Californian power pop band The Armoires wrote a brand new song for Halloween, Full-On Witch Mode. It is a deceptively dreamy song, with a hockey stick as the weapon of choice for the dangerous creature looking for a chance to beat up a victim into a bloody pulp. It is a track of massive various artists collection, Chilling, Thrilling Hooks And Haunted Harmonies, released via Big Stir Records (2LP, CD, digital).
HCTF review of Octoberland
As per usual the folks at power pop label Big Stir Records have put together a sampler with highlights from their roster. Among others Box Of Records features songs from The Armoires, Blake Jones & The Trike Shop, Graham Parker & The Goldtops, Librarians With Hickeys, and The Speed Of Sound. It is available as a pay-what-you-want download in a wealth of digital formats from their website.
Californian power pop band The Armoires have made a video for Ridley & Me After The Apocalypse, a track from their Octoberland album: "they play games of light and shade. Beneath the sunny side up baroque arrangements lies a wicked sense of humour".
Michael Bulbenko handled the cinematography using Ridley Broome's artwork for the album and the singles on top of the footage of the band.
HCTF review of Octoberland.
Californian power pop band The Armoires play games of light and shade on their new album Octoberland. Beneath the sunny side up baroque arrangements lies a wicked sense of humour: We Absolutely Mean It is their tongue-in-cheek ticket to long overdue fame - "this is where we go big". Well maybe in parts of Scandinavia (This One's For The Swedes). And there is always the comfort of Music & Animals.
All fun aside, they can dig deeper (and darker) with thought provoking concepts, most notably in Here Comes The Song, portraying a songwriter losing control about the contents and meaning of the lyrics he just wrote. Or did he? It gets a life of its own, with the musicians not exactly sure that they are happy about that, but not being able to grab the steering wheel and force it to another destination. The band's vocalists Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome love to their ability to go for on-point call-and-response an harmonizing, which takes off a bit of the edge of the obvious putdown in You Oughta Be Cut In Half.
Californian power pop band The Armoires have posted a video for their Here Comes The Song single: "The track is about a songwriter losing control about the contents and meaning of the lyrics. It gets a life on its own, with the musicians not exactly sure that they are happy about that, but not being able to grab the steering wheel and force it to another destination". Th clip was dircted by Michael Bulbenko.
Californian power pop band The Armoires go for a strings-driven baroque mood on their new single Here Comes The Song. The track is about a songwriter losing control about the contents and meaning of the lyrics. It gets a life on its own, with the musicians not exactly sure that they are happy about that, but not being able to grab the steering wheel and force it to another destination.
Pretty ambitious to try to capture this Faustian concept within the time frame of a little less than four minutes, but there is no real art without taking risks. It is another taste from their forthcoming new album, Octoberland, due for release in the Fall.
Californian power pop band The Armoires have unveiled an animated video for their We Absolutely Mean It single: "a bold statement, wrapped in strings and guitars, with a classic slowed down middle-eight thrown in for good measure". The clip was made by Brent Seavers and he put in a lot of easter eggs, all of whom will make sense once their new album Octoberland is released in the Fall.
Are Californian power pop band The Armoires dead serious or indulging into a bit of wishful thinking when they sing that "this is where we go big" on their new single We Absolutely Mean It? Either way the song is a bold statement, wrapped in strings and guitars, with a classic slowed down middle-eight thrown in for good measure.
The band has been going for ten years now and is still growing under the tutelage of producer Michael Simmons (sparkle*jets UK), their go-to guy for getting a vintage sound with top shelf harmonics and separation. It is another taste from their forthcoming new album, Octoberland, due for release in the Fall.
The core of Californian power pop band The Armoires is always busy with running Big Stir Records, a label that is home to a wealth of melodic jangling music, but Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome finally found some time to come up with a new single for their own band, The Armoires. Music & Animals is a slice of optimistic pop about the joy - and comfort - that can those two things can bring to one's life. It is a first taste of their forthcoming new album, Octoberland, due for release in Autumn.
Vocal harmonies have always been the band's forte since their formation ten years ago. Producer Michael Simmons (sparkle*jets UK) created an environment wherein they could lay down an ace backing track as the foundation for a sunny-side up excursion through a couple of decades worth a jangling music reference points. Albert Schweitzer was right when he said that "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats".
The folks of Californian label Big Stir Records try to come up with a definition for the music their are releasing in the new issue of Big Stir Magazine. "Is This Power Pop?" was curated by guest editors John M. Borack and S.W. Lauden. If anything they have set out to broaden the scope. Kate Sullivan makes a case for including ELO:
I get the argument that ELO belongs on the power pop spectrum. In the early eighties, they got kinda power poppy— like “Hold On Tight” and “Rock ’n’ Roll Is King.” Lynne started losing the strings, going more rockabilly, developing the sound that became his signature as a producer for George Harrison, Tom Petty, et al. It’s the sound you hear in the Traveling Wilburys. It roams a smaller musical landscape than classic- era ELO, and yeah, okay, you could call it power pop.
The cat is out of the bag. Over the last few months a couple of "fake bands" released tracks as part of the Digital Singles Series by the folks at Californian power pop label Big Stir Records. It turns that one band was hiding behind all this: The Armoires, the power pop quintet fronted by label owners Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome. They had also reached to the other artists on their roster to join in as guest musicians to create what would become Incognito, an album with covers of their musical heroes and a bunch of originals filled with references and lyrical snippets - "Listen to the wind blow / Watch the sun rise" from Fleetwood Mac's The Chain pops up at the end of I Say We Take Off And Nuke The Site From Orbit. The oddest track is the half a minute of audio collage The Armoires Are The Amine Beta Ring Sunshine Harmony Consortium, which does not sound like anything from Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music or The Kinks magnum opus The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.
It takes some nerve besides the required skills to kick off an album with the John Cale classic Paris 1919. Slightly more rough around the edges than the original, it features the superb harmonic skills of Karla Kane & Khoi Huynh (The Corner Laughers). As a rule of thumb the covers tend to stick close to the originals - why fix a perfect albeit overplayed pop song like Yellow River by one-hit wonder soft rockers Christie. However, they decided to deconstruct and rebuild Senses Working Overtime with ace results. They slowed it down a bit, with call-and-response vocals by Blake Jones, Dolph Chaney and Peter Watts (Spygenius).
The idea behind the Digital Singles Series by the folks at Californian power pop label Big Stir Records was quite simple: every Friday a band from their roster or a like-minded boutique company catering to that niche (Kool Kat Musik, SpyderPop Records, Karma Frog Music and their partners at Futureman Records) releases two songs. After awhile those singles are rounded up for a CD with all the artists' A-sides, followed by the B-sides. The Fifth Wave is the latest edition and it's a jukebox chock full of goodies.
The GoAllTheWays get the party started with Silly Girl, a melodic pop song that has Summer written all over it. As a contrast Saturday Show by Mod Hippie is a mid-Sixties garage rocker. Power pop as a genre reached a peak in the Seventies and The Tor Guides connected all the dots in the correct order for Just A Smile, a song on a par with Big Star and Badfinger. English It's Karma It's Cool's neo-psych song Wooden Buddha brings well-crafted eccentricity to the table. The Armoires, the band fronted by label owners Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome, make fun of themselves with the violin driven folk rocker Pushing Forty.
