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. 

3WSC Volume 19 Has Arrived!

...and without further ado, we invite you to grab something solid and click on the album cover to the right of these words.  Brace yourself for three brand new tracks from the likes of Honah Lee, Language, and Decades!

Mega-Subscribers, your songs are cozily nestled in your subscription folder! (What's a "mega-subscriber?"  See the sidebar on the right of this page.)

Want to share a link with friends or on your own blog?  Here: http://music.itavrecords.com/album/3-way-singles-club-vol-19

Funny story, when I first posted these songs earlier today, I quickly got a note from Honah Lee's Tim Hoh indicating that their track was sounding wack.  Well, I don't pretend to know everything, and today that was brought into sharp relief as one of the great mysteries of audio mastering was made known to me:

Nearly everything we've put out in the last two years has been mastered at 44.1 kHz, a fact that had remained vague to me because of its very ubiquity.  But Honah Lee's track (clearly marked in sharpie on the CD-R, no less) was provided to me at a higher resolution 48 kHz.  Not really understanding the difference, I ftp'd the audio file over to Mohnish Das to master in the scrupulous manner that he's been doing since Volume 10.  I didn't include that vital bit of information, thus setting off the chain of events that led to Tim's e-mail.  A quick phone call to New Jersey brought the issue to light: the track was about 12 seconds longer, and slower, due to being mastered at 44.1 kHz along with the other two songs.  Everything was pitched down slightly.  The song's original breakneck tempo sounded like it had been enjoying some of Lil Wayne's fabled purple drank.

Mohnish immediately set to work on a fix, and since he wisely keeps notes of his mastering settings, we were able to have the corrected track back up by this evening.  Thus the disabled download for part of this afternoon, and I apologize for any inconvenience that may have caused.

But you didn't know that about audio mastering either, did you?  Or, maybe you did?  Looking at It Takes A Village's subscriber list it strikes me that some of you probably did.  You're an erudite lot.  Well, now I do too.  I have to admit, I mostly understand now, it's all still a little fuzzy as to what the difference is.  And I even read Tape Op!  I apologize to Honah Lee for almost releasing a compromised version of their song, they were very gracious about it.  Tragedy narrowly averted.

People could assume that because I'm behind the scenes, I know how to do everything involved in putting professional quality music out. The truth is, I couldn't do it without a lot of help.  I'm good at organizing projects and bringing them to fruition, but without all the talented musicians and engineers that have taken part in the 3-Way Singles Club none of this would happen -- at least not at the level we've been able to maintain.  Today we released the 55th, 56th, and 57th singles in the series -- that's as many songs as Heinz Ketchup has varieties of pickles.

Learning is a process, we are never experts.

Rather than crippling, I find that epiphany inspiring.  There's no reason that anyone can't make great recordings if they are starting with the most important ingredient: great songs.  My own flounderings in my home studio recording as Stargrazer with my 4-track and Garageband have evolved from "unlistenable" to "charmingly lo-fi" in a relatively short amount of time.  With continued good fortune, good teachers, and yes even hiccups and mistakes, I hope to improve my personal skills and knowledge; and I'm grateful not only for the vast supporting cast that makes It Takes A Village Possible but also for the people who listen and for those who eagerly anticipate our next offering.

More about that later.  Go rock out to the new single.

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

We Are Back. Did You Know We Left?

It is with relief and elation that ITAV returns to the internet, after a prolonged and unplanned hiatus that began last October.  Many a hiatus occurs over something like lack of funds or "artistic differences" or even just simple ennui, but in our case it was a literal miracle:

My good friend Ande was diagnosed with a genetic polycystic kidney disease when we were about 14.  He was on a class trip and took a tumble down a steep hillside and got a little banged up, and in the process of checking him out and patching him up, they discovered the cysts.  This led to his mom also being diagnosed -- she had been living with the condition, unaware of it because it hadn't presented itself yet.  Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) leads to eventual kidney failure, usually around the age of 40 or 50, but it could be that Ande's injury back in 1987 accelerated his condition a bit, and this past summer he went into kidney failure.  Due to his blood type, his wait for a transplant would have been 7-8 years, a virtual death sentence.  Several people volunteered to be tested as a possible match, but my wife was the first and she was a positive match!

We began making preparations for the transplant in February of 2013, but, surprise, it was scheduled for October 19 of 2012!  We arrived at the transplant center at U of M Hospital around 5:30 AM that morning, and by 7:45 Randi was being prepped for surgery.  By about 10:45 her kidney had been removed, and about 3 hours later it was in Ande and had begun processing the built up toxins in his body.

The next two months were a long, slow period of recovery, but both patients were doing well.  I played nurse, helping her stand up and get back into her coccoon on our couch, administering medications, running errands, and cooking.  My employers generously let me take two weeks off, which let me be with her 24-7.  Many friends came by to visit, bring food, cards, artwork, music and other things.  It was like being in an envelope of love and hope.

Randi has been back to work for about a month now, and Ande for a little longer.  ITAV took a couple extra weeks to reorganize, but we have re-entered the fray with Volume 18 of the 3-Way Singles Club, which can be streamed or downloaded here:  http://music.itavrecords.com/album/3-way-singles-club-vol-18

The single features an exclusive version of Wisconsin indie band Pushmi-Pullyu's song "I'm In Love Again," captured in a crystalline live rendition.  Also appearing is a fantastic neo-soul tune, "Never Noticed" by Surgeons In Heat, a band that shares members with the more indie-folk inclined Pioneer, who you might remember backed up Small Houses on their great reading of Paleo's "There, At The Top Of The Stairs" all the way back on 3WSC Vol. 10.  "Never Noticed" first appeared on their self-titled album back in April, which you can hear in its entirety here.  Closing out this edition is the first musical offering of 3 Trains And Me, a collaboration helmed by longtime Lansing-area musician and musical supporter Augustine Jay.  Here he works with members of Narc Out The Reds and The Hat Madder to hatch a slide guitar-infused piece of dark swampy blues called "Born Under."  A pretty fantastic triad of songs, if I do say so.

It also features a brand new piece of exclusive artwork made for us by John Praw of Pushmi-Pullyu.

This follows the equally exciting raw nugget  of rock power we released in October, 3WSC Vol. 17, which featured great songs from the rising Racket Ghost, pulsating angularities by the Mind Guards, and a left-field piece of gospel lo-fi from Chaz Brackx and The Big Bucks.  Go get it here: http://music.itavrecords.com/album/3-way-singles-club-vol-17

Along with change of the life-altering variety comes, well, more change.  The 3-Way Singles Club began in May of 2011 as a monthly series, "3 songs, 3 bands, 3 bucks."  Proceeds from the sales of the series and the Mega-Subscription (see the sidebar on this page, to your right) have helped to generate a fund called the Independent Musicians Fund, which currently holds $229.72 -- not a princely sum, but impressive in its own right as it was generated solely through the sale of independent music.  The IMF continues to be a sacrosanct fund for independent musicians, see the tab above to learn more about what it does, and why.

Where the change occurs in the 3-Way Singles Club is not in its priorities -- great songs in groups of three, benefiting the very community that they came from -- but rather in its scheduling.  Rather than be a metronomic monthly installment, the series will transform into a project-by-project event, allowing artists greater freedom to make bold statements without the artificially imposed pressure of the monthly deadline.  We look forward to bringing you the best exclusive songs we can find, in manageable bite-size capsule form, to be taken as needed when you have a fever for great new sounds from hard-working artists who labor without the benefit of media attention or large promotional budgets.  Thank you for accompanying us as we continue this journey!  And stay tuned for announcements.

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).