Parasol
Publicity is the press and radio promotions arm of the Parasol
Label Group (and Parasol Mail Order). If you're a journalist,
blogger or radio personality and desire copies of and/or more
information about any of our in-house label releases please
send me an email with
your details.
Elsinore "Yes
Yes Yes"
Parasol Records
Release Date: August 10, 2010
Publicity by Team Clermont Alyssa
DeHayes <alyssa@teamclermont.com> Team
Clermont's Elsinore page Champaign,
IL's, Elsinore, has created the ultimate moment of certainty
with the Yes Yes Yes full length. Channeling the work of modern-day
masters Ben Gibbard and Sufjan Stevens, songwriter Ryan Groff,
has crafted a batch of vivacious yet personal songs that joyfully
soundtrack the simplistic bliss of life in the Midwest. [more]
Mazes
Mazzzes De-Mix Collection
[free download] Parasol Records
Release Date: June 15, 2010
Mazes' self-titled 2009 debut has received the remix/de-mix
treatment from musical friends, fans and family. Mazes gave
a bunch of musician/producer friends only the final, stereo
mixes of the record and said "do whatever you want."
The surprising results range from the aforementioned lo-fi treatment
to hard-core avant garde, to blissed-out cut & paste jams
and neverywhere inbetween. You may call it a re-contextualization,
or a “de-mix”, but please do call it Mazzzes.
Moon Food is the new album from singer/songwriter Jarid
del Deo’s Unbunny and it continues to balance hopefulness
and a deft sense of humor with dark, crushing despair. But that’s
life. And it’s what Unbunny has been singing and strumming
about over the course of fifteen years, five full-length albums
(the last three on Parasol imprint Hidden Agenda Records) and
sundry EPs and singles.
Mas
Rapido
"Dumb Is King!" Parasol Records
Release Date: June 1, 2010
Third
album under the Mas Rapido banner from Parasol pals Frank &
Donna, the duo formerly known as Toothpaste
2000 and before that Cowboy
& Spingirl. Guitar-pop supremo! Quicksilver grooving
gems and classic guitar pop ditties that pay homage to everything
from Teenage Fanclub, Cheap Trick, Phil Spector productions,
The dBs, Who, Ramones, Blondie and the Beatles, delivering sunny,
feel-good vibes no matter how sad the words might get.
Common Loon is a psych-rock-pop duo, Matt Campbell and
Robert Hirschfeld, who have known each other since Kindergarten
(for real). They are from Illinois. They traffic in dream rock,
blending classic West Coast harmonies with some cosmically-inclined
guitar-gush lushness. Names dropped include Sparklehorse, Sebadoh,
Spacemen 3's extended family, Apples In Stereo, Olivia Tremor
Control, Granddaddy...
Debut album on Ric Menck's Bird Song imprint. Painted
Hills are a psych-pop/cosmic americana outfit from Sierra Madre,
California, led by former Beachwood Sparks guitarist/singer/songwriter/dude
Josh Schwartz who was also a member of Further, Summer Hits
and more recently The Tyde. Band also features members of The
Whispering Pines.
Cameron
McGill & What Army
"Two Hits & A Miss"
Digital Download Single available from your fave DSPs.
Parasol Records
Release Date: September 15, 2009
New three-song digital-single from Cameron McGill & What
Army, the follow-up to their recent full-length, Warm
Songs for Cold Shoulders, released earlier this year
by Parasol Records.
ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "These ten songs spin a web
that's compelling and engaging, weaving back and forth between
high drama and subtle passion with a lyrical strength that rings
emotionally true, and McGill's vocals, bobbing between a whisper
and a plaintive, muted shout, are superb."
You
& Yourn
It Would Make Things Worse
Parasol Records
Release Date: October 27, 2009
Love,
then music, then marriage, the story continues… Formerly
known as Casados, You & Yourn’s self-engineered/recorded
project, It Would Make Things Worse, is a culmination
of a sonic evolution that has brought them out of the pedestrian
indie-folk-singer-songwriter genre and into their current: lyrically-driven,
atmospheric chamber-folk. Here you will find a gentler, more
deliberate dynamic that alludes not only to the more gleeful
aspects of life and love, but also the darker.
Beaujolais
Admirations
Parasol Records
Release Date: Sept 29, 2009
New album of garage-pop catharsis from former Wolfie/Like
Young gent Joe Ziemba. The follow up to the harrowing Love
At Thirty finds our protagonist Joe in the midst of...
moving on.
Richard
Lloyd
The Jamie Neverts Story
Parasol Records
Release Date: Sept 1, 2009
Ex-Television guitarist (and current Rocket from the Tombs
guitarist and frequent Matthew Sweet collaborator) Richard Lloyd’s
long-promised collection of Jimi Hendrix covers. As much a homage
to Jimi as it is to Lloyd's and Hendrix's mutual friend Velvert
Turner (R.I.P.), the Story behind this release touches on punches
thrown, tears shed and men whose guitar alchemy continues to
shape rock music. This is Lloyd’s third release for Parasol
and we’re astounded to be working with one of Punk’s
true godfathers.
George
Usher
Yours & Not Yours
Parasol Records
Release Date: Sept 1, 2009
Moving between guitar and piano, NYC songsmith George
Usher (Beat Rodeo, Bongos, Decoys, Schramms) has delivered his
new album, Yours And Not Yours, his first solo recordings in
over ten years and his fourth release for Parasol Records. Utilizing
a more acoustic, folk-rock sound, highlighted by strings, brass
and pedal steel guitars, Usher covers a lot of his usual “melodic
pop” ground. All 12 of the album’s songs are lyrically-rooted
in the dynamics of romantic relationships, creating a song cycle
that stays with the listener long after playing.
For their seventh studio album The Bats continue to refine
and develop their own idiosyncratic path, whilst also adding
fresh sparkle and new ideas. The strings and additional instruments
come to the fore, such as on the first single “Castle
Lights”, and Robert Scott’s songwriting has become
particularly strong on tracks such as “Countersign”
and “Crimson Enemy”. The band have come up with
an album that shines among their best.
In June Hidden Agenda Records will release On the Cathmawr
Yards, the debut album from Chicago slowburn-folk troupe
The Horse’s Ha, led by Janet Bean (Eleventh
Dream Day, Freakwater) and Jim Elkington (The Zincs) backed
by stalwart Chicago indie-rock vets. Think Fairport Convention,
Pentangle and a little Astral Weeks, if you catch their
drift.
Cameron
McGill & What Army
"Warm Songs for Cold Shoulders"
Parasol Records
Release Date: April 28, 2009
This is exactly the kind of record we hoped Cameron McGill
would make for his Parasol debut; songs stripped down and stories
laid bare. The songs show a similar vulnerability evident in
many of McGill's recordings, though here he returns to the thoughtful
folk musings he has made his signature. There is always enough
pop to make the songs memorable, but this album deals a weightier
hand than his last, the self-released Hold On Beauty.
Cameron is aided & abetted by members of Those Transatlantics,
Elanors, Wandering Sons, Judah Johnson and Andreas Kapsalis
Trio.
Second album from local heroes New Ruins, the follow-up
to The Sound They
Make. Droning acoustic/electric rock haunted by rural
spectres, songs rendered in sepia-tone, but clarified with a
dash of DIY studio alchemy. Since their debut the original duo
of songwriters J. Caleb Means and Elzie Sexton has expanded
into a quintet, featuring bassist/multi-instrumentalist Paul
Chastain (Velvet Crush, Matthew Sweet), drummer Roy Ewing (Braid,
Very Secretary), and Andrew Davidson (Blackouts, Tractor Kings,
Chemicals) on bass and auxiliary percussion.
Tour Dates HERE.
Download POSTER. Record release show at Schubas in Chicago on
April 29. Regional touring commences in May.
The Latest: Album will be available on CD and
limited LP vinyl. Promos CDs sent to press in early February.
The
Green Pajamas
"Poison In The Russian Room"
A Hidden Agenda Record
Release Date: April 28, 2009
Veteran Seattle combo The Green Pajamas’ new album
is a conceptual piece split into two distinct parts. While The
Green Pajamas’ trademark psychedelia has gone through
many moon phases on the last 25 years, here in 2009 the band
might rock harder than ever (they’re from Seattle after
all, grunge finds a way), but also invert all expectations with
a Pentangle/Zeppelin-styled acid-folkiness that will charm and
enchant. This is their seventh release for Hidden Agenda Records,
seven among several dozen official releases since the mid 80s.
While The 1900s make noises
about recording the follow-up to their full-length 2007 album,
Cold & Kind, front man Edward Anderson has readied
a "solo" album for Parasol Records, under the moniker
Mazes. In cahoots with fellow 1900s vocalist (and significant
other) Caroline Donovan and their comrade Charles D’Autremont,
Mazes is not so much departure from Edward's hitherto verdant
psych-pop meadow as a vehicle for Edward and friends to explore
further musical flora and fauna.
The
1900s
"Medium High"
Parasol Records
Release Date: January 20, 2009
Medium High, the 28-minute mini-album from Chicago psych-pop
troupe The 1900s, is a collection of outtakes, b-sides and radical
re-imaginings. The majority of these songs were written long
before their debut EP, Plume Delivery, was released.
The songs deal with characters who find themselves in uncertain,
in-between moments in their lives. "When I Say Cohen"
(a Leonard-inspired live recording of "When I Say Go"),
"Will" and "Face I Know" (a psyched-out
version of Cold & Kind's dreamy "Supernatural"),
all tell of epic physical journeys, while "Collections",
"Age Of Metals" and "Making Love" explore
emotional conflicts.
Debut release for Parasol's new children's music label,
Choo Choo Train Records. We lead off with former Lonely
Trailer frontman Tim Stephens. Mr. Stephens strums his acoustic
guitar and leads Ms. Harmon's kindergarten class (at Urbana,
IL's Thomas Paine Elementary School) through a rollicking set
of feel-good sing-a-longs and goodnatured kid-centric tomfoolery.
Includes guest apperances by former Trailer mate Brian Reedy
on drums and vibraphone, along with Emily Reedy on accordian.
While Jarid del Deo gets the next Unbunny record imaginated
we're thrilled to have this truly cohesive and near-comprehensive
new collection of Unbunny EPs, singles, rarities and previously
unreleased recordings spanning the last dozen years, including
the out-of-print Typist EP, originally released on Important
Records. Many tracks here appear on handy compact disc for the
very first time.Popmatters says: "In
Unbunnys nimble hands, indie rock becomes a bit more majestic."
The Latest: Portsmouth, NH --> Seattle,
WA --> Urbana, IL --> Portsmouth, NH (honorable mention
to Oakland, CA) --> Seattle, WA
Tractor
Kings
"Homesick"
Spur Records Released: 10/14/2008
Homesick is the long-awaited third album from local (Champaign-Urbana,
IL) space cowboys Tractor Kings, led by Illinois alt.country
icon Jacob Fleischli and his assembled hombres. Eleven songs
that inhabit a flickering psychedelic underworld of reverbs,
delays, strings and an evangelical pedal steel. We don't call
it 'rural cathedral' for nothing.
Beaujolais is Joe Ziemba, former frontman for Wolfie, Busytoby
and The Like Young. Love At Thirty is the debut album
from Beaujolais. Love At Thirty is a garage rock opera.
Conceptual. Personal. Monumental.
All Music Guide: "Love at Thirty is a harrowing and
unflinching look at what happened, and its honesty and sheer
emotional power put it on a level with Richard & Linda Thompson's
Shoot Out the Lights, Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear, and Bob Dylan's
Blood on the Tracks as an impressively honest and emotional
album about divorce."
Debut album from new local scene super-duo parlaying overcast
electro-rock dreamscapes. Gazelle is mild-mannered studio-warlock
Jeff Dimpsey (Hum, National Skyline, Honcho Overload, Poster
Children, etc) and vocalist Adam Fein (Absinthe Blind). Features
a guest appearance from Adam's sister Erin Fein, vocalist for
Headlights (Polyvinyl).
Donnybrook Writing Academy: "A drugged-out take on
the shoegaze sound, the snare-happy drum fills having been replaced
with meditative drum machines and free-form atmospherics. It’s
Ulrich Schnauss and Spacemen 3 joining hands in freefall, the
world whizzing by in slow motion."
After
clearing the vaults with their previous album, Song Cyclops
Volume Two, Doleful Lions return with a new lineup, direction,
and wisdom. 7 represents the next step in the evolution
of Doleful Lions, brothers Jonathan and Robert Lee Scott, marrying
their keen pop sensibilities with a new adventurous sound...
The usual folk guitar strummings of their previous releases
have been replaced with an eclectic mix of electronically-informed,
epic song structures and Jonathan's focused lyrical intensity.
They have used 7 to explore other sonic horizons. 7
is a truly adventurous album in all regards; an album that has
ventured further beyond any music created by the Doleful Lions
in the past.
The Latest: Jonathan is a one-man-band, yet
again.
Ric
Menck "Hey War Pigs"
Action Musik Released: 2/22/2008
On
his new 45 rpm vinyl single Velvet Crush drummer and very occasional
solo singer-songsmith Ric Menck covers former Soft Boys/Katrina
& The Waves guitarist-songwriter Kimberly Rew’s pissed-off
protest anthem “Hey War Pigs” (so very fitting)
backed by his dry-hump version of “Teenage Head”
by The Flaming Groovies. Black wax in a plain paper sleeve.
In addition to founding Velvet Crush Menck is and has been a
member of The Drats, The Reverbs, The Springfields, The Paint
Set, The Big Maybe, The Stupid Cupids, Pop The Balloon, Choo
Choo Train, Duffy, The Tyde, Frausdots, Aimee Mann and Matthew
Sweet.
