacebomb family of performers standing right up beside him) is also the force behind a label that was born to redefine the meaning of that very word.
The release of this 7” today, available in stores everywhere and via mailorder, has all kinds of love wrapped up in it, all kinds of miles, and two songs that open the gates to an album that’ll probably change your life if you listen to it. Soon you’ll be able to. For now, just start the engine, look straight ahead, and turn the radio up. Wherever you’re headed, we’ll see you when you get there.
BUY: Matthew E. White “One of These Days” 7”
Limited to 1000 hand-numbered, hand-stamped copies assembled by Spacebomb in Richmond, VA. The 33RPM vinyl record is packaged in a vibrant two-color die-cut cover in a heavy PVC jacket. Includes a download coupon good for instant high-quality digital files
