October 2nd Release Date for 3-Way Singles Club Volume 21!

This is a public service announcement to let you know: 3-Way Singles Club Volume 21 will be released on Tuesday, October 2!  Featuring an all-Hoosier cast, Vol. 21 marks the first time that an ITAV release hasn't had at least one Michigan artist on it (although we claim Drum Kit's Aaron Nemec as a Michigander... so there!)

Brand new glorious tracks from The Lost Ambitions, Drum Kit, and '78 Camaro!

New 3-Way Singles In The Works!

I've just finished the artwork for an unprecedented all-Indiana 3-Way Single, featuring The Lost Ambitions, '78 Camaro, and Drum Kit.  Expect indie rock in heroic doses!

We have a few singles in production right now, each vying for which will be released first: will it be the one described above (and by the way that "river" shape started life as a photo of a lightning bolt!), or will it be the contemporary americana and folk of Sam Corbin, The Marvins, and Joshua Davis?  Then again, could it be the ear-scarring dirges of American Gothic, BerT, and So Long Naota?

It remains to be seen. Drink plenty of water and get some fresh air so you'll be in tip-top shape when the next release drops.  And thank you for joining us for this musical hike.

Regardless of who gets out of the gate first, we've got some great songs lined up and are putting the finishing touches and final polish on a great collection of summer music that spans the gulf between endearing duo folk and paint-melting noise rock. Its a unique honor to curate such an open-minded (and open-ended) series, and I look forward to unveiling each installment as it comes to fruition.  This is an artist-driven project and nothing is more satisfying than hearing the results of creativity unfettered by the usual music biz bullshit.

Of course, I take special pleasure in doing the artwork (minus some occasional great guest artists like John Praw).  In my cluttered office garret in leafy Lansing, Michigan, I collage, I color, and I daydream of you out there beyond the electrons, stumbling across a song or an artist and finding in it a new best friend.  Music is a lifelong romance.

-- Peter

Upcoming Stargrazer Single on GTG Records!

Although radio silence is usually the indicator that things are busy here at ITAV HQ, I thought I'd stick my head up long enough to say that there will be a brand new Stargrazer song, "The Atavists," appearing soon on the forthcoming GTG Records "It's Fine" compilation!

"The Atavists" is a song that began as a scrap of thought quickly scribbled on a piece of paper.  The next day, I strummed out a descending series of 2-note chords on my bass centering loosely around a drone note.  I recorded this at home and it became the basis of the song -- but only after I moved the fast intro to the end, and the buzzing drone that originally ended the song became the beginning.  The rest of the song unfolded over the course of an afternoon, increasing in complexity and interlocking layers until a loose organic whole emerged.  Thus a lo-fi eastern-tinged chant was born: "The free-flowing thought, the windows are not the eyes that they seem / the doorways are dreams, running swiftly down drains / Evaporating again / The words are carried by winds to fall in fallow fields, and we'll be drenched once more..."

I'll post the exact release date for the compilation as soon as I know it... word is it will be the last week of May!  I'm really excited with how this song turned out, and I'm always looking forward to hearing what my label mates have cooked up.

Stargrazer (in case I haven't belabored this in the past) is my solo bass project, appearing live since 2001 as an acoustic act and recording feverishly at home with a wide variety of homespun and electronic sounds.  Stargrazer is also currently in the studio (with Eric Merckling of CrookedSound) completing a debut full-length album to follow up the "Trieste E.P." which appeared in late 2010.  Much more on that later.

GTG Records has been the home for Stargrazer since way back, along with brother and sister bands like The Plurals, The Hunky Newcomers, Middleman, The Break-Ups, CrookedSound, and Small Houses.

The last Stargrazer single, "Filestarter," was released this past June on 3-Way Singles Club Vol. 14 along with two really suberb tracks by Curent and Calliope.

And finally, Stargrazer will appear LIVE with The Stick Arounds and The Aimcriers on Friday, May 31 at The Avenue in Lansing, MI: a benefit performance for the Michigan Association For Suicide Prevention.

Here's a link to the Facebook event for your convenience. 

3-Way Singles Club Volume 19 drops April 2nd!

We have a tendency to seemingly go dormant, and then come storming back as projects come to fruition.  "Storming back" is perhaps the perfect description of Volume 19 of the 3-Way Singles Club, which will be released Tuesday April 2nd!  Featuring brand new tracks from Trenton, New Jersey pop punkers Honah Lee, moodier post-punk propulsion from Lansing's Language, and a rocking self-dissection from the increasingly hard to pigeonhole indie punk band Decades (also from Lansing), Volume 19 of the series is a rush of energy that never lets up.

My own contribution to things is often in the form of artwork, which I usually complete in advance of receiving any of the songs, sometimes as a spur to bring the project to completion and sometimes as a teaser for those of you out in the internet hinterlands -- a sort of flier tacked to the weathered telephone pole of this blog, on its own little patch of street corner in a backwater of the world wide web.  In the case of Volume 19, I took some visual cues from PiL's "Second Edition" version of Metal Box, using a blurred photo of something vaguely resembling a face made of smoke (it may actually be the pull-cord of some venetian blinds) that I snapped the very day I got my first new digital camera, maybe 10 years ago.  I still have that camera, even though these days my wife's phone takes way better pictures.

What the photo truly is, I don't remember, but I walked around the house I shared with 3 roommates snapping away at lampshades, plastic skeletons, wallpaper textures and closeups of paint cracks.  I took nearly a hundred shots, and I still pull from that batch of photos frequently for abstract fliers or digital collages.  On reflection, maybe the art is a little dour for the music within? But these are the risks of creating cover art in advance, as my own visual "song" to add to the proceedings, and I accept those risks.

Without any communication between bands, as is (surprisingly) often the case, a loose concept develops over the arc of this little three song mixtape.  Honah Lee's "The Accommodator" offers to shape to any of the listener's desires, a hyperspeed offer of complete (and quite probably, disingenuous) codependency replete with gang-choruses through what sounds like a taxi dispatcher's microphone.  In fact, a second listen proves that the song has nearly the opposite meaning.  A friend of Honah Lee's described the overall sound of their newest songs as "Green Day being butt-fucked by the Foo Fighters," which may be more crass than the measured prose we typically use here at It Takes A Village To Make Records, but, oh well, it fits.  Language responds with "Limits," a metaphoric landscape of guitar chime, speed limits, and dissolving boundaries.  Musically, it's a churning diorama of motion-blurred headlight rivers and cities streaming by, while Christopher Minarek sings "who knows where the city goes when I'm with you?"  Beneath, it melts away into disintegrating guitar textures and a galvanic bass line.  Decades caps the three songs with "Piling It On," a personal and impassioned inspection of experience as the greatest teacher, and of physical and emotional distance as a tonic to past relationships.  From frank and confessional, conversational singing to a throaty howl, "Piling It On" moves on in a crunching and melodic way that steps through several mutations of its song form before gently landing on a slightly resigned, slightly relieved note. 

So there it is.  A preview in words of what you can expect in sounds, and we're excited to post the link for you to hear it in its unvarnished glory one week from tomorrow!

Artwork For Upcoming Releases!

Here is the artwork for our next three releases in the 3-Way Singles Club.  Over the last few months we've transitioned the series out of being on a strict monthly schedule and into a project-by-project schedule.  Each of these releases is well underway, and they'll all be dropping late winter/early spring!

BerT
American Gothic
Unworship

Joshua Davis
The Marvins
Sam Corbin

Honah Lee
Language
Decades

The Perils Of Expectation / The Tyranny Of Time

Into every two-year long project, a little chaos must creep...

There are many, many challenges to coordinating a multi-faceted project like the 3-Way Singles Club, and if ITAV had an intern, no one would ever feel their effects!  But we don't, so you do.

Many of you have been waiting patiently for the unveiling of 3-Way Singles Club Vol. 17, the September edition of the series featuring three artists we are very partial towards: Racket Ghost (who play tonight, at Mac's Bar, by the way, with The Plurals, Decades, and Honah Lee, oh my!), Chaz Brackx and the Big Bucks, and The Mind Guards.  Since we released it stealthily, with no mention, on the 30th, you may not be aware that you can experience it here.

Well, mostly.  If you are a member of the 3WSC Mega-Subscription, you'll know that the new songs haven't made their way into your subscription package yet.  And if you're sharp-eyed, you'll see two things about the single in its present state that are... well, obstacles.

First:  You can't download or purchase the tracks.  Yet.  But you can stream them, enjoy them, share them, etc.  This will be rectified when the single is complete, which brings us to...

Second:  There are only two songs!  So far.  There have been some technical difficulties that have stopped us from posting the Chaz Brackx song yet -- but we're just about through remedying the minor issues that have held up the song.  The comparative simplicity of the fix was complicated by conflicting work schedules and life interference.  Small things, really, but worth the time.

I'm grateful for your patience, and honestly just this side of thrilled that our first major hiccup of any noticeable scale took over a year and a half to occur!  All the artists of the 3WSC are donating their time and talents, and in most cases giving us completely exclusive material; so we are also very honored by that.  We're taking advantage of the delay to work ahead on the series, and if you've been visiting the 3-Way Singles Club Page you'll see that many exciting and interesting additions have appeared in the last few weeks.  There should be a more comprehensive schedule as time allows.

I hope this addresses any concerns that might be floating around out there, and I assure you that as soon as the final piece drops into place, we will give this excellent single the fanfare it deserves!  And it will magically appear for subscribers.

I wanted to acknowledge everyone's patience and let you know what was happening.  This should be an isolated occurrence if all else goes as planned.  Please never hesitate to let me know if you are having issues with any aspect of the 3WSC, or if you'd like to get involved somehow.

Peter
The ITAV guy.

October Artwork Preview!

Although the elk is probably my favorite ungulate, it was an honor to work with this moose to create a spectral, time-shifting apparition or manitou for next month's 3-Way Single, which will feature heaviness from Madlantis Records' flagship band BerT, noisy hardcore/hardy noisecore from Lansing eardrum destroyers American Gothic, and a mystery band (dubbed "Golden Rulers" below, however it is possible that their name could change several times in the next few weeks).  The Plague Years were originally, tentatively slotted onto this single but couldn't participate this time around -- we look forward to working with them down the road a ways, as they are an amazing band.

 

October's single will be a ferociously grounding slab of heaviness, something we've been wanting to bring to the 3-Way Singles series for a long time now.  We're developing the next 12 months worth of singles, and welcome your suggestions and recommendations of artists to invite!  Thanks for having open ears... 

(and you can visit this moose skeleton in person at the Chicago Field Museum, hyperspace portal not included).

Psychedelic Back-to-School Special!

We're gearing up to release Volume 17 of the 3-Way Singles Club, this time out featuring brand new exclusive tracks from The Mind Guards, Racket Ghost, and Chaz Brackx And The Big Bucks.

While the back-to-school theme is mostly a jest among the artists and myself, the songs do have a certain grainy vigor that might, uh, stimulate some brain cells or be the perfect accompaniment for... studying.  Yeah, studying.

Release date TBA -- if you know us, we'll spring this one on you in the dead of night, about a week and a half from now.  Those of you who are members of the 3-Way Singles Club Mega Subscription (see the sidebar to your right) will have the new songs magically appear, and for anyone else everything will be easily accessible here.

Cover Art For The Next 3-Way Single REVEALED!

...and it's equal parts Julian House/Ghost Box and the Germs' (MIA)!  I can't tell you how excited I am to unleash this 3-song split.  Coming to speakers near YOU later this month.

3-Way Singles Club, Volume 15!

Coming soon (since the clock is ticking on July 2012), we'll have brand new exclusive songs from GTG Recordings' The Break-Ups, as well as Firebrands Of The Revolution (the solo project of Luke Schmidt from the mighty XU) and Jory Stultz (formerly of The Sunset Club).  Wow. 

Keep your ears peeled for these sonic capsules of pure, unadulterated music.  And remember what David Crosby says on his masterful and ghostly 1971 elegy for the hippie dream If I Could Only Remember My Name, "music is love."

Everyone's saying it is.

Artwork for the June 3-Way Single!

Imagine yourself night swimming, underwater in Lake Michigan.  You break the surface to see Ursa Majoris overhead...

Featuring brand new tracks from East Lansing indie space-rock legends Calliope, the debut offering from Auburn Lull spinoff project Curent, and a freshly written and recorded track from Stargrazer (full disclosure, Stargrazer = me), 3-Way Singles Club Volume 14 (!) will drop Tuesday, May 19 -- and will be a FREE download until midnight May 20!  Wowee Zowee!

Mega-subscription members will see these three brand new tracks magically appear overnight.  For the rest of the world population, we will publish the link to stream/download the tracks here on this blog as well as through our Facebook presence.  Boom shacka lacka boom.  Thanks for being along for the ride!

3-Way Singles Club Volume #13

It is with great excitement that we announce the next installment in the 3-Way Singles series, and the inaugural release of year #2 of issuing monthly 3-artist digital singles.  This Tuesday (May 22nd) the curtains will be drawn aside, and brand new tracks from Sylvan Lanes (which is Matt Milia of Frontier Ruckus' solo moniker), Gifts Or Creatures, and White Pines!

Early listens to these three tracks, hyperbole aside, promise impulsive stabbing of the repeat button during summer front porch reveries, tree-lined drives on nameless county roads, and reckless plunges into wooded pools from rope-swings of dubious structural integrity.  It's music to float in mid-air to -- however ephemeral such an experience may be; after letting go of the rope, time dilates infinitely into memory.

We had hoped to have this single out on the 15th, and in the interest of avoiding pretensions of being anything other than a small, hard-working label composed of one guy with a full-time day job, we shall blame the 7-day delay on some guy named Wayne.*


* There is no guy named Wayne.  Wayne is the personification of all the daily delays, technological inconveniences, accidental misinterpretations, lost e-mails, and unplanned naps that conspire to sideline even the most committed projects.  We are at war with Wayne. 

Metal & Fire: Songs That Low Taught Us

We've been hinting at this tribute, recorded 2009-2010 by Bryan Kay at Shoeshine Studio, for over a year now!  Here it is, for a free stream -- all the verbiage accompanies the stream itself.  We look forward to this becoming flesh as ITAV's first vinyl release during calendar year 2012!

[click on the image for the goods!]

3-Way Singles Club Volume 6th arrives October 19th!

Ushering in the season of crunchy yellow and red leaves, ITAV will release one of our most awaited singles of the series right when you, the listener, just might need a little pick-me-up:  midweek (Wednesday) October 19th.

Featuring unreleased music from Drunken Barn Dance, Sleeping Timmy with Aly Rose, and Flatfoot, Volume 6 channels its songcraft in 3 interesting directions destined for earbuds and car stereos throughout our cooling, watercolored autumn world. 

Stay tuned for the link this coming humpday, warm up some cider and/or whiskey, and enjoy the sights and scents of fall!

Coming Soon to a 3-Way Singles Club Near You!

The 5th Installment of the 3-Way Singles Club contains quite a few firsts.  The fist F-bomb of the series, for instance.  The first non-Michigan artist.  The first Frank And Earnest song to break the 5-minute mark.

Featuring Indiana's Jet Lag Superstar alongside Lansing stalwarts Frank And Earnest and post hardcore relative newcomers New Venice, 3- Way Singles Club Volume 5 will drop into the world this Tuesday, September 20th.  About that:  When we sallied forth in May of this year, we had the element of surprise on our sides.  Also, the element of preparation, the element of all kinds of things.  One thing that makes It Takes A Village To Make Records what it is is that we work with real bands -- the kind with day jobs.  The kind who draw their inspiration from the ragged interface between real life (those day jobs again) and an acute need to make music.  It's raw, it's real, and it's about as far from trust funds and collector's item guitars as you can get.

What this means to you, the listener/reader, is this:  One guy organizes this thing.  That guy is me.  I also hold down a full-time job and a freelance job -- this is post-industrial Michigan, after all.  While this isn't meant to be an excuse, it is meant to be a caveat.  Independent music is not beholden to schedules... not even my schedule, which was to release a single on the first of every month.  That ended with Volume 3, when the 3 bands were all about to embark on tours or release 7-inches recorded with Jim Diamond.  By necessity, we reconfigured our release schedule, and every release since then has been an attempt to arrest that entropic pattern while still giving the preceding single adequate breathing room to take root and really dig in to your ears.  Reality does not bend to idealistic scheduling.  On the up side, thus far the singles have been without exception, fucking glorious.

Volume 5 continues both patterns -- the jaw-dropping songwriting as well as the gradual torquing of the series back to some semblance of monthly regularity.  This time out, the cap is ripped off by Jet Lag Superstar, the nom de guerre of Indiana songsmith Phil Avalos, who has been making music with bands like The Quiet Lanes, Sometimes Seven, The Distortion Letters, and Dead Scene Radio for the past decade.  Phil's latest project is more homespun and lo-fi, but with the production and songwriting experience of a seasoned vet, and we are extremely proud to debut the acoustic/electric lo-fi/hi-fi 90s-indie-meets-50s-rockabilly "Apology Sweater," which rips open Volume 5 in a way that is both jagged and entirely lovable.

The following song, Frank And Earnest's "Paul 4," is the unassumingly titled 4th songwriting offering from bassist/singer Paul Wittmann, an infectious mid-tempo power-pop slice that insinuates its memorable chorus as it glides by in the shortest 5 minutes you'll ever experience.

The monolithic exclamation point to Volume 5 is the post-punk thunderstorm "Breathers" by Lansing's new guitar-bending vocal-cord-shredding New Venice.  In another series first, this track is the first previously released track we've curated in this series -- New Venice has been steadily releasing 2-song singles ("movements" they call them) over the course of 2011, and Movements 5 & 6 scoop the 3-Way Singles Club by about a week.  The song was just too damn good, though, so we overlooked this "rule" of the club.  There will be no download discounts with Volume 5, but if you really want a freebie (5 other freebies, in fact), visit New Venice's bandcamp for some guitar-bending, crunching catharsis.

And, on the subject of discounts and freebies, the "moodring" discount code is still good for 3-Way Singles Club Volume 4 until September 30.  That's for all you coupon-clippers.  Enjoy!

Late August Release for 3-Way Singles, Volume 4!

Rock and roll is not about adherence to schedules, flight plans, or even expectations: some of the best records I've ever heard frustrated my expectations (or exceeded them) on first listen.  Such has been the case with the fabled 4th volume of the 3-Way Singles Club, which will see the light August 30th!

Originally slated to drop the first day of each new month, starting this past May, the Club made a slow entropic slide to the middle of the month for July's volume with Narc Out The Reds, The Hat Madder, & The Playback.  But it was a concession made in favor of the music: the bands' intention was to record all together, in the same room with each other adding input on the writing and recording process and frequently guest-spotting on each others' songs.  The results were worth the wait, and the single is a testimony to Isaac Richmond Vander Schuur's band-herding, engineering, and production skills.  Considering that two of the bands were about to depart on tour and Narc Out The Reds was wrapping up the mastering/pressing of the Pawnmower/Leak In The Disease vinyl 7" that same month, we were fortunate to appeal to their artistic sides and the resulting songs, mostly written in situ over a marathon weekend of recording, bring the Singles Club to more rocking territory at a high point, and with a grand entrance.

Work began almost immediately on Volume 4.  It was agreed that releasing a new single merely two weeks after the last one wouldn't do any favors to either, so we aimed for the middle of August.  Something to welcome the students back with, for those of us in college towns, and specifically something to introduce incoming freshmen to a portion of the independent music kaleidoscope in little old Lansing -- a city situated between the creative poles of monied Grand Rapids and decaying Detroit that has risen to its own musical prominence over the 19 years I've lived here, hatching such artists as Frontier Ruckus, Calliope, Benoit Pioulard, El Smasho, Apollo 9, Cheap Girls, Steppin' In It, and The Verve Pipe, just to name a few of the more nationally recognized ones.  You may also have heard of a guy named Stevie Wonder, who made his name in Motown but cut his teeth in Lansing.  Or maybe The Crucifucks, who among other things gave us Sonic Youth's drummer Steve Shelley?  OK, point made, right?

Lansing is also a crossroads for musicians who still bother with Michigan.  Back in the day, you could see Brainiac, At The Drive In, or even Taj Mahal at a house show!  Or you could see U2 on the tour for their album "Boy" in the basement bar Dooley's.  Or The Jesus Lizard at booty-dance bar Rick's.  The list goes on and on.

But this isn't just about Lansing, Lansing is just an example of a post-industrial Midwest town that wooed the auto industry and became defined by it instead of nurturing the varied artistic endeavors that sprung up -- despite an often negligent and indifferent general public.  You could replace "Lansing" with "Flint" or "Akron."  The unspoken was, we weren't Chicago so we didn't matter.  This is "The Flyover," remember?  We just build the cars and grow the food, let the folks in New York and L.A. worry about the art.

I'm going to bring that tangent back around to Volume 4...  The first song that arrived was Terminal Girls (from Detroit, mind you) "Pink Clouds."  It's one of two songs that got their radio debut last Thursday evening on WDBM 88.9 FM's Michigan-centric program "The Basement."  Also spun that evening was The Plurals' brand-spanking new song "Neon Life," a freshly-recorded tune hot on the hotter heels of their brand new, enthusiastically received "Futurospective: The Plurals Today, The Plurals Tomorrow" platter.  With these two blisteringly beautiful tracks in the can, there was just one more piece to fall in place for the puzzle to be complete.

People have children, and day jobs, and competing schedules, and financial priorities.  These are realities.  Yet we keep making art and releasing music anyway.  No one I know falls anywhere near the cossetted life of big-label bands, who can luxuriate through years of writer's block accompanied by starlets and bags of blow.  We're not in it for the lifestyle, it is life.  And that certainly goes for hard-working, groundbreaking dirge-psych-metal act Cavalcade, whose members split their time between several other bands, full-time jobs, running the Bermuda Mohawk label, and generally being an encouraging and inspiring presence on the regional music scene.  Cavalcade took it upon themselves to record something for ITAV outside of their norm, an acoustic song that pulled in bits of psych-rock and spaghetti western and that became a logistical tangle that they have admirably persevered through.

We are extremely proud to offer the fruits of their labor alongside Terminal Girls' swinging, sinister "Pink Clouds" and The Plurals' alternately bracing and hummable "Neon Life."  And we thank you for your patience and understanding in waiting for this singular 3-way to drop.  It's going to be sooo worth it, and it'll still be in time to herald a new semester, an Indian Summer, and a clutch of great shows and upcoming releases from all over The Flyover.

"Pink Circuits" by The Nanobots to be released May 17th!

ITAV is extremely pleased to announce the release of the full-length debut from The Nanobots, "Pink Circuits," on May 17th.

Whatever you were expecting after the droning deconstructions of the foreward-looking "Enlarged To Show Texture" E.P., "Pink Circuits" will both frustrate and exceed those expectations.  Willfully obtuse sonic incidents pop through the fizzy, technicolor circuit's-eye-view musical landscape this tiny duo has initiated, a cascading apocalypse of sounds that deftly avoids descent into white-noise maelstrom (mostly), prefering a decidedly atavistic -- yet sparklingly 4-dimensional -- disassembly of modern electronica into the most jarring and jagged ambient/head music we've come across.

Yet what sounds like it could be a choreful listen comes across surprisingly warm and moving, with moments that even approach musicality(!).  The wait is over, and we are distinctly pleased to present this latest offering from ITAV's tiniest band *PREPARE TO BE SMITTEN*

Download it at http://thenanobots.bandcamp.com/

3-Way Singles Club FREE Launch!

3-Way Singles Club, Vol. 1
Available May 1, 2011
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" off of the harrowing Drums And Guns LP; Joshua Barton and The Brothers And Sisters covering "Shame" from the seminal sophomore album Long Division; and Stargrazer covering Low & Spring Heel Jack's song "Hand So Small" from the utterly delightful Bombscare EP.

So that pretty much covers the waterfront as far as Low's discography, and we are pleased and proud that our little musical offering will come out hot on the heels of Low's own critically acclaimed new album C'mon, which was released April 12.

Stay tuned for the link to the 3-song single FREE download, which will appear May 1st!

[more info on the 3-Way Singles Club?  Click the tab on the navigation bar at the top of this page.]

It can't always be good news -- Nanobots full-length delayed!

The Nanobots' full-length debut Pink Circuits, due out March 29 (today), has been delayed.  PETERBOT, 1/2 of the tiny duo, was flush with excitement over the clamorous finished product -- which flirts with ambient soundscapes as much as with white noise, drone, and passages that sound like a gamelan being kicked down a flight of steps -- and decided it would be a good idea to take the master tapes out for a night on the town and play the new album for some friends.

In the ensuing blur, the master for Pink Circuits was misplaced -- perhaps left in the back seat of a cab?  Or could it still be in that friend-of-a-friend's PS2?

We apologize for the delay while this mystery is being solved.  If you, by chance, know the whereabouts of Pink Circuits, please contact ITAV headquarters.  In the event that the master tapes cannot be located, we will rebuild the album from its basic tracks and have it out as soon as possible this spring.

* PREPARE TO BE SMITTEN *

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The master tapes for The Nanobot's new full-length, Pink Circuits, have been misplaced (in the style of Hendrix's Axis: Bold As Love)! Have you seen them? Please leave their possible whereabouts in the comments section of this blog post (below). Most creative sighting of Pink Circuits will win an exclusive, handmade 1-of-a-kind physical copy of the album!!

Example:  "I was looking at a grainy photo of the Sasquatch, and I'm pretty sure he was holding a copy of Pink Circuits."

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3-Way Singles Club launches May 1st!

ITAV's "3-Way Singles Club," hearkening to all those great singles series of the distant (and recent) past where you would receive a 45 RPM record in the mail every month, will launch May 1st with a very special 3-song/3-artist tribute, in miniature, to beloved indie rock/slowcore band Low.

Envisioned as a monthly series of digital triple-A side singles, each volume of the 3-Way Singles Club will feature 3 exclusive songs by 3 different independent artists.  Some of the singles will have themes, some will be more freeform in nature.  Some of them will juxtapose musical styles, others will celebrate particular genres.  Right now, we have about the first 6 months worth of singles lined up, featuring an all-star cast of Midwest musicians such as The Plurals, The Hat Madder, Cavalcade, Narc Out The Reds, The Playback, Flatfoot, Frank And Earnest, Jet Lag Superstar, RxGibbs, Karyatid, Cat Midway & The Knick-Knacks, and many more.

For the inaugural May single (Vol. 1!), 3 bands will cover Low songs:  Double Saginaw Familiarity will interpret "Dragonfly," Joshua Barton & The Brothers And Sisters will perform "Shame," and Stargrazer will record "Hand So Small" (from the great out-of-print E.P. Low did in conjunction with electronic duo Spring Heel Jack.)

Volume One of the 3-Way Singles Club will be FREE!  Stay tuned for the link, which will be provided May 1st!  You can also visit the 3-Way Singles Club Page for more information on the series and to see upcoming singles.

Volume 1's miniature tribute to Low precedes ITAV's planned summer release of a full-length Low tribute recorded by East Lansing sound engineer/producer Bryan Kay.  Bryan assembled a collective dubbed Cardboard Academy to record "Metal & Fire: Songs Low Taught Us."  Look for more information on that upcoming release around the same time Volume 1 drops -- and by the way, the 3 songs on Volume 1 are all different than what will appear on the full-length!

To all of the artists on Volume 1, Low has played an important and influential part in their lives and in their development as musicians.  The spare, stately harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, Low's principal members, combined with music as melodic as it is minimal, presents just as many openings for interpretation as it does challenges.

Dan Pehachek, a.k.a. Double Saginaw Familiarity, experienced Low in perhaps their most ideal setting, live:

"I first fell in love with Dragonfly hearing it live, and the memory is mostly an emotion set off by a guitar tone and harmonized vocals filling a small room.  Low taught me how to project emotion through sustained tones and silences, and I wanted to capture some of that in my cover.  I also wanted it to be something I could easily recreate live, so that whether I play it in a venue or a listener plays the recording loud in their room, the experience can trigger the same set of emotions and memories."

That sense of immediacy that is so integral to Low's music is also something Joshua Barton (of Fields Of Industry and their parent collective, AvE Records) seeks to capture.  He also confided in me that Low had provided part of the soundtrack for his relationship with his wife, Mary Jane.  Initially, his cover of the elegaic "Shame" off of the Long Division album was envisioned as a duet between he and she, however the idea expanded to include other members of AvE who also shared connectivity with Low's music.

Of the recording, Joshua aims to "record as live as possible and utilize harmonies beyond just Mary Jane and I."  If that isn't tantalizing....

Finally, I was unable to keep myself away from this project.  In addition to making a cameo appearance on Songs of Metal & Fire, where I play the last few bass notes of the closing song "Point Of Disgust," my own musical life has benefited so much from exposure to Low.  As a solo bass singer/songwriter, minimalism is the ocean I swim in (as a certain polar bear once said, of warfare).  Learning to let the spaces between notes sing is something I can trace directly back to their work.  The Bombscare E.P. that they recorded with drum 'n' bass duo Spring Heel Jack, circa 2000, was my first real exposure to them -- a slightly more ornamented sound, but one infinitely sensitive to the underlying, beautiful songcraft.  Therefore, Stargrazer delivers my own unique lo-fi interpretation of "Hand So Small," a song I hear in my dreams and deep within the fabric of every note I play.