1,2,3 return to Ooh La La, to release their latest self described disaster ballad “Bigger Black Car”. In a celebration of the label and band’s anniversary of the debut release ”Confetti” from 2010, Nic Snyder delivers a song that he says “is about a common inner conflict, the necessity and enjoyment of an automobile and the knowledge that you are contributing to a multitude of ecological problems by driving one.”
Listen to “Quiet Day” On Stereogum
SXSW 2015 Dates:
Wednesday March 18- 3:30pm: Banners Party (The Side Bar, 602 E 7th St)
Wednesday March 18- 10pm: The Majestic (The Majestic, 419 E 6th St) ***OFFICIAL***
Thursday March 19th- 1am: ICM Showcase (Icenhausers 83 Rainey St, Austin, TX 78701)
Friday March 20- NOON: GQ x Jam in the Van (session)
Friday March 20- 2pm:BirdDog SXSW Rager @ The Pizza Loft (301 Chicon St (at 3rd) Free//All ages))
Saturday March 21- 1pm: Music Is For Listeners Radio Party (1900 Manner Road)
Somewhere between fact and fiction sits a place called Fort Lean. It doesn’t show on a subway map, and your cabbie won’t know how to get there, but on those adventurous nights when you’ve traded in your plans for a roll of the dice, that’s when you can find it.
The five gentlemen who bring the Fort to life met a decade ago at the famously freewheeling site of institutional discovery called Wesleyan University. Jake, Sam and Zach formed a band on the first day of class and were joined a few years later by Keenan and Will. The “P.C.U.” school’s hyper-social climate and bevy of battling bands set the tone for the real world beyond its progressive quad. After graduating, the group’s members relocated to New York to start fresh, playing music in other outfits and holding down jobs. A few years later the quintet reconvened as Fort Lean.
Fort Lean projects itself into the vague physical space suggested by its name. Here they have forged an identity and established roles that sidestep the hierarchy of traditional bands. Jake, on bass, is the visionary technician; Zach, on guitar, is the big-picture conceptualizer; Sam is that rare drummer with compositional knack; Keenan, the singer, is the guiding soul of the group; Will, on keys, is the finisher, the closer, the icing. But while these roles do exist, it’s never quite clear who is doing what.
“It’s a warped normalcy,” says Keenan. “There are elements in our music that you might think you’ve heard before but they translate to something different when the parts come together.” Layers of sound interweave, blending the familiar and unfamiliar. In their words, it’s like a bootleg vacation, the idea of an escape that is compromised or somehow undercut; a kid on holiday with his parents, free but for the hotel walls.
Fort Lean released two early EPs, earning glowing reviews in The New York Times and shows with HAIM, Future Islands, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Now comes Quiet Day, the debut LP on Ooh La La Records. The album is a collision of moods and tones, approachable and ambitious but delivered with a sideways subtlety. The collective songwriting is cohesive yet contains the disparate perspectives of its five writers. This is versatile stuff, appropriate for a crowd at a party or for the introspective headphoner.
“What we’re trying to explore sonically is something true to life, where there are moments of pleasure and peace that coexist with moments of surprise and chaos, ” says Zach. “It’s aspirational,” says Keenan. “We’re trying to build a world.”
Welcome to Fort Lean.
AERO FLYNN RELEASES NEW SINGLE “CRISP”
SELF-TITLED DEBUT ALBUM FEATURED ON TODAY’S
BROADCAST OF NPR “MORNING EDITION”
AERO FLYNN OUT MARCH 10TH ON OOH LA LA RECORDS
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER ON AMAZON AND ITUNES NOW
Aero Flynn has released “Crisp” via SoundCloud, the latest song to be unveiled from the forthcoming self-titled debut album. The project of Minneapolis based musician Josh Scott, Aero Flynn was also featured on today’s broadcast of NPR “Morning Edition” as they explored his roots in Eau Claire, WI, and the genesis behind the new album. An album “quickly shaping up to be one of 2015′s sleeper greats” according to Stereogum. Learn more about Aero Flynn on “Morning Edition” here.
Aero Flynn is out March 10th via Ooh La La Records, but is available for pre-order now on iTunes and Amazon.
Stream “Crisp” on SoundCloud
Watch “Dk/Pi” performed live in studio on YouTube
“‘Dk/Pi’ starts with an unassuming little twinkle. But then it sears, smokes and eventually explodes, revealing the full capabilities of Scott’s wandering mind. It helps that his band maintains a tight grasp on his expansive creative vision.” – NPR
Produced by Aero Flynn (aka Josh Scott) and Justin Vernon, the upcoming self-titled debut is an album that many who have known Scott have been quietly and anxiously hoping would come to pass for over a decade. Scott’s good friend Christopher Porterfield of Field Report tells the story better than most, relating a time in the early early aughts in Eau Claire, Wisconsin when the music scene was fervently anticipating the inevitable success of a promising band named Amateur Love.
Amateur Love shared members (Brad and Phil Cook and Brian Moen) with Vernon’s DeYarmond Edison, and as Porterfield relates, the former “were the better band and everyone knew it. The songs were better. The ideas were grander. The subject matter weirder. The narrators more honest and articulate. The frontman more compelling.” Just as things were starting to take off however, Scott abruptly disbanded the group and moved to Chicago. He watched from a distance as a wave of attention and success that washed over the tight knit scene he was once a part of while he in turn battled depression and developed a mysterious autoimmune disease that will require he undergo a kidney transplant in a few years time.
Yet even in the face of those headwinds, and perhaps on account of them, Scott eventually began writing and recording what would become Aero Flynn’s deeply personal self-titled debut. An incredible cast of musicians lent their talents to the process, including Mike Noyce, Sean Carey, Matt Sweeney, Rob Moose, Adam Hurlburt, CJ Camerieri, and Ben Lester. Recording went incredibly well, and over the course of a year an album many had spent over a decade waiting for was finally finished.
aeroflynn.org
Upcoming Tour Dates:
April 03 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th St. Entry
April 04 – Eau Claire, WI – House of Rock
July 17 – Eau Claire, WI Eaux Claires Festival
July 18 – Eau Claire, WI Eaux Claires Festival
Join us Saturday, February 21st at Rough Trade NYC in Brooklyn, NY for Fort Lean + NGHBRS and openers The Henry Millers. Show starts at 9pm. Be there or be █.
I’m thrilled to welcome Josh Scott and his new band, Aero Flynn, to the Ooh La La Records family. Everything you need to know about this incredible new artist and release can be found here: http://aeroflynn.org/.
Yours truly,
Theo Aronson
Coverage from COS and Stereogum on first day:
FORT LEAN play Communion Music’s NY event TONIGHT @ 7:30pm along with their friends Magic Man and other great artists. Come hang early, stay late, and catch The Big P.A. and Mike Spinella DJing in between sets.
Owen and James from Longfellow sat down with HIP VIDEO PROMO while in town for CMJ to discuss their video for “Kiss-Hug-Make Up”.
Check out the video below and snag the song on iTunes here: http://smarturl.it/Prelude-iTunes
I was talking to Chris from Ace Reporter the other week about Halloween and what we were both planning to do with ourselves. We got to talking about Halloween music, creepy soundscapes, and the underlying question: what does Halloween sound like? Danny Elfman quickly came up, which of course led us to Oingo Boingo and their song “Dead Man’s Party”. Chris started playing around with his own cover of the strange composition. Check out videos below to see the original (highly entertaining video) and a sample of Chris from Ace Reporter’s strange interpretation of the tune sans Danny Elfman’s epic eyeliner.