Fire Talk 2019 Year in Review!
FIRE TALK 2019 YEAR IN REVIEW
Wow! 2019 was a big year for us over here at Fire Talk and we want to thank you for hanging with us, listening to the music we released and most importantly purchasing and supporting the artists we work with. This year saw us turn 10, sign a bunch of new artists to the label and release records from some Fire Talk faves. Take a look below at brief snap shot and follow us on socials to keep up with the latest. We've got a ton slated for 2020 and holy shit we can't wait to share that new with you! Happy New Year from our fam to yours.
Much Love 💙
Fire Talk
Dehd's debut album "Water" saw release this year. Pitchfork called it "effortless and uncomplicated" and Stereogum called it "endearing". We couldn't be more pysched for Dehd in 2020, some tour dates have already been announced & stay tuned for more (new album!) Get "Water" on Color in Color vinyl here.
Patio's debut record "Essentials" came in hot in the front half of the year. NPR called it a "gem" Pitchfork says it "commands attention" & Stereogum named Patio a Best new Band of 2019. Catch Patio on tour in 2020 and stream a B Side from the album sessions we just released. The LP got a repress on White Vinyl to boot, grab it here!
Dark Tea's self titled dropped in March & it features the likes of Hand Habits and other top notch players. Brooklyn Vegan calls it a "Sunday morning favorite" Post Trash says the record "fits together like a puzzle with no edge pieces." Grab an LP copy here, truly the superior way to hear it!
In May we released Halfsour's "Sticky", a true power pop gem. WBUR / NPR says "halfsour is defining the sound, or at least paving the way, for pop in the Boston DIY scene" High Praise and we couldn't agree more!. Post Trash calls the band "a force to be reckoned with" Damn! You can grab an LP copy here (while they last).
In September we released Weeping Icon's massive self titled debut. Pitchfork says it full of "noisy punk thrashers that are clever, incisive, and frequently very funny." Kerrang! says it's "like the part of your conscience telling you to have another smoke because everything’s on fire anyway." Stereogum named them a best new band of 2019. Grab the Slime Green vinyl here!
Fran's "A Private Picture" saw release in November and NPR says it "has been on repeat". Pitchfork concluded the record is full of "unexpected angles, emboldening the question marks behind interrogative, introspective lyrics." Catch Fran on the road in 2020 including a trip to SXSW and pick up the cherry red clear vinyl in the shop here.
In October we released Gold Dime's Sophomore album "My House". Brooklyn Vegan says the record is full of "rippers in the long-running tradition of NYC noise rock, discordant slow-burners, avant-garde pieces, and more" The FADER dubbed track "ABC Wendy" a perfect Halloween song! Pick up an LP copy or a bundle here.
Erasers' sophomore album "Pulse Points" saw release earlier this year and Bandcamp was all over it saying "if you ever secretly wished Music for Airports felt more threatening, Pulse Points is the answer to your prayers." The record even made Bandcamp's Acid Test favorite albums of 2019. Grab the LP here.
Campfires' new record "Fare Trax" dropped in the Summer and it's certainly been a long time coming. Jeff Walls first new material since 2013's "Tomorrow, Tomorrow" the new record is everything to us. Austin Town Hall says "this new material features a more washed out sound with some small hints of twangy, country guitars. It seems like a perfect evolution for an ever evolving artist." Get it here!
Love is everyday magic. That’s the impression you get listening to Water, the new album by Chicago trio Dehd. Veterans of Chicago’s increasingly fruitful DIY scene Jason Balla ( Ne-Hi and Earring) Emily Kempf (Vail and formerly with Lala Lala) and drummer Eric McGrady share a strange and inexplicable chemistry. Love rises up into the atmosphere like steam off a summer sidewalk and makes you wild. Love breaks your heart and you consider yourself lucky for it. Like water itself, it surrounds us, it supports us; it’s what we’re made of. It takes the shape of its container. The music is hazy and reverb-drenched, a scuzzy and hyped-up take on surf rock that could only come from the Third Coast. It’s all animated by the red-lining feel-good spirit of the Velvet Underground’s Loaded and the breezy melodicism of C86-era indie rock, with a dash of the Cramps’ spooky-hop bop courtesy of McGrady’s locomotive drumming.It’s a clear-eyed look at the wild nature of everyday life that’s been spun up in sugary sweet melodies and scratched-crystal sounds. More than anything, it’s the embodiment of Dehd’s m.o. from the start: As Kempf puts it, “Work with what you have and make it magical.”
Sometimes we can only come to know ourselves best when we let others in. Such can certainly be said of NYC multi-instrumentalist and artist Andrya Ambro, and her band Gold Dime, on the eve of their second full-length My House. See, she’s played these instruments and crafted these songs her entire life, having honed her decisive sit/stand style of transfixing drumming and provocative singing to a degree of perfectionism. Coming from her previous, highly acclaimed noisy rock duo Talk Normal, Gold Dime’s first release, 2017’s Nerves, was the first time Ambro has had no one to answer to but herself. My House sees a new, more collective effort being made, with Ian Douglas-Moore on bass and John Bohannon (Ancient Ocean || J.R. Bohannon) on guitar. And it very much shows. Walking a tightrope between unapologetic art rock and disarming intimacy, she integrates triumphant doubled guitars whose distorted fuzz winks at the mayhem of Les Rallizes Denudes, deep floor toms that quick pivot to galvanizing beats on a bed of dead spinning cymbals, to sometimes spoken, sometimes sung Laurie Anderson-esque words that uplift into a many voiced choir. And the warm bass lines, well they would make Holger Czukay from CAN very proud.
My House, according to Ambro, is intended to be something of a gruff father’s declaration at dinner, fist slamming on the table, but rather than the stubborn, undying manners that would come with “living under my roof,” she only demands that everything be done with the same degree of tireless dedication and authenticity. “I want every beat to be played with intention. ‘Cause why play if you don’t mean it?” Every moment of this album acts as just that—a demand to own something, whether it be self or art or place in this world. We have no choice but to listen, to respect it. This is her house... well Gold Dime’s house.
Produced by Andrya Ambro recorded and mixed by Ernie Indradat, mastered by Sarah Register with artwork and layout by Eric Copeland.
*THIS IS A PRE ORDER ITEM, SHIPS ON OR BEFORE THE OCTOBER 11TH RELEASE DATE
Inspired by classic British post-punk, the songwriting of Cate LeBon, and the close-knit Brooklyn DIY community from which the band first sprouted, Patio now release their long-awaited debut full-length Essentials, a fundamental collection of new music for 2019. Building upon the delicacy of the band’s prior work, Essentials presents fuller sounds, heightened emotions, and grander thematic complexity. Its 10 tracks are dark and introspective, yet hopeful, and often humorous—from rambling spoken word meditations to sparkling melodies and soaring riffs. Melodramatic and grotesque expressions abound, as do soft, subtle moments of quiet self-examination. Mixed by Amar Lal (Big Ups, Ovlov) and mastered by Sarah Register (Protmartyr, US Girls)
‘Pulse Points’ a new album from Perth Australia based Erasers sees the duo continue their exploration of immersive, rhythmic and mood-driven music. The record gently sits between kosmische and post-punk in that sweet spot of mellow, vibe engulfed cool. Live Erasers have honed and refined their sound, sharing the stage with like minded groups like Low, Grouper, Acid Mothers Temple, Prince Rama, High Wolf and The Soft Machine as well as multiple shows with long time musical heroes My Disco, Love Of Diagrams and Pikelet. All of these groups counted as influences and contemporaries ‘Pulse Points’ is a a stride forward, solidifying their place in the modern pastoral landscape. Recorded and mixed at home on Noongar Boodja and mastered by Lawrence English (Eluvium, Ben Frost, William Basinski, Xiu Xiu).
1st Pressing
300 Black Vinyl
After years side-manning for Long Island, Virginia and New York City’s finest undiscovered songwriters (D.B.B. Plays Cups, the Monte de Rosas Band, Andrea Schiavelli’s Eyes of Love) and contributing crisp basswork to the indomitable Brooklyn band Rips, the songwriter Gary Canino, submits to you a generous collection of country-inflected music under the Dark Tea moniker that, as the quotes from other Garys illustrate, honors the past while looking ahead. There is, as they say, a little something for everyone.
With Dark Tea, Gary emerges years later as a scientist does from her lab, having cracked the formula. The formula? Honor the listeners’ desire for both danger and comfort. And so, when a melody starts to wander from the marked trail, Gary soothes the listener’s ear with a simple one-four (“Variable Reward”). And so, when ambling verse figure disorients the listener, it repeats until she feels at home in it (“The Bird’s Nest”). And so, a long verse finds punctuation in a tastefully punchy chorus (“No Notifications”). The album also contains no fewer than three truly great guitar solos, including one from Meg Duffy’s Hand Habits on “Rollin’ Back The Dial”.
In closing, I offer three exemplary lyrics from the record to demonstrate that Gary has surveyed the mountain of good taste, climbed it, and now sinks the Dark Tea flag into its peak.
-forward by Andrew Cedermark
Mixed by Jarvis Taveniere (Woods), mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control).
1st Pressing
300 Black VInyl
“Fare Trax” is a new album by Portland Oregon based Campfires. The last one, “Tomorrow, Tomorrow”, came out about 6 years ago, also on Fire Talk. During those 5 years Campfires existed as a live band, watched seasons pass and eventually Jeff and his wife had a baby daughter named Lucy, named after “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. He wrote a song for her while she was still in the womb. Unsurprisingly, that one is called “Lucy’s Song”, and is the last song on this album. Recorded on the Oregon coast a few months ago in a house overlooking the sea and finished in Portland in a practice space that shares a wall with some local favorites, so you can hear Lithics practicing as “Grand Central Song” fades out. The record is an amalgamation of influences, the Kinks are in there and early Byrds with the aesthetics of raw 60s garage and early 80s punk or anorak pop like Television Personalities & stuff from Sarah Records. Some of the poppier Velvets tunes are a touchstone too, then there’s ambient music and experimental tape work. A guazey take on folk music, refined and perfected over 10 years, it’s tenderness is complimented by honest and sincere songwriting presented in all it’s ramshackle glory.
Limited to just 300 copies on Black Vinyl.
Listening to Weeping Icon’s debut album is to enter a dim catacomb of psychical catharsis. Urgent yet calculated riffs rip through a thunderous pummel of percussion, an anomalous blend of punk and psychedelic drumming carries the songs with an atmosphere of organized chaos.. Lyrically they are both serious and sarcastic, trading off vocalists to confront issues central to a generation, dosing listeners with a controlled sense of horror and humor like flavors in a dish.The band’s debut record “Weeping Icon” is a collection of 7 songs that archive the metamorphosis into heavier and more provocative territories. In keeping with their live performance, a sequence of dystopian sound interludes complete the album, serving as guided meditations between the candid subversive fury of the main tracks. Recorded and mixed by Uniform's Ben Greenberg and mastered by Jonathan Schenke in New York City.
Even the tightest relationships are susceptible to unexpected change. “Run”, a new single from Chicago’s Deeper, examines what happens when we’re forced to confront the reality of these relationships and find the courage to walk away for the better. It’s not easy to abandon that image of who we thought we were, but it’s the leap into the unknown that’s the first step to self-actualizing. At first the song wrestles with identity amidst uncertainty, but as it progresses, a confidence emerges that has become the driving force for where Deeper is headed. Backed by an astutely scientific cover of the John Maus rarity “Bennington”, Deeper sheds the searching bottled up in previous material, carving out an ambit distinctly their own. Brisk, pointed and efficient, and no note wasted, “Run” b/w “Bennington” a new 7 Inch out in October 2019 sets the stage for the Chicago trio’s sophomore LP.
*This Item is Pre Order - Ships on or before October 4th 2019
Limited to a one time pressing of 500 copies on translucent red vinyl.
The trick is to make a confession entertaining. A Private Picture, the debut album by Chicago’s Fran, delivers a collection of extremely personal experiences that have been distilled and abstracted to the point that you can see yourself in their imagery, find analogs to your own emotional history in their scenarios –when you hear them, it’s a conversation. It’s therapy, if therapy was allowed to turn you on and make you shake what you got. At its core, Fran’s music is about sharing a truth -–telling it, confessing it, yelling it—in the service of human connection. Or, as Jacobson puts it, “I feel that I am a songwriter for the same reason I wanted to be an actor. I want to tell the truth. I want to challenge myself to get closer and closer to the core of an experience, an emotion- I want to say it, sing it, in a way that says exactly what it is. I cry when I write songs because I am constantly making discoveries, about myself, about the world, about the best way to convey and connect and get closer.”
1st Pressing
200 - Translucent Red Vinyl
300 - Black Vinyl