Empty Cellar Records and the Earth Girl Helen Brown Center for Planetary Intelligence Band (E.G.H.B.C.P.F.I.B.) are pleased to announce the fifth installment of the E.G.H.B.C.P.F.I.B. seasonal planetary series, URANUS. Featuring Heidi Alexander, Jamin Barton, Eric Bauer, Emilee Booher, Brad Caulkins, Bart Davenport, James Finch Jr., Graeme Gibson, Tahlia Harbour, Doug Hilsinger, Warren Huegel, Josh Puklavetz, Sean Smith, Ryan Weinstein and mastered by Mikey Young.
In these times of many changes, URANUS considers the strain and repose of power which balances all things.
The common English language word, power, refers to four quantitative properties of physics: energy, work, force, and power. In common use it is synonymous with strength, energy, electricity, vigor, and domination. A boundary between time (t) and energy (E) it is also the product of their division (P) and the great scale by which their separation is measured. How shall we manifest these interactions in our social and physical spheres from the atomic scale to the cosmogonic?
F=ma, W=Fs, E=mc2, P=E/t so E=tP and t=E/P.
Available from Empty Cellar Records on 100% post-consumer recycled cassette tape and worldwide on all streaming and digital platforms. All proceeds benefit organizations committed to the preservation of balance in power.
Peace,
Empty Cellar Records/E.G.H.B.C.F.P.I.B.
Track Listing:
1. Wings Of A Dove
2. Superpower
3. Ouranos
4. Take It
5. Conversation Redux
6. Rearrange
All songs written and performed by THE EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN CENTER FOR PLANETARY INTELLIGENCE BAND (E.G.H.B.C.F.P.I.B.) // EXCEPT “Wings of a Dove” written by Bob Marley & the Wailers AND “Rearrange” written by the Gladiators. Recorded in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Spring 2019
The Leader of Bay Area rockers Cool Ghouls more than likely has a framed photograph of Todd Rundgren on his work desk. …on further inspection the influence of other celebrated popsters becomes apparent. The goofball track “Are You Ok” pulls at the playfulness of Harry Nilson, while the show stopping closing track “Give the Land to the People” would not only be the perfect soundtrack to a 1960s sequence of street skirmishes between police and radicals, but also boasts the elevating properties of Jimmy Webb’s arrangements for The Fifth Dimension.
– The WIRE (Avant Rock by Tony Rettman)
Pat Thomas has been known as a driving singing/writing/bass-playing force behind San Francisco band Cool Ghouls for years and, over those years, in tandem with the band’s group effort, has cultivated an interesting voice as a solo act. “Solo” isn’t really the correct word though because the tracks on I Ain’t Buyin’ It showcase recordings complete with fully fleshed out arrangements, not unlike other ambitious California classics like The Beach Boys or Love. These comparisons seem lazy, given the obvious associations of the west coast with this sort of sonic imagery, which bands from San Francisco or LA – but SF especially – are seldom able to shake off. But at the entry point of this record, you welcome it as you would a lover of this style.
I Ain’t Buyin’ It sounds as if it’s dropped straight in from the late ’60s, not just with the psych/jug sound that recalls classic West Coast rock bands like Jefferson and Country Joe on “Are You Okay”, “New Star Ell” and “The Money Guys”, but also the straightforward anti-capitalist political sentiments of the lyrics. Thomas, also the frontman of Cool Ghouls, slides effortlessly into Southern soul on tracks like the gorgeous “Alternator” and “Egypt”, and it’s his perfect sense of pop melody that really holds it together. This is the sort of album you’ll buy on a whim and then keep coming back to.
– Peter Watts for UNCUT
As this album’s initial feeling moves forward, you get better acquainted with Thomas’s idiosyncratic song-writing and production style, which are playful and groovy and light-hearted. But these songs also convey a deeper inner dialogue which reflects the inherent paradox of life in a city such as San Francisco, or many other American cities. The feeling of general displacement and falling victim to commerce is real. A feeling that includes everything from the seduction of empty suburban idealism, to the city being robbed of its creative force by pointless commerce, to the entire USA being literally robbed from Native Americans. It’s hard to maintain a positive outlook when one reflects on the depth of this situation, but Thomas has succeeded in presenting a way to embrace these circumstances: through this music. From The Beach Boys Friends-era wellness sing-along style on “Are You Okay”, to the almost Curtis Mayfield-style mantra of “Give The Land To The People”, you see that our situation somehow calls for celebration, a spirit that music has forever represented.
Fueled not just by the divisiveness of housing in his native San Francisco, but by the larger implications of space both borrowed and stolen, “Give The Land To The People” is a psyched-out 7 minute opus that reaches emphatic peaks. As a delirious, kraut-y rhythm is propelled by a swirling suite of percussion, horns and guitars, Thomas’ vocal refrains are sturdy and resolute. “The infrastructure of communities should be owned by the residents and workers who utilize it everyday,” said Thomas. “Not by some money guys who really have nothing to do with the daily happenings of these places.”
Music has always been a way to raise one’s spirit to a higher place, despite life’s hardships. Music is material proof that all is not lost! In fact the opposite. And the emotion expressed in music proves that hardship is real, regardless of who you are or where you live. There is always something which cannot be lost and, with music like this, you can conjure a spirit that suggests a world of better possiblities. I Ain’t Buyin’ It is sung mainly by Thomas in his characteristic projectile voice, a thing of confidence and delivery, except the song “Reflection Chamber” which features C. Claire Doyle on lead vocals – a welcome beautiful melodic respite à la Judy Dyble circa Giles, Giles & Fripp. It culminates with a big group vocal by Thomas and other ghouls. For someone who has seen the amazing growth of the Cool Ghouls, you will similarly be impressed by this new piece by Pat Thomas.
Facebook
Instagram
SoundCloud
Twitter
YouTube
Vimeo
News feed (RSS)
