3-Way Singles Club

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In May of 2011, ITAV launched an exciting series of 3-way digital split singles, best explained by the phrase "3 artists, 3 songs, 3 bucks."  Drawing from the extended ITAV family of musicians and partner labels, The 3-Way Singles Club is a series of triple A-side digital releases that will allow participating bands/songwriters to stretch their legs and revel in the rich history of the single -- offering exclusive tracks in a concise format that contrasts the variety of music emerging in the new independent scene.

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol. 1

Available May 1, 2011 -----------------------------> HERE.

3 artists tackle unique cover versions of songs by beloved indierock/slowcore band Low.  These 3 songs will be unique to this single -- they won't appear on the full-length Low tribute we're planning for release later this year!  So this will be a companion mini-tribute, and as the inaugural release of the singles series it will also be FREE.

Featuring:

Double Saginaw Familiarity covering "Dragonfly;" Joshua Barton and The Brothers And Sisters covering "Shame;" and Stargrazer covering Low and Spring Heel Jack's song "Hand So Small."

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol. 2

Available June 1,  2011 -----------------------------> HERE.


Crossing boundaries between post-rock, electronica, and shoegaze, this installment of the Club features some of Detroit and Lansing's most innovative thinkers.  Three exclusive tracks include the debut single "To Be Broken" from Rachel Yezbick, the newgaze/electronica instrumental "Aurora" by sonic sculptor RxGibbs, and a unique dub/re-mix of "To Be Broken" by Lansing-based producer Lost Leaves that alternately deconstructs and fleshes out its dark and delicate folk bones.


Featuring:

Rachel Yezbick
RxGibbs
Lost Leaves 
 
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3-Way Singles Club, Vol. 3

Available July 15, 2011 -----------------------------> HERE.

Recorded during a super-session, this monolithic 3-part blast of indie at its most inventive blurs the lines between bands, as members guest on each other's tracks. The prevailing theme is Ghost Stories, and the prevailing mood is of barely-restrained post-punk and slow-boiling, all-angles rock tension.  Recorded and produced by the talented Isaac Vander Schuur in the tiny cracks and small hours of his very active performing schedule, Volume 3 heralds a very rocking summer indeed.  Best served with a crisp pale ale or IPA. 

Featuring:

The Hat Madder
The Playback
Narc Out The Reds
 
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3-Way Singles Club, Vol. 4

Available August 30, 2011 -----------------------------> HERE.

Our Volume 4 pays tribute with a wink to another famous Volume 4, zigging where that one zagged -- and that one ZAGGED!  Mellotrons and acoustic reveries are swapped out here for drastically re-envisioned post-hardcore, swinging synth doom, and rock'n'roll brinksmanship in one smoking nugget.  Best served with a grilled cheese sandwich stolen off someone else's plate!

Featuring:

The Plurals
Cavalcade (acoustic!?)
Terminal Girls

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol. 5

Available September 20, 2011 -----------------------------> HERE.

ITAV proudly presents... our first F-bomb! And what a gloriously offhand use of "fuck" it is; one listen and you'll agree.  It's not lazy english, it's wisdom.  Plus, it's couched in one of our poppiest, saltiest, and crunchiest singles to date -- this one has horns and a home-made valentine, and it leaves you breathless.  A roller coaster ride of styles best served with an elephant ear and some dippin' dots, Volume 6 spews technicolor all over lo-fi, pop-punk and post hardcore, all while making you a better, more likable person.

Featuring:

Jet Lag Superstar
Frank And Earnest
New Venice

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol. 6

Available October 19, 2011 -----------------------------> HERE.


With autumn comes an appreciation for impermanence.  The leaves that were so verdant only weeks before color red and orange, curl and drop to the ground. Soon they are crushed into powder under our boots and tires.  Rather than being a time of despondency over the loss of summer's fleeting presence, fall is characteristically a celebratory time -- cider, masks, and pumpkin-flavored everything.  That is OK by us. And if music could be pumpkin-flavored, with a bit of nutmeg and allspice, this singular single would be that flavor.  Charming, disarming, shambling, and mood-lifting, Volume 6 is warm in all the right ways.

Featuring:

Drunken Barn Dance
Sleeping Timmy
Flatfoot

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol. 7


Available November 28, 2011 -----------------------------> HERE.


Blazing into the holiday retail season with the most uncommercial, profane, and least holiday oriented music possible, Vol. 7 gleefully claims 6 minutes of your life with twisting, stomping guitars, hushed menace, and anthemic punk rock that hurtles by in a catchy blur.  Where do we keep finding such rough-hewn, hummable gems?  Right at home.  The best things are often in arms reach, like this beer.  Down it and enjoy the music.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Featuring:

Josh David & The Dream Jeans
Cat Midway & The Knick-Knacks
The Hunky Newcomers

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol. 8

Available December 18, 2011 -----------------------------> HERE.

Can we have nostalgia for the future?  That's not an oxymoron, for music.  These songs have a cellular familiarity, a sense memory that makes them feel like they've been pounding around in your head for years.  They dig under your skin and shake you by the musculoskeletal structure.  Includes a very different version of the People's Temple's "Jim Jones," which originally appeared on their Make You Understand 7-inch EP out on Hozac Records.

Featuring:

The Jackpine Snag
The People's Temple
Nocturnal Aviators In Action

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 3-Way Singles Club, Vol. 9

Available January 31, 2012 -----------------------------> HERE.


A handcrafted paean to self-production, this installment of the 3WSC features Earthwork Music founder Seth Bernard brandishing a cassette 4-track, indie recording engineer CrookedSound getting loose and groovy, and envelope-pushing songwriter Steve Leaf contemplating the wordless.


Featuring:

Steve Leaf
Seth Bernard
CrookedSound

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol.10

Available February 21, 2012 -----------------------------> HERE.


Small Houses interpret's Paleo's evocative "There, At The Top Of The Stairs" with accompaniment from Wisconsin's Pioneer.  Sunil Sawani leaves Michigan one last song backed up by members of The Pop Project.  Teag & PK cut a live-in-the studio sax and acoustic guitar piece.  A plurality of approaches yields a triad of enduring songs!

Featuring:

Small Houses with Pioneer
Sunil Sawani
Teag & PK

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol.11

Available March 15, 2012 -----------------------------> HERE.



In truth, a mini-album, Volume 11's mysteries unfold over nearly a half hour of ambient sounds, starting experimentally with Ann Arbor-based Tin Window before going rich and dark with Benoît Pioulard and finishing on a sunlit ocean coast with Austin, TX-based producer Brooks Mosher.



Featuring:

Benoît Pioulard
Tin Window
Brooks Mosher

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 3-Way Singles Club, Vol.12

Available April 25, 2012 -----------------------------> HERE.

We did it. ITAV has released 3 brand new, exclusive songs by 3 independent artists every month for a year. We're marking this event with a great offering by three favorites of ours! Drinking Mercury serves up a genre-blurring stomper, Veloura Caywood unleashes her powerful voice on an unsuspecting 4-track cassette recorder, and one-man songwriting project Geistlos delivers a track that just digs a hole in your chest.

Featuring:

Drinking Mercury
Veloura Caywood
Geistlos

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol.13

Available May 22, 2012 -----------------------------> HERE.

It is with hushed excitement that we offer up these three songs, which promise impulsive stabbing of the repeat button during the coming summer front porch reveries, tree-lined drives on nameless county roads, and reckless plunges into wooded pools from rope-swings of dubious structural integrity.  Sylvan Lanes (Matt from Frontier Ruckus, solo), Gifts Or Creatures in a springy electric mode, and a full-band live-in-the-studio rendition of White Pines' gorgeous song "Armor."

Featuring:

White Pines
Sylvan Lanes
Gifts Or Creatures

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 3-Way Singles Club, Vol.14

Available June 19, 2012 -----------------------------> HERE.

We usher in summer proper with Lansing-bound space-rock stalwarts Calliope, as well as a heady and alluring piece of ambient electronica from Auburn Lull's Jason Kolb under the moniker Curent.  Rounding things off is ITAV label founder/designer/janitor Stargrazer's home-recorded dub-inspired solo song "Filestarter," which was originally slated for a future EP but finds it's permanent home here on Volume 15 instead!  Have an extra doughnut!

Featuring:

Curent
Calliope
Stargrazer

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol.15

Available July 28, 2012 -----------------------------> HERE.

For the fifteenth volume of our series, we get to present bands I've been waiting since day one to offer, Lansing-by-way-of-Ionia's The Break-Ups, Firebrands Of The Revolution (ex-member of XU), and Jory Stultz (formerly of The Sunset Club).  Epitomizing our ideal of "a three-song mixtape," Vol. 15 is eclectic but flowing, freeform but grounded by it's artists' originality when approaching the rock idiom.  Perfect with a hangover omelette, hangover optional.

Featuring:

The Break-Ups
Jory Stultz
Firebrands Of The Revolution

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol.16

Available August 23, 2012 -----------------------------> HERE.

From the shoegazey haze of Regretters' "Broken Metronome," to Middleman's flowing acoustic "Haiti," To Jake Simmins & The Little Ghosts' succinct, storming "Your Fucking Song," Vol. 16 presents three very different approaches to the idea of a single -- and that's the whole idea!  Serve with an aged sharp cheddar?  Or get dressed to this before you go out on the town.


Featuring:

Regretters
Jake Simmons & The Little Ghosts
Middleman

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol.17

Available September 30, 2012 ----------------------------> HERE.

At it's rawest, rock is fairly free of pretense. It is literally bashed out in basements, garages, and spare rooms. Technique and virtuosity, while often present, are secondary to sheer volume, motion, and revolutionary willpower. It is a fecund, amoral beast.  We're pleased to bring you the first official releases from Racket Ghost, Chaz Brackx & The Big Bucks, and The Mind Guards!


Featuring:

The Mind Guards
Racket Ghost
Chaz Brackx & The Big Bucks

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol.18

Available January 13, 2013 ----------------------------> HERE.

With Volume 18(!) of the 3-Way Singles Club we make an important transition: rather than monthly, future volumes of the series will be presented project-by-project.  Never fear, though, I think it will be quickly apparent that removing the monthly deadline frees the artists up to realize grander visions!  We're proud to kick off 2013 with the gently echoing ambiance of Pushmi-Pullyu, the neo-soul stylings of Surgeons In Heat, and the debut single from the subterranean-voiced 3 Trains And Me.

Featuring:

Surgeons In Heat
3 Trains And Me
John Praw 
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3-Way Singles Club, Vol.19

Available April 2, 2013 ----------------------------> HERE.

We've been at this now since May 2011, and if the pace has relaxed a bit, the content has continued to evolve in creative ways as the series gains traction. For that, the many listeners, sharers, reviewers, and bloggers scattered far and wide deserve our gratitude!  Spring comes in like a lion with the slow boiling washed atmospheres of Language, The crunching build-up of Decades, and the careening punk pop of Trenton, New Jersey-based Honah Lee.


Featuring:

Decades
Language
Honah Lee 


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 3-Way Singles Club, Vol.20

 Available August 6, 2013 ----------------------------> HERE.


 Volume 20 gathers together some of my oldest musical friends, encouraging forces in the Lansing scene who got just as excited as I did about my earliest efforts in promoting and releasing music, and who've each flowered into formidable musicians in their own right. Joshua Davis maintains a solo career parallel to his work with local roots music combo Steppin' In It, Sam Corbin continues to write and perform new Americana that matters, and The Marvins recently transplanted to Portland, OR to continue their lives and their music.

 Featuring:

Sam Corbin
The Marvins
Joshua Davis

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3-Way Singles Club, Vol.21

Available 2013





Featuring:

78 Camaro
Drum Kit
The Lost Ambitions

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 3-Way Singles Club, Vol.22


Available 2013                                                          







Featuring:

BerT
So Long Naota
American Gothic

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 Please check in often for exciting additions to the 3-Way Singles Club series!  Future installments are planned for 2012 and beyond, featuring luminous new tracks from all four corners of the musical universe: Lord Vapid, Dozic, Sunlight Ascending, Drum Kit, Unicorn, Jen Sygit, Lions At The Gate, and more!

[you can now subscribe to the entire series for a one-time fee that entitles you to all the past singles and ALL the future singles!  Calculate that!  See the PayPal button at the top right of the page to pursue this oh-so-appealing offer!]

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Submissions:

Want ITAV to hear your music?  Want to be included on an upcoming 3-way split?  You can send an inquiry here. 

It Takes A Village To Make Records (ITAV) is a Lansing, Michigan based record label established in 2006 by Peter Richards (of Stargrazer and The Nanobots). 

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Outside of the expected behaviors of a small independent record label (releasing music and booking shows), ITAV works just as hard for outside musicians, labels, and venues.  This includes designing posters / CD covers / vinyl LPs / T-shirts, etc.  It also means getting out and doing street promotion, organizing events, and securing hospitality for touring acts.

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