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It has come to our attention here at
Orange Peels HQ that both Mr. Clapp and Mr. Moremen are releasing solo
albums within the next few weeks! Exciting
times. . . they're even celebrating the occasion with a special San Francsico show
on
Friday, Dec. 2.
In the mid 1990s, Allen Clapp
and
his Orchestra surprised the world with "One
Hundred
Percent
Chance of Rain," a swift pop confection and
bona-fide indie hit album he recorded for a total of $12 in the
bedrooms, VW vans and churches of Redwood City, Cailfornia.
Transforming expectations yet again, the Allen Clapp of 2011 leads
listeners into virgin forests and blazing, new-world sunsets with "Mixed
Greens" -- an adventure in soundscapes and song-craft sparking with
luminous energy.
Clapp
somehow navigates 70s Nashville, slick Eurodisco and quirky,
Rundgren-esque soft-rock with a Brill-Building songwriting prowess that
unifies his vision for the future of pop. It's as if Clapp is saying to
the world: "If a guy in his garage can do this, maybe anything is possible."
Mixed Greens will be released
digitally by Minty Fresh on Dec.
6. It will also be available on CD through Mystery Lawn Music and Minty
Fresh, on Cassette through Modern Country and
early 2012 on vinyl through Minty Fresh and Mystery Lawn.
Allen and band will be playing San Francisco, Los Angeles and
Sacramento in December with Tracy Shedd, Desario and others. Preview the new tracks and pre-order Mixed
Greens on iTunes.
As a solo artist, John
Moremen's work has traditionally fallen into the power-pop
category, but "Flotation Device" (2011, Mystery Lawn Music) finds the
man coloring way outside the lines. Eschewing the distraction of lyrics and
vocals on this collection of tunes, the arrangements become more
evocative and mysterious -- allowing Moremen to paint pointillistic
impressions of moments in time and imaginary landscapes.
On
"Flotation Device," Moremen is like a jazz great playing in a fictional
rock band made up entirely of himself. Performing all the instrumental
parts on this album, Moremen freely navigates between drums, bass and
guitar while never losing site of the end goal: songs that move, shake
and rattle with palpable energy. Call it 21st century mood music; call
it a West-Coast guitar freakout; call it what you will — John Moremen
is entirely at home in the grooves of this album, and whether you're
from the left coast or right, it places you square in the mindset of
this gifted San Francisco composer.
It's
available right now on CD
(Mystery Lawn Music) and Digitally on iTunes,
Amazon,
Spotify
and more!
We've been working on our fifth album at Mystery Lawn studio, creating
new sounds with old technology and vice-versa. Aether Tide is the first
result. Recorded in an afternoon with stereo ribbon microphones, tube
tape machines-as-guitar-amps, a 1930s Altec speaker cabinet and various
synths and mellotrons, the song comes at you from a different
space-time. You figure it out. Lyrically exploring the resurgence and
rebirth of Aether
Theory vs. 20th Century quantum physics, it's a near cosmic
marriage of music and lyrics propelled by ambient drums and
interweaving guitar melodies. Buy
it. See it.
New reviews of 2020 are appearing in unlooked for places. We were
recently made aware of a spectacular write-up in the book "Music:
What
Happened?" by esteemed songwriter and music writer Scott Miller. Thoughtful and
flattering, Miller gives the lowdown on his favorite songs by year from
Rock's heyday to the present. Our song 2020 made his list for 2009. We
also garnered year-end list attention from Magnet
music critics plus a live review for our Halloween
show with the Apples in Stereo.
Samsung kicked off its recent Galaxy-S Smartphone campaign
in South and Central America with our spritely spring single The Real You. I like the
idea of a major international corporation deciding that this song we
cooked up in the garage in 48 hours is just the thing they need to
launch a high-tech handheld communications and computing device. It's
kind of subversive . . . It's certainly not logical (and it's not even
the first time: sonic concoctions from Mystery Lawn studio have been
featured in campaigns for Target, Armani
shops, and Coca
Cola). Here is the video. And
here's to a happy 2011! We are happy to announce that as of today, Nov. 23, 2010,
the limited-pressing 180-gram vinyl edition of 2020 goes national! It's
available at Aural
Exploits, Amazon,
CD
Universe, Criminal
Records, Insound,
Parasol,
Luna
Music, and Jigsaw
Records, to name but a few. Look for it in the bins of your
favorite record store on black Friday!
In other recent news, we are in the studio, experimenting with stereo
ribbon microphones, old tube tape machines, ancient Altec speakers and
getting sounds from the future. And thanks to all who came out
Halloween night for our show with the Apples in Stereo. The evening is
captured in words in Magnet.
No, it's not a direct comparison between dissimilar items,
it's more like Syd Barrett's vision of a perfect popsong circa 1967.
Don your best Halloween garb for the Orange Peels and the
Apples in Stereo on Oct. 31! The citrus meets the sweet at 9 p.m.
at San Jose's Blank
Club.
We're also celebrating at OP HQ because we just found out Minty Fresh and distributor ADA
will be getting a limited quantity of heavy duty 180-gram vinyl of our
latest, 2020, into cooler record shops near you. Street date is Nov.
22, and preorders are already up on Amazon.
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