Over the course of their acclaimed career, the band has released six albums, including 2015’s The Firewatcher’s Daughter, which garnered a Grammy nomination for “Best Americana Album.” Additionally, last year, they released Cover Stories: Brandi Carlile Celebrates 10 Years of the Story (An Album to Benefit War Child), which features 14 artists covering the songs on their breakthrough album The Story with all proceeds benefiting War Child. Artists included on the acclaimed project, which Rolling Stone calls, “tender and powerful,” include Dolly Parton, Adele, Pearl Jam, Kris Kristofferson, The Avett Brothers, Margo Price and Jim James as well as a forward written by President Obama. More details can be found here.

Carlile’s Girls Just Wanna Weekend—a destination concert vacation featuring an all female-fronted lineup—will take place at the all-inclusive Hard Rock Hotel in Riviera Maya, Mexico January 30-February 3, 2019. In addition to multiple shows by Carlile, Girls Just Wanna Weekend will feature Maren Morris, Indigo Girls, Margo Price, Patty Griffin, Lucius, KT Tunstall, The Secret Sisters and Ruby Amanfu. Of her inspiration behind the event, Carlile comments, “Mainstream festivals in the U.S. habitually exclude women as headline artists equal to men. I was brought up by Lilith Fair to believe that men and women enjoy live music equally and that women can not only headline a festival—they can BE a festival.” Tickets are now on-sale. Complete details regarding the festival and packages are available via www.girlsjustwannaweekend.com.

“On that first record we had no idea what kind of music we were going to make—we just went up to a cabin and pressed record and went for it without any fear,” says Young, who sparked the founding of Delta Spirit back in 2005, when he spotted Vasquez busking in the streets of downtown San Diego. So while Into the Wide continues to push forward in exploring new sonic territory (as on 2010’s History From Below and the band’s self-titled 2012 release), Delta Spirit have also restored a sense of kinetic flow to their communal songwriting process.

“When we were writing there were these songs that we really labored over and tried to polish,” says McLaren. “But in the end, those songs didn’t belong to us. The tracks that make up the album were the ones that happened quickly and naturally and just instantly felt good to us.”

Despite that lack of polish, each of the songs on Into the Wide is driven by lavishly textured arrangements and a deeply heady emotionalism. Hazy and hymnlike, “Push It” opens the album by personifying the U.S.A. as a beat-down, reluctantly indestructible woman and musing on the rival forces of decay and idealism that define American life today. From there Into the Wide gives way to the triple-threat of the triumphant, guitar-fueled “From Now On,” the frenetic and punch-drunk “Live On” (an ode to surviving bully brutality, inspired by Vasquez’s Texas childhood), and the groove-powered yet anthemic “Take Shelter” (Winrich’s celebration of being hopelessly lost but still finding your way to the light). The album then leads into “Hold My End Up,” a haunting and howling epic that builds to blistering intensity in its lament of “school shootings and movie-theater shootings and that darkness that lives in us and the loneliness of the inner monologue,” as Vasquez explains.

Into the Wide sustains that forward-charging momentum as songs journey from Middle America to Georgia to Reseda to the California wilderness, the possibly mythical locale serenaded on its dreamy, gauzy-guitar-laced title track. On the deceptively soaring “Patriarch,” Vasquez twists his own past experience with evangelical group The International House of Prayer into a story of a cult-stolen girl who believes that God has called on her to kill herself. (“I’ve always been fascinated by that whole element of American music,” says Vasquez of the song’s murder-ballad-esque approach to storytelling, “and I love the idea of trying to carry it into the 21st century and writing songs that have a simple theme but take you on a journey in just three minutes.”) The album’s second half also features such standouts as “Language of the Dead,” a stomping piece of psych-pop that name-checks both Bob Dylan and Robert E. Lee in its send-up of hero worship (“Throw your idols into the sea/Dreamers, get your own dream”). And on “The Wreck,” Into the Wide comes to a close with a gorgeously stark piano ballad that’s equal parts lovely and aching in Vasquez’s tribute to his wife’s enduring faith (“They all warned you ‘bout me/Don’t give your heart to a wreck”).

As Delta Spirit’s most sonically expansive album yet, Into the Wide somewhat paradoxically owes its broadened sound to the band’s holing up in what McLaren calls their “dreary, EPA Superfund of a practice space” for months on end. “We’re lucky to have it, but being stuck in this room with no windows and dreaming about getting back out into the world and into nature and seeing the country again seemed to pull something deeper out of us,” notes Jameson. Adds Winrich: “That sense of feeling trapped in our studio and in the city definitely gave the album more of a weight than our previous records, and played a big part in this being our moodiest record yet.” But when it came time to record, relocating to Maze Studios in Atlanta helped breathe new life and brighter energy into the songs selected for Into the Wide. “One of the most of the important things was getting back to all of us being in a room together for every single song and recording everything live,” Young points out. “I think Ben even lied and said the AC was broken so we’d all be in there sweating like we do when we’re onstage.”

Keeping an eye toward the live experience is always essential to Delta Spirit, who name playing 293 dates in 2009 as one of their top points of pride. “We just want the songs to be as epic and meaningful as possible when we play them in front of people, which is the be-all and end-all for us as a band,” says Vasquez. In moving toward creating music that’s transcendent for their live audience, Delta Spirit strive to stay focused on the singular benefits of communal songwriting. “There’s something sort of magic about getting five incredibly distinct personalities to get behind something they can each claim as their own, instead of having the music be the product of one person’s specific vision,” Jameson says. What’s more, Vasquez adds, that commitment to collaboration ends up being infinitely rewarding once the band takes the stage. “To be able to play something and think ‘I created this’ is one thing,” he says. “But to have five different people standing together onstage and all of us feeling the vibration of that at once, that’s kind of amazing.”

Produced by Charlie Hugall (Florence and The Machine, Ed Sheeran), Paul Savage (Mogwai, Franz Ferdinand) and Peter Miles (We Are The Ocean, Futures, The King Blues) and with arrangements and strings from Valgeir Sigurðsson (Sigur Rós, Björk), the resulting 10-track album is bold, expansive, confident and cohesive - an undeniable step up in both diversity and volume from their critically acclaimed debut, Shallow Bed (March 2012).

Dry the River have announced a UK headline tour in October. The dates follow a number of festival shows over the summer, including appearances at Glastonbury and the Main Stage at Reading and Leeds.

They ended their last run of UK dates with a euphoric sold-out show at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire in November 2012, a year which began with them appearing in the BBC ‘Sound of 2012’ poll. This tour will see them play their biggest headline show yet, at The Forum in Kentish Town, London.

Drake Margolnick was there performing on the heels of an EP he had recorded and some friends of his from the band Campbell were there and he asked them if they would be his backing band. It became clear from the first note that this makeshift group had musical chemistry. The group created a sound much greater than the sum of their parts. Back in their mutual hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina it was decided that this musical collaboration should continue.

Frontman Drake Margolnick was born in England, on an Air Force base, the son of a military couple. A few years later, his mother settled in the southern city of Charlotte where Margolnick focused his energies on skateboarding and dirt-bike riding, dreaming of pursuing the sports professionally. Through his teen years, however, music began to completely capture his imagination. After high school graduation, Margolnick moved to Australia to follow his muse. Disillusioned with the scene there, Margolnick returned to Charlotte where he quickly integrated into the burgeoning community of musicians, artists and filmmakers.

It was the same soil that guitarist Matthew Padgett, drummer Michael Finster and keyboardist/programmer Cole Moser were growing in. It was here playing in multiple bands in multiple venues—clubs, theaters and coffee houses—that they honed their musical style, a sound that transcends the traditional south but seems right at home in the southern heat.

After forming Flagship, Padget, Finster and Moser immediately began to work with Margolnick on a tight collection of songs—self-producing and engineering the Blackbush EP. Here, the group began to formulate an atmospheric mixture of pop-minded melodies and passionate, aggressive performance. It was the strength of these songs that attracted the attention of Bright Antenna Records, a label that wanted to see the group grow beyond their regional fanbase while maintaining their distinct musical personality. After playing stages across the U.S. for a year, Flagship recorded their first full-length LP with the producer Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Washed Out). Set to release on October 8, 2013, the album is both a culmination of all that came before and the sound of what comes next.

Drake, you had a singer-songwriter career before this, and there of the other guys played in Campbell the Band. How did that turn into Flagship?

Drake Margolnick: I started Flagship back in 2005 with a specific sound in mind. To make a long story short, I met Matt Padgett first and asked him to play guitar in a solo project I was doing. Months later we all ended up at a music festival together and the guys of Campbell backed up one of my performances, and then a few more. In working together we all felt a strong creative chemistry and a tight bond forming. It just made sense to play together and in turn Flagship was revived and reformed. Flagship and Campbell was not a merging of bands, as they are two very different sounds, it was a merging of artists.

Was there something missing in your solo career?

Margolnick: I quit being in a band that I started, and then I did a solo project for a little bit. The other bands that I had been in felt off-balance. I found myself doing 90% of the work. These guys have a work ethic, so everybody works, and everyone is happy when everyone is pulling their own. The songwriting changed because I wasn’t writing every part anymore, people were writing their own parts, so the more minds that connect, the more it develops into something that’s just not one person. It expands.

Tell me about Campbell the Band.

Matthew Padgett: Campbell the Band was formed by Michael and I and another guy named Grant, who was in Flagship for a bit. We met and we were like “let’s get together and start a real band.” So that’s probably 2003 when that started. Then it’s been a lot of small steps. We started gaining success in Charlotte, we were getting crowds of 700 to 800 people. But we didn’t feel right about it, we didn’t feel like it was going anywhere so we broke up, and I started playing with Drake’s side project, and I loved it and asked the rest of Campbell to come and play and we called it Flagship.

Drake, as the main lyricist, what ideas were on your mind when you were writing the album?

Margolnick:

I reread The Call Of The Wild, and it affected me. I was just obsessed with the wilderness and that really bleed through most of the album. The wilderness as a literal thing, and how sometimes you feel like you’re in the wilderness and there’s not much happening. I was going through a lot of big changes in my life and my beliefs and getting more comfortable with myself. Maturing, and reevaluating priorities and figuring out what actually mattered to me. I found peace and solace in music.

How did you come to work with Ben Allen?

Braden Merrick (Bright Antenna Records): I am friends with Ben Allen’s manager Paul Adams. Ben Allen was on the band’s list of producers to work with. So through many conversations with Paul and Ben, we were able to work out a deal. Ben only works with artists he truly loves. He has that luxury. He said of all the artists he could have made an LP with at the time, he chose flagship due to the power of the songs and Drake’s voice.

Tell me about your first time working with Ben Allen. This was your first time working with a high profile producer.

Michael Finster: It was very different than the way we normally do things. Grant is actually an engineer himself, so for the longest time we recorded things on our own. When we did that we would usually go the studio and spend the whole day setting up and goofing off, and probably end up recording around 11 or 12 at night, because that’s when we felt the best. But Ben, he did things more scheduled. He was there to push us to use our time a little bit more wisely. He knew what he wanted and he would push you and push you until it sounded as good as it was going to sound. If he complemented something you did then it was really good, because he was not to open with complimenting you.

“North Carolina’s Flagship are quickly establishing themselves as a band with an eloquent and emotionally stirring sound.”

–Earmilk

“After we fell in love with [Waste Them All] we had to give the rest of the record a listen and it’s completely on point with the single.”

–Nylon Guys Mag

“Both immediately captivating and unique, largely due to the impressive vocals by singer/songwriter Drake Margolnick”

–Filter Magazine.

Naomi plays percussive instruments, the Cajon and the Batas. Whilst Lisa plays piano. Together the twins have learned the songs of their father's culture, Yoruba.

Yoruba travelled from West Africa to Cuba with slavery in the 1700s. The Yoruba people have the highest twinning rate in the World, and twins occupy an important position within Yoruba culture. Ibeyi is pronounced "ee-bey-ee" and translates as "Twins" in Yoruba.

Ibeyi sing in English and Yoruba, and have created a minimalist sound that merges elements of their heritage with their natural love of modern music as teenagers grown up in Paris, citing artists such as James Blake and King Krule amongst their wide range of influences.

Ibeyi are currently recording their debut album for XL, with Richard Russell on production.

Laura Marling's new album 'Semper Femina' will be released March 10th 2017 on Laura’s own label More Alarming Records via Kobalt Music Recordings. It was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Blake Mills (Alabama Shakes, Jim James).

Alongside the announcement of Semper Femina, comes Laura’s directorial debut with the video for the first fruits of the record and the album’s opening track, “Soothing”. The inspiration for which was a series of vivid dreams Laura experienced whilst making the album.

Now 26 years of age, Semper Femina is Laura’s sixth studio album in a little over nine years. It is a record that similarly addresses questions of how society views sexuality and gender but without seeking to provide definitive answers. It retains an openness to express and portray her own ‘voyage’ of self-discovery, but also to develop and learn as artist, performer, and as an individual over the course of her career.

Semper Femina was largely written out on the road, following the release of Laura’s acclaimed album, Short Movie, in Spring 2015. Its loose lyrical thread strings together her keen, freshly observed take on womanhood, and what Laura describes as a particularly ‘masculine time in her life’.

The announcement of Semper Femina follows the success of Laura’s recent Podcast series, Reversal of the Muse. As an exploration of femininity in creativity, the collaborative project opened up an important conversation around whether the lack of feminine presence in the studio environment would ultimately make any difference at all to the creative outcome. With no pre-conceived expectations, Reversal Of The Muse was as much about the conversation created than expecting a conclusive answer. Guests included HAIM, Karen Elson, Vanessa Parr, Dolly Parton, Shura, and Emmylou Harris.

Laura follows its release with a full UK tour throughout March 2017.

“…her voice is the headliner: Mic'd so close you can smell the cigarettes on her breath, it's sultry, wise, rueful and unapologetic, connecting a 1960s singer-songwriter tradition to the ache of the now.” – Rolling Stone

“Her songwriting brings together the diaristic and the mythical. Her voice is full of grown-up depth and subtleties….and she has the guitar virtuosity for arrangements that are resonant, intricate and propulsive.” – Jon Pareles, The New York Times

Behold the concept behind Preachers, the second full-length release from Austin's My Jerusalem. From the opening piano of the haunting title track, to the unexpected pummeling guitar and drums on closer “I Left My Conscience In You”, Preachers leads the listener on a cinematic journey through a reckless, jagged landscape of Raymond Carver-esque stories, fueled by Klein’s persuasive baritone, ominous guitars, dream-like keyboards and a deep rhythmic pulse.

Recorded in under three weeks by Spoon drummer Jim Eno (Heartless Bastards, Polica, Black Joe Lewis) at his Public Hi-Fi studio, Preachers is the first My Jerusalem album genuinely made by a band, not just performed by a group of musicians. Pushing aside hard drives and laptops to make way for analog tape machines and vintage keyboards, what Klein describes as the “Post-Modern Southern Gothic Soul” sounds of Preachers were born from organic, live performances Eno carefully captured and tweaked.

Preachers is the follow-up to 2010’s critically acclaimed debut, Gone For Good, an album that earned the band performances on BBC Radio 6 and Daytrotter, as well as notices from NPR's All Songs Considered, AOL/Spinner's Song of the Day, and the iTunes Weekly Rewind. Along with European festival appearances at the Frequency Festival, Musikfestwochen, and Rock Im Saal, the band toured and played shows with a eclectic set of bands including Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Har Mar Superstar, Avett Brothers, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and White Arrows.

Buoyed by the success of Gone For Good, Preachers showcases a band headed into the studio with a renewed focus and confidence. Preachers contains equal parts swagger (the swampy gospel of title track “Preachers”, the strutting intensity of “Born In The Belly”) and groove (the spooky beauty of “Shatter Together”, the crescendoing, feral drive of “Devoe”, the infectious crooner “Mono”); as much primal (“Death Valley”) as it is humane ("Chameleon").

“It’s a darker record,” says Klein, who, before forming My Jerusalem in 2010, made 3 records under his own name. “So much had changed since Gone For Good. We’d all kind of been through hell and back again in different ways, and this was the natural artistic result of all of that. But I think it’s a beautiful, comforting darkness. It’s real, but not selfish.”

“We finally have a shared collective vibe,” adds guitarist/keyboardist Jon Merz, “I believe it’s more representative of what our live shows sound like. This time around, Jeff would bring us song ideas and we would add our own perspectives to it.”

The five-piece, which also features multi-instrumentalist Michael St. Clair, drummer Grant Van Amburgh, and bassist Geena Spigarelli, also had the opportunity to road-test much of the new material before recording, during their extensive touring behind Gone For Good. It was a luxury they didn’t have the first time around.

"Working out the kinks live before recording them makes a big difference," reflects Klein, “They get a chance to breathe and grow before committing them to the world permanently. Because of that process, some songs, like 'Death Valley,' sound nothing like their early version. We’re excited to take them on the road and see how they evolve even further.”

Equal parts sweet, morbid, strange, and sincere, Preachers is an experience that could convert the most steadfast of non-believers.

Death Dreams is a record of great power: power themes, power chords, power everything. – Pop Matters

…the pair have accumulated enough momentum that they sound ready to bust out of Saulnier’s selfconscious mind and take the rest of the world on, one graceful guitar burst at a time. – AV Club

This is one of the best Canadian alt-rock albums of 2012. - Postmedia

At heart, Death Dreams is simply a titanic guitar record, one that draws equally on the proud history of guitar records past from both the indie and classic-rock disciplines. – Toronto Star

Death Dreams is one of this year’s best indie rock albums. - Prefix

…the perfect example of a "same but better" second outing giving fans more of what they love while presenting something new to consider for those who weren't sucked in the first time around. – Exclaim!

Yes, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr loom large in Death Dreams, but so do Cheap Trick, which is exactly why PS I Love You are far more sincere than the average hipster rock band. -NOW

…it might just be the best Canadian album to come out in 2012. – FFWD

a triumph that proves PS I Love You’s expansive talents know no bounds. – The Grid

Death Dreams almost faultlessly conveys the volatility and incomprehensibility of their particular genius. – No Rip Cord

Pancakes...cheeseburgers...tickle. - Pitchfork

On October 30th, Sun Club’s debut full-length The Dongo Durango was let loose into the world by ATO Records. This new 9-song collection finds McCord and his bandmates joyously deconstructing the traditional pop song—then rebuilding it with off-kilter time signatures, gleefully unhinged vocals, and sunny hooks that sink deep into your already fevered brain.

The album also stands as the culmination of a long, bumpy, and funny history for these young Baltimore players. Starting almost 10 years ago, when they were barely teens, Shane, his brother Devin, and their next door neighbor Mikey Powers did as most young wannabe musicians do: dreamed of stardom before they had even played a note together. “All we did was have band meetings,” Shane remembers, laughing. “We’d be jumping on a trampoline and talking about the names of our first 20 albums and changing the name of the band every week.”

Eventually, the three cobbled together some actual instruments and started slowly learning how to play music by listening to their favorite White Stripes, The Beach Boys, and Devo tunes. What followed was a good five years of changing out band members, playing rough-and-tumble shows at parties, getting better as musicians, and learning how to write songs. “We used to play metal until [multi instrumentalist] Kory [Johnson] joined in 2010,” Shane says. “Then we became a grunge band that slowly shifted into writing pop songs.” The catalyst for this final step in their evolution was the inclusion of bassist Adam Shane, who jumped on board in 2012.

From that point on, Sun Club took off down the path that hundreds of bands have followed for the past 50+ years. The quintet toured endlessly, moving from basements to bars to bigger-venue opening gigs for the likes of Alvvays, Fidlar, and Fat White Family, and touring the U.K.

After self-releasing one well-received 7” and putting out an amazing EP, the group then started recording The Dongo Durango with their longtime collaborator and producer Steven Wright. Using an old warehouse space just outside of Baltimore as a makeshift studio, Wright set about recording the band live, all the better to capture the raw energy of their raucous performances. Just listen to the booming singalong of “Language Juice” and “Puppy Gumgum:” It’s like being in the room with the band, getting swept up in a youthful spirit that calls to mind Animal Collective’s pop freak-outs as filtered through Real Estate’s coastal bliss.

Sun Club plans to spend the better part of this year on the road to support the new album. After all, relentless touring, crisscrossing the country in a van named Booty, winning the hearts of new fans with every date, is what got the Baltimore band here in the first place. "Our beloved van Booty caught fire the day we announced the new album,” says Kory. “We have now got a new van which we will be naming Booty 2.0. It's symbolic of a new era to us; a new chapter for us as The Dongo Durango becomes public to the world.”

Relocating from Oxford to London, guitarists Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge, bassist Adi Vines and drummer Graham Bonnar debuted with a series of landmark Creation Records EPs, Son of Mustang Ford, Rave Down, and Sandblasted. Their full-length debut, 1991's Raise, to this day is hailed by Pitchfork as an album full of "muscular, scorching guitars" that "still bring the noise like nobody's business" with Mojo stating that Son of Mustang Ford "remains one of the most glorious tunes to emerge in the wake of the so-called grunge explosion of '89, matching Adam Franklin and Jim Hartridge's motorised guitar-weaving with a beguiling, below-the-line vocal melody and lyrics that celebrated the joy of wide-open American freeways."

The band toured the album extensively, including a lengthy US tour with Soundgarden that brought their wall of sound to thousands. However with both Bonnar and Vines leaving the band not long after, the 1992 EP Never Lose That Feeling looked like it might be Swervedriver's (albeit scorching) swan song. Then in late 1992, Franklin and Hartridge demoed a new tune Duress, recruited drummer Jez Hindmarsh and set about recording a second full-length album Mezcal Head with Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine/Led Zeppelin), which included their biggest singles Duel and Last Train To Satansville. Touring extensively again, this time with Smashing Pumpkins and Medicine and with new bass player Steve George onboard, their sound was further imprinted on people's minds.

More roadblocks came to be in their way though: highly revered third album Ejector Seat Reservation came out in 1995 but was never released or toured in the US and although the band returned strongly with their fourth full-length 1998's 99th Dream, the energy was dissipating and they imploded at the end of an Australian tour resolving to go on hiatus.

Going their separate ways - Franklin moved to the US and released solo albums with his band Bolts of Melody - no-one really knew if the band actually was on hiatus or had split entirely. Then came an announcement in late 2007 that they would be performing at the following year's Coachella and heading back out on the road. Originally reforming with Hindmarsh on drums followed briefly by the return of Bonnar, they finally settled on Mikey Jones of Heaven and Bolts of Melody and have continued touring and appearing at festivals internationally.

In 2013 everything was ratcheted up several notches when Swervedriver released its first single in 15 years, Deep Wound. Spin Magazine called it a "warm, confidently roiling return" with Mojo adding "those same distorted pop sensibilities remain reassuringly intact" and the band debuted the song on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" in the States.

And finally the announcement comes that the band has been recording at legendary studios Birdland in Melbourne, and Konk in London. Their fifth album I Wasn't Born To Lose You is to be released worldwide in March of 2015.

‘The Narrator’ is written entirely around personal life stories sent into the band by their fans. These stories cover a wide spectrum of experiences and emotions, through the joy of fatherhood ( Stabilisers (I Will Be)) to the pain of losing a parent (Nobody Else Like You ¬- featuring a guest vocal from legendary British singer/songwriter Francis Dunnery ) via the emotive 2-part tribute to 2 fans’ experiences of the fight against cancer (Pink Ribbon and Lives of Your Lovers).

‘The Narrator’ was self-released on November 4th 2013 with no management, financial backing or guidance from a record label, it reached 38 in the itunes rock chart on it's first day. The debut album has received top rated reviews across the board after getting an exclusive on the Rock Sound website. The first single "Take" which was sold as an E.P "3 Years In Limbo" reached 21 in the same chart a couple of months previous to the release. From this it then got playlisted by Planet Rock Radio. The next single "Stabilisers (I Will Be)" had it's video exclusive with Classic Rock and found it's way onto the playlist of BBC Radio Wales as well as receiving airplay from Planet Rock Radio, Kerrang Radio, XFM, Nation Radio and UCB. The forthcoming single “Molly Drove Me Away” has already had BBC Radio 1 airplay by Huw Stephens before the release and it’s upcoming music video "The Narrator" was produced (in separate sessions) by Gil Norton (Foo Fighters/Jimmy Eat World/Counting Crows), Peter Miles (We Are The Ocean/The King Blues/Canterbury) and Todd Campbell (Straight Lines/ Exit International) .

After wowing fans in 2012 on a UK tour with Charlie Simpson (their first under the new moniker ), an Autumn UK run with Jim Lockey and The Solemn Sun and festival appearances at Latitude, 2000 Trees and Merthyr Rocks , The band look to the end of 2013 and the new year as their time to get back on the road and show the world the unique thought provoking concept that is "The Narrator". The band already has tours lined up in February with Motorhead & go off on tour again in March with Straight Lines. This demonstrates the diversity of the music that The People The Poet create.

In my haste returning to Vancouver, I had left all my instruments in a storage locker in LA. My sister had moved out and left her piano at my parent’s house, an instrument I had yet to explore. The first song I wrote on that piano was ‘Just A Dream.’ It was also one of my first attempts at singing. I have yet come to terms with my singing voice, but at the time I was left with no other option.

I recorded the demo, and then did a few more. Afterwards I sent the demos to JR White [Girls], someone who had produced one of my favorite records of the past few years (and was also signed to True Panther, the label I’m currently on). Soon after, he asked me to come down to San Francisco to record an album. After a series of visa issues and border complications, I finally met him and spent the next few months jumping from San Francisco to Los Angeles, recording in studios and bedrooms with friends.

After all that was said and done, I got offered to have a few more of my songs produced by Patrick Carney [The Black Keys] in Nashville, and Ariel Rechstaid in Los Angeles. I owe the sound of the record to the great effort of everyone involved, the producers and musicians doing and playing things I couldn’t and treating the production with the same reverence I treat my songwriting.

The writing will always be the most important to me; the production, playing and singing I am still figuring out. I still play a bit of guitar, but I’m mostly sticking to the piano these days.

- TJJR. December 2014

ROMANS’ well-considered, artful power makes it clear that there is very little he isn’t prepared to do. On his debut album, ROMANS takes soul, rock and pop both forward and backwards in time. By synthesizing the rich, full organs of classic Motown with the clean, gated reverb of the soul inspired hits of the ‘80’s and the space age effects of cutting edge recording and production he nearly obliterates it completely.

With a voice that rumbles with a passionate growl that communicates the rich emotional history of classic soul, rougher around the edges than his peers but still universally relatable, ROMANS’ debut defies and diversifies the genre that his sound is perhaps most akin to, and the tracks which he wrote, produced, and recorded entirely on his own, represent what is only the very beginning of the young musicians career. While it might be ROMANS’ strong, full vocals and timeless lyrics that stand out on first listen, the varied landscapes creates a sound that uses a foundation in a variety of musical traditions that is simultaneously absolutely fresh and undeniably grounded in sonic history.

ROMANS has a lot of tools at his disposal: he’s a self-taught multi-instrumentalist who started playing drums as a child “as an excuse to bunk off lessons at school.” The singer, producer, and songwriter was raised on music in more ways than one, and so it’s no surprise that his escape plan quickly turned into more, and, as he says, he became “absolutely obsessed.” In the years that followed, ROMANS taught himself to play guitar, cello, piano, and saxophone, and after leaving school at 16, with the technological music revolution in full swing, he taught himself to produce, and has spent the last decade learning to push the boundaries of songwriting to reflect the opportunities afforded by the digital age. He honed his songwriting expertise with compositions for artists like Beyoncé and Rihanna, and his collaborations with such varied talents as Mary J. Blige and One Direction both proved his versatility and expanded his repertoire, proving that there's nothing this young artist isn't capable of.

ROMANS grew up in the historically musical English town of Pinner, the place that also birthed Sir Elton John (who also happens to be one of his heroes), and was raised by a mother who spent her formative years following around Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. She made sure that music was an integral part of her son’s upbringing, and her influence has had an undeniable effect on his songwriting. “I think I’ve worked out a way to subconsciously use all of these influences I have, from Elton John, to the Beatles, to classical music, to Led Zeppelin, and hip hop, to basically put myself on autopilot,” ROMANS says, adding, “and that’s what I do, I just write until it feels good.”

This confidence, and the complex sound that it creates, is quite an accomplishment for an artist on his first solo record, but more than that, it’s a promising sign pointing to an artist with a rich and varied career ahead of him. Even when his songs take on difficult, complex subjects -- of faith and belonging and heartbreak, like on “I’m Not The Father,” or of self-actualization, as on “Life in Monochrome,” -- ROMANS’ rich voice and compelling composition has an undeniable groove. About his future, ROMANS knows anything is possible, but that possibility creates in him more fuel than fear. “I’ve been fortunate enough to collaborate with some amazing artists, producers and songwriters in the worlds best studios,” he says, “but for this album I really needed to do it for myself."

The EP drew comparisons to The Cure (MTV) and The Killers (Earmilk), was described as “new wavey bliss” (Billboard) and saw the band praised for their “anthemic, synth-laden rock” (Spin).

The band (vocalist Travis Hawley, bassist Mikel Van Kranenburg, guitarists Nick Fotinakes and Matt DePauw and drummer Rico Rodriguez) played hundreds of shows in support, sharing stages with the likes of Lana Del Rey, Morrissey, Cage The Elephant, Walk The Moon, OK Go, The Mowgli's, Angels & Airwaves and many more, while also garnering praise from the likes of KCRW, Huffington Post, KROQ, All Things Go, Nylon and AV Club, among others.

A year later they’ve returned with the much-anticipated LOVE GLOOM, produced by Joe Chiccarelli (Morrissey, Spoon, The Strokes) and recorded at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles.

“We were in the same room where Zeppelin recorded ‘Whole Lotta Love,’ says vocalist Travis Hawley. “It was pretty amazing to come in each day and walk through a hall filled with gold records and see pictures of Jim Morrison sitting at the console where we mixed. We even had the occasional celebrity sighting, like the time Mikel bumped into Lenny Kravitz and his procession of supermodels. He flashed a peace sign, said “what’s up” and sauntered off, his scarf dancing on the ground behind him as he walked. It was inspiring,” he muses.

As for the album’s production, Hawley says, “Love Gloom was a first for us in a lot of ways. In the past we had always taken a more paced stance on recording, tracking a few songs, taking a break and then writing more. This time we wrote and wrote and wrote until we had a huge collection of songs. We then refined and rehearsed them at our home studio until we felt like an album was speaking to us.

We live in a time where through the aid of computers, music and art can be digitally squeezed, quantized, pitch-shifted, wrapped in cool packaging and shoved out into the market. But Joe Chiccarelli urged us to leave the nuances, take risks and let the music be real. When we discussed records that inspired us we realized that they were vulnerable, with flaws and eccentricities that made us able to connect not only to the music as a whole but to the players performing as individuals. And we wanted that. It was important to us that our music be as real as possible and to allow our individual personalities to combine to create the whole.”

The result is LOVE GLOOM, an album Buzzbands described as “the sound of urban desperados wandering rain-slickened streets, hearts playing tug-of-war with hope and despair.”

Among the album’s many highlights is “Nothing Personal,” “Fangs,” “Breaking Free,” and “Don’t Kill The Messenger,” all part of a collection of songs filled with moody-but-danceable melodies and atmospheric arrangements.

“The music and the title LOVE GLOOM is about a collision of emotions,” says Hawley. “It’s when you need love and can’t find it. It’s the sickness of wanting someone and not knowing if they feel the same way. It’s the tearing of a breakup and the coldness of a partner during a fight. We wanted to create an album that’ll make you feel ecstasy and despair,” he smiles, “like you’re climaxing and suffocating at the same time.”