Artists

Like Pioneers started in December of 2009 when members of Bound Stems and the Narrator got together at IV Lab Studio in Chicago. After loads of file sharing, a handful of meetings at their practice space, and a long weekend at the studio, an album’s worth of songs had taken shape. Some of the songs were prepared, and others were improvised on the spot, but ten new songs were fully developed for the aptly titled album, Piecemeal.

Austin’s the Lovely Sparrows blend lush, complex arrangements with sing-along choruses that bring to mind glorious folk-inflected pop and well-written novellas. Pulling Up Floors, Pouring on (New) Paint, released by Abandoned Love Records in 2006, captures the gorgeous melodies and warm, organic maladies of lead Sparrow Shawn Jones. The expansive, lyrical Bury the Cynics was released in September 2008 to critical acclaim.

Straight out of the dense fog of the Bay Area, Marc Manning, Brad DerManouelian and Justin Wasterlain are Tied to the Branches. Committed to stirring every speck of dust into their swirling caldron of sound, Tied to the Branches create fuzz, reverb, echo heavy, feedback laden, psych rock / shoe gaze anthems. Ghostly and hushed vocals blend in with howling feedback and chilly delay soaked electronic drums describing a world of spirits, monsters, and ghosts.

Seattle-based Virgin of the Birds is Jon Rooney, co-founder of indie pop band Morning Spy and devotee of hazy major-key melodies, unruly e-bow, and arcane balladry. Seven songs were released by Abandoned Love Records as Mixed Choir in 2007. In 2009, Virgin of the Birds began releasing a series of free, download-only EPs including Every Rival, Dear Furies, Banquet Years and Fugitive Works.

alumni

The Capstan Shafts is the solitary musical dreamscape of one Dean Wells, a lo fi mystic living in Vermont. The Sleeved and Grandaughters of the Blacklist (out of print) is one of many brilliant releases from the Capstan Shafts and the first for Abandoned Love Records. These shorts bursts of heroic pop music are the hissing rumblings of analog ambition made flesh.

Grumpy Bear is a two-member collective based out of rural Southeastern Arizona. Grumpy Bear’s recording compound is nestled at the base of majestic Mount Graham in the draconian heart of the Gila Valley. The local economy is based on the ‘Four C’s': Cattle, Copper, Cotton, and Corrections, to which Grumpy Bear would like to singlehandedly add a fifth: Caterwauling. The Songs from the Abbatoir EP was released by Abandoned Love Records in Spring 2006.

Morning Spy invested in electric guitar textures and fuzzy, yet intricate songwriting. Their debut LP, Subsequent Light, was released to modest obscurest acclaim, receiving positive reviews and eventually earning a spot on a handful of year-end “best of” lists. The limited edition Two Horses EP was released soon thereafter to even better reviews. The Silver Age, released by KEEP Recordings and Abandoned Love Records in February 2005, draws from much of the modern history of outsider pop, at times evoking early 70′s glitter rock, reverb-drenched dream pop, the lo-fi sentiment, heady soundscapes and occasional bombast.

Portland, Oregon’s Nire make hushed, cascading pop collages deliberately stripped down to the barest essentials … guitar, piano, Casiotone, and boy/girl vocals. Their timeless songs will reach through your speakers late at night, wrap you in a warm blanket, and whisper fragile words of doubt and comfort in your ear. Nire released Vespers on Abandoned Love Records in October 2007.

Parker Street Cinema is a kinetic trio wielding piano, bass and drums (along with the occasional sample) to craft the kind of dynamic narratives Gershwin might have written if handed a distortion pedal or three. Abandoned Love Records released their self-titled debut EP in July 2005 and their debut full-length, Music, In the Blood in December 2007.

Bay Area band Plot Against Rachel pay homage to the glorious temple that is Indie Pop. Boy/girl vocals, shimmering guitars and swelling choruses are all pillars in that temple, and each pillar is duly celebrated on their debut self-titled EP.