Tag: Keeled Scales Records

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Renée Reed Releases a Hauntingly Gorgeous Single

Lafayette, LA-born singer/songwriter Renée Reed grew up in an intensely musical home: a young Reed grew up on the accordion-bending knee of her grandfather Harry Trahan in the middle of countless jam sessions at the one-stop Cajun shop owned by her parents Lisa Trahan and Mitch Reed. And as a result, Reed wound up being surrounded by a who’s who of Cajun and Creole music legends — both backstage at the many festivals of Southwest Louisiana and at her family home. Reed also soaked up the stories and storytelling of her great uncle, folklorist Revon Reed and his brothers from Mamou.

Reed’s self-titled debut is slated for a March 26, 2021 release through Keeled Scales Records and the album will feature music that Reed describes as “dream-fi folk form the Cajun prairies.” Thematically, “this album is a collection of songs about toxic relationships, seeing ghosts, ancestral baggage and blessings, and daydreaming about love,” Reed explains in press notes. “It is about certain feelings and experiences I’ve had over my life coming to fruition in the past three years. It was all made on a four track recorder at home, in a place and in a way I feel most natural, and I believe that quality comes through in the sound.”

“Neboj,” the soon-to-be released album’s third and latest single derives its title from a Czech word that Cajuns pronounce as “nuh-boy” and represents the amalgamation of influences and cultures that inform Cajun music. Centered around a hauntingly sparse arrangement of delicately picked, looping guitar and Reed’s ethereal vocals, “Neboj” manages to be a self-assured yet vulnerable fever dream of full of earnest longing. Interestingly, for Reed the song is about letting go and not being afraid to fall in love, to just trust her heart.


Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Austin’s Sun June Releases a Gorgeous Visual for Atmospheric New Single

Austin, TX-based indie rock act Sun June — founding members Laura Colwell and Stephen Salisbury with Michael Bain (guitar), Sarah Schultz (drums) and Justin Harris (bass) — can trace their origins to when its founding members started the band while they working long hours in director Terrence Malick’s editing rooms, and they would practice whenever Malick was out of town.

Sometime in 2017, they worked with Cross Record’s and Loma’s Dan Duszynski and fellow Malick album and Sleep Good’s Will Paterson on their first set of demos before eventually settling on their current lineup. While working on their Evan Kaspar-produced full-length debut, 2018’s Years at Estuary Recording Facility, the members of the band caught the attention of Keeled Scales Records‘ label head Tony Presley, who lived above the studio and signed the band.

Recorded live to tape without overdubs or any other processing, Years as the band explained in press notes was a “we’ve-been-a-broken-up-a-long-time” album with the material exploring how loss — of friends, family members and even partners — evolves over time, and how one deals with it, but while not being too heavy or serious.

Sun June’s sophomore album Somewhere reportedly showcases a gentle but pronounced maturation of the band’s sound, while featuring 11 songs that bristle with love and longing. The album’s third and latest single, “Bad Girl” is slow-burning and cinematic bit of dream pop centered around shimmering guitars, atmospheric synths and Colwell’s tender vocals. While sonically bringing Slow Air-era Still Corners and others to mind, the song longingly looks back on the freedom and carefree nature of youth with a simultaneous sepia-tinged nostalgia and the perspective gained from getting older.

“Bad Girl is about a deep manic drive to regress into the person I used to be — back when being bad was cool and being cool was everything,” Sun June’s Laura Colwell explains. “I was given a lot of freedom as a teenager and always took advantage of it. After I lost a good friend in high school, my fear of death was overwhelming. The song reflects on how that fear combined with my own thrill-seeking affected my decisions since. It cycles through self-destructive choices I’ve made in relationships to avoid responsibility, and how my fear of loss has lead me down some dumb paths. The tone is sad and resigned, but also self-righteous somehow.

“There’s something pushing and pulling between the lyrics and the beat, so we thought a dance video might draw out some internal tension,” adds Colwell, about the recently released video. “We filmed around Lockhart, TX, where we recorded the album, because there are so many farms and fields out there that are unchanged despite the area’s growth. We took some inspiration from films like Blood Simple and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, which were also shot in rural towns just outside of Austin. Basically, we tried to channel Frances McDormand, Willie Nelson, and Haim (if Haim were an only child).

Somewhere is slated for a February 5, 2021 through Run For Cover and Keeled Scales.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jo Schornikow’s Serene Meditation on Loss

Jo Schornikow is a Melbourne, Australia-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and pianist with a backstory rich of unexpected and profound experiences: Beginning as a church organist and jazz-trained pianist, Schornikow eventually relocated to New York, where she worked as an accompanist for the likes of Hugh Jackman, Bobby Rydell, and Lana Del Rey among others. She has also collaborated with King Creosote, The National, and Kelli Scarr before settling into a steady role as a touring member of Phosphorescent. 

With her partner, Phosphorescent’s Mathew Houck, Schonrikow had two children in quick succession in 2014 and 2015. The longtime musician-turned-mom took to songwriting to deal the life-altering and dramatic changes within every aspect of her life, including a new set of priorities and schedules, a spontaneous move from New York to Nashville — and perhaps most important, openly admitting and confronting the fact that for her, motherhood wasn’t the immediately satisfying and fulfilling experience that many describe; that for her, motherhood was centered by wonder, fear and compromise in every aspect of her life. Schornikow’s forthcoming, full-length debut Secret Weapon is informed by and was created in the heavily weighted wake of motherhood — and sonically, the album’s material reportedly falls in the intersection of pop, shoegaze and ambient experimental music. In fact, the gorgeously restrained album single “Ghosts” is built around subtly swelling synths, shimmering guitars and Schornikow’s serene vocals — and while being a decided contract to the chaos of being a mother of two young children, the song evokes a complex and messy array of emotion: joy, wonder, guilt, remorse, awe, fear, and the feeling of being a ghost stuck in one’s past. 

Animated, directed, and edited by Michael Hughes, the recently released video for “Ghosts” is a gorgeous and subtle take, displaying mundane aspects of daily life —  gatherings of friends and loved ones, cooking and chatting with a loved one in the kitchen and so on with a smoldering sense of loss of all the small things one once enjoyed.

Schornikow’s full-length debut is slated for a March 29, 2019 release through Keeled Scales/Secretly Distribution.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming Austin Indie Rock Act Sun June Explore and Celebrate Loss with Cinematic Single and Visuals

Comprised of founding members Laura Colwell and Stephen Salisbury, along with Michael Bain (guitar), Sarah Schultz (drums), and Justin Harris (bass), the Austin, TX-based indie rock act Sun June can trace their origins to when its founding duo of Colwell and Salisbury started the band while working very long hours in Terrence Malick’s editing rooms, practicing whenever Malick was out of town. 

Last year, the band began working on their forthcoming full-length album Years with Evan Kaspar at Estuary Recording Facility, recording the material live to tape without being overly polished or processed. As the band notes, the album is a “we’ve-been-broken-up-along-time” album, and explores how loss — of friends, family members and partners — evolves over time; but while not being too heavy or too serious. Interestingly enough, at the time, Keeled Scales Records’ Tony Presley lived above the studio and first heard the band playing through the floorboards, and immediately contacted and signed the band to the label, who will be releasing the album on June 15, 2018. So far, the band has built up quite a bit of buzz with several crowd wooing sets at this year’s SXSW and they’ve received attention from Spotify’s Fresh Finds and NPR’s Staff Picks. And adding to a growing profile, the band is playing alongside Waxahatchee, Bedouine, and Hurray for the Riff Raff at the Levitation after-party this weekend. 

Album opening track “Discotheque” is an atmospheric and slow-burning track featuring an arrangement of shimmering guitar chords, shuffling drums paired with achingly tender and gorgeous vocals, and the song manages to evoke a complex array of 
profoundly inescapable loss but with a sense of pride and celebration; after all, to truly live is to know, accept, and live with loss because it meant you knew love and connection with another, even if it were briefly. And somehow, some way, life pushes you forward no matter what. 

Directed and edited by Laura Colwell and Stephen Salisbury, the recently released video for “Discotheque” is eccentric yet cinematic as it follows Colwell and Salisbury as they drive around a boring and average American suburban development that’s somewhere between the hope of being built up and disastrously incomplete — and they do so in a daze of amazement, loss and confusion. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as a co-founding member and lead guitarist of the Brooklyn-based indie rock act Big Thief, Buck Meek is finally stepping out on his own with his highly-anticipated self-titled, full-length debut, which is slated for a May 18, 2018 release through Austin, TX-based label Keeled Scales. Reportedly, Meek’s solo debut is extension of his work and role in Big Thief, but it can also be seen as being a revealing look at his primary act’s hidden talent. And so far, this year has been a breakthrough year for Meek as he’s received attention from NPR and American Songwriter and has toured with Margaret Glaspy, Twain and others.

“Maybe” the third and latest single off Meek’s self-titled debut is a shuffling and shambling song that draws from rock and country in a way that may remind some of Let It Be-era Beatles (think of “Get Back” “I’ve Got a Feeling” and “One After 909“), Harry Nilsson (think of “Jump Into The Fire“)and others but with a straight out of left field take, thanks to a song structure that eschews the traditional chorus, verse chorus format while being held together with razor sharp hooks and a mischievously free flowing vibe. The song may have been released in 1972, 1982, 2002, 2012 or 2018 but no matter what, there’s a deliberate attention to craft that’s charming.

Meek will be touring to support the album with a backing band and the tour will include a June 8, 2018 stop at Rough Trade. Check out the tour dates below.

Rough
TOUR DATES
May 30 | Kerrville, TX at Kerrville Folk Festival
June 07 | Allston, MA at Great Scott
June 08 | Brooklyn, NY at Rough Trade
June 09 | Washington, DC at Songbyrd
June 10 | Durham, NC at The Pinhook
June 12 | Nashville, TN at The High Watt
June 13 | Bloomington, IN at The Bishop
June 14 | Chicago, IL at Schuba’s
June 15 | Millvale, PA at The Funhouse
June 16 | Philadelphia, PA at Johnny Brenda’s
June 7-16 with Sam Evian
June 7 & 8 also with Katie Von Schleicher