RA RA RIOT ANNOUNCES NEED YOUR LIGHT

BROOKLYN 5-PIECE TO RELEASE FOURTH FULL LENGTH ALBUM ON FEBRUARY 19 VIA ARTS & CRAFTS

 LISTEN AND SHARE FIRST SINGLE "WATER" (PRODUCED BY VAMPIRE WEEKEND'S ROSTAM)

PHOTO BY SHERVIN LAINEZ

"Water", Ra Ra Riot's collaboration with Vampire Weekend's Rostam, showcases the band's heightened levels of experimentation found throughout the forthcoming album Need Your Light. The album was primarily produced by Ryan Hadlock (Vance Joy, Blonde Redhead) with two tracks, "I Need Your Light” and "Water", produced by Rostam Batmanglij (Vampire Weekend, Charli XCX, Carly Rae Jepsen). Earlier today, "Water" was spun by Zane Lowe on Beats1 as well as on KCRW's "Morning Become's Eclectic”, Sirius XMU, KEXP, WXPN, and WFPK. 

Need Your Light is the sound of a band being reinvigorated by its own existence. Correspondingly, the album sees Ra Ra Riot - Wes Miles (vocals), Mathieu Santos (bass), Milo Bonacci (guitar), Rebecca Zeller (violin), and Kenny Bernard (drums) - getting back to their house party roots without abandoning the more heady soundscapes they explored with 2013's Beta Love. The result is an album that's celebratory without being solipsistic and that sees the group collectively mining its prior experiences in order to craft something that looks toward the future with an optimistic gaze. 

PRE-ORDER 'NEED YOUR LIGHT' VIA ITUNES HERE AND RECEIVE AN INSTANT DOWNLOAD OF “WATER”


PRE-ORDER 'NEED YOUR LIGHT' CD AND LP VIA GALLERY AC HERE AND RECEIVE AND INSTANT DOWNLOAD OF “WATER”

Ra Ra Riot had planned for a longer break after Beta Love. However, after a few months, they couldn't help themselves from working on new music. "The inspiration came very quickly," Miles says, explaining that he decided to fly out to Los Angeles to work with previous producer Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello) in order to start fleshing out ideas. Shortly afterward, the group went on a writing trip to Milwaukee, then found themselves crafting Need Your Light with a host of previous collaborators, including Ryan Hadlock in Seattle (who produced 2008's The Rhumb Line) and Andrew Maury in Brooklyn (a longtime friend, collaborator and live sound engineer who also co-produced 2010's The Orchard). 

Also in the mix - as he has been since the band's inception - is Vampire Weekend's Rostam. He has a long history of working with Ra Ra Riot (including the Discovery project with Miles), yet this marks the first time he's actually taken on the role of producer for the band. Discussing the process behind "Water" and the title track, Rostam states: 

"Between 2005-2009, Wes and I wrote an album together in snatched moments in our lives... That record (the Discovery LP) seemed to benefit from us having the freedom to pick it up and put it down.  In January of this year, Wes came to stay with me, and we set out to write songs again. We didn't know where it would take us. There was something I'd heard in Wes' singing in the earliest days of seeing Ra Ra Riot live that I felt had never quite been captured on record. There was our shared love of U2's Achtung Baby, something that having listened to the music we've recorded in our lives thus far you might not know about. And also this obsession with writing songs that tell stories. So we spent five days writing just two songs - 'Water' and 'I Need Your Light'- and I think we found that same freedom in making these songs that we had found years ago making the Discovery record, not knowing where it would take us." 

Ra Ra Riot's desire to get back in touch with its roots was also encouraged by the decision to do a short tour of warehouses and basements late last year before re-entering the studio to remind them of why they began Ra Ra Riot in the first place. "Because we started as a house party band, we never wanted to lose sight of having fun and engaging with the audience through visceral live shows," Santos says. With Need Your Light, Ra Ra Riot are incorporating their past into the future. 

Whether Miles is singing about something fantastic or mundane, there's an enduring energy to the songs on this album which illustrate that in many ways Ra Ra Riot is still only getting started. 

 Need Your Light Track List:

1. Water
2. Absolutely
3. Foreign Lovers
4. I Need Your Light
5. Bad Times
6. Call Me Out
7. Instant Breakup
8. Every Time I'm Ready To Hug
9. Bouncy Castle
10. Suckers

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JASON COLLETT REVEALS NEW VIDEO BY HAYDEN FOR TITLE TRACK OF UPCOMING ALBUM

BAHAMAS’ AFIE JURVANEN PRODUCES ICONIC CANADIANA SONGWRITER JASON COLLETT'S 70’S DANCE MUSIC INSPIRED 6th LP


SONG AND DANCE MAN OUT FEBRUARY 5 VIA ARTS & CRAFTS

PHOTO CREDIT: ISIS ESSERY 

“Song And Dance Man” is the title track from Jason Collett’s sixth full-length album and it finds the iconic singer-songwriter back at centre stage, with three-minutes-and-change and a story to sing. The video, edited by Arts & Crafts label mate Hayden Desser, shines a light on the trials and triumphs of the modern musician by creating contrast with archival footage of a variety of performers from a bygone age (courtesy of Prelinger Archives, San Francisco).

“I had a great time working with Jason on this video,” says Hayden. “He found this wonderful footage of the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair: amateur videos of a time that differ from today’s ‘shoot everything’ mentality. Much of the footage is quite striking and thoughtful. Editing to such a great, catchy song was a real pleasure."

“I’ve always been a fan of Hayden’s videos, particularly the dry wit he employs while still exploring a kind of fundamental beauty,” Collett explains. “He’s got a keen sense of rhythm editing found footage and I love how the carnival atmosphere in this video lends itself to the light-hearted through-line of the song – the absurd, tragi-comic nature of the hustle that musicians, or any kind of artist, are expected to engage in these days." 

Produced by Bahamas’ Afie Jurvanen, Song And Dance Man’s thirteen songs bear the wit and melody of classic Jason Collett: contemplative reflections on getting older, backed with an affinity for freewheeling 70s dance music. The album’s conspiring themes of love & loneliness, sun & shadows, are buoyed by its soaring sound. Each song rises into an easy, spacious groove, lead by Jason’s languid melodies and Afie’s sun-drunk bass.

“There’s a cool economy to Afie’s approach that lets the record breathe and allows it to say more with less, something I worked hard at hardly working at in writing the songs,” says Collett. “Keeping a light touch, keeping it short.”

Having spent the years since 2012’s Reckon finding himself further engaged in the growing success of his Basement Revue concert series – a cross-pollinating musical & literary mash-up of Canada’s premiere contemporary artists – the Toronto indie-troubadour describes this record as a liberating process distilled in a stretch of deep domestic reverie.

"I like writing songs and for the first time in my life I felt no rush to hustle them or myself out the door,” says Collett. “I let some dust settle, some weeds grow, putter about at home…”

The result is a dynamic addition to a strong body of work. Recorded in spring 2015 with long-time collaborators drummer/engineer Don Kerr (at his Rooster Studio), Christine Bougie on guitar & lap steel, Zeus’ Neil Quinn on backing vocals, and Afie holding it down on the bass, Song And Dance Man may be Jason Collett’s finest effort yet. The storied songwriter is back in the spotlight, more comfortable than ever in the guise of entertainer:

You got to do what you can when you’re a Song And Dance Man.

Fans in Toronto can attend Jason Collett’s ninth annual Basement Revue which kicks off on December 1 at The Dakota Tavern and will run for five consecutive Tuesdays. Curated and hosted by Collett and poet Damian Rogers, past Basement Revues have boasted an impressive roster featuring Feist, Michael Ondaatje, A Tribe Called Red, Joseph Boyden, Margaret Atwood, Anne Waldman, Daniel Lanois, Naomi Klein, Gord Downie, Marina Abromovic, Broken Social Scene, Andy Kim, Linda Spalding, Ken Babstock, Torquil Campbell (Stars), John K. Sampson (Weakerthans) and more. 

National tour dates will be announced soon.

 SONG AND DANCE MAN TRACKLIST: 

1. Provincial Blues
2. Song And Dance Man
3. Forever Young Is Getting Old
4. Long Day's Shadow
5. Little Sparrow
6. If She Don't Love Me Now
7. Singing American
8. Love You Babe
9. Black Oak Savanna
10. Where Does Your Love Go?
11. Nobody's Fool
12. It Don't Matter Anymore
13. Staring At The Sun

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FEDERAL LIGHTS ANNOUNCES COEUR DE LION

WINNIPEG FIVE-PIECE FEDERAL LIGHTS TO RELEASE NEW LP, SHARES NEW VIDEO. COEUR DE LION OUT JANUARY 29 VIA APORIA RECORDS

 

Winnipeg’s Federal Lights isn’t a love song kind of band. Rather, songwriter Jean-Guy Roy, pens lyrics that yearn for the romantic. Produced by Rusty Matyas (Imaginary Cities, Sheepdogs), Coeur de Lion finds a sense of beauty by examining the gravity of everyday moments. A song might be about riding transit and overhearing a kid say something obvious that feels profound; it might be about experiencing the harder edges of city life and the emotional toll that can take. What ties it all together is hope – in even the most haunting tracks there’s a morsel of it. “I find it uplifting that there’s some hope in the saddest of situations,” says Roy.

Coeur de Lion travels through points of pressure, regret, solace, anticipation, and disquiet, without ever losing sight. The anthemic first single “Into The Ground” brings themes of endurance and resolution to the forefront. “The song talks about the dynamic of relationships. They're a work in progress that can take people to the edge of every emotion conceivable, constantly begging the question, ‘is this worth it’? Ultimately for me, it is, but sadly for a lot of people it isn't. Hopefully this song can at least offer some understanding.”

Coeur de Lion is the follow up to Federal Lights’ acclaimed Western Canadian Music Award winning debut We Were Found In The Fog.  Canadian tour dates will be announced soon.


COEUR DE LION TRACKLIST

The Ghost (Rises)
Into The Ground
You & I
Then Came The Light
Amelia
Coeur de Lion
Lie To Me
Ctrl.Alt.Delete
This Town
The Ghost (Moves)
Parachutes

 

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