Cut from the cloth of early Soft Machine and Kevin Ayers-isms, garagearray by Dylan Shearer is a lofty, loopy flight in a candy floss-clouded sky, with an ever-present darkness just below the surface. It’s wonderfully off the cuff, in moments reminiscent of a Syd Barrett session where the band must’ve just closed their eyes and felt it out in the dark. Coming together in all the right moments, sometimes absolute in its nick-of-timeness. Dylan Shearer is joined on this LP by Petey Dammit on bass (Thee Oh Sees) and Noel von Harmonson on drums (Comets On Fire). Produced by Eric Bauer (Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin…etc) this session maintains a lighter than life vibration, like a breeze weaving through a tree far overhead. The production smacks with that lost in time quality of a BBC session piloted by a natural on the knobs genius. Although I don’t know Dylan Shearer all that well, he has a sort of shy quality that seems to fall away when singing these songs live. Sometimes singing is much heavier in truth than speaking small talk, I guess. It’s really quite lovely and full of sad and poetic moments and we are VERY proud here at Empty Cellar to be co-releasing this with Castle Face Records, with whom we’re making two special and limited handprinted jacket + colored vinyl editions, featuring artwork by Dylan’s childhood friend Michael Sean Coleman. Get a copy while they last HERE!

Listen to track “meadow mines (fort polio)” on NPR

Listen to track “mold in the fold” on Brooklyn Vegan

Read some thoughtful interviews with Dylan Shearer about his writing process on Impose and The Bay Bridged (with Logan of The Dodos)!

Praise for Dylan Shearer:

“Dylan Shearer makes psych-pop, that rare combination of drugged-out bliss and crystal clear melody that evokes The Beach Boys on acid, or The Free Design on ketamine. Not to say that Shearer invokes the more sinister edges of the drug-addled, oh no, this is psychedelia that wraps you up in a Fall sweater of guitar and woodwinds. This is psych and pop mixed in the most classic of ways, the tenuous edges of free-form psych brought together under the deceptively superficial happiness of best sort of pop.”
— Side One Track One

“Shearer’s vocals have the same eccentric bohemian aristocracy of Kevin Ayers circa Joy Of A Toy, alongside touches of melancholy Nick Drake-isms and some classic, dislocated Syd Barrett/Madcap Laughs style confusion. The songs are great, memorable acoustic constructs that conjure all sorts of phantom hooks from out of the air. Highly Recommended”
— David Keenan

Truly one of my favorite songwriters working today. If a more sullen Ray Davies sounds up your alley, get excited.”
— Chocolate Bobka

Comparisons to Syd Barrett are apt, but the nostalgic and tender domesticity of songs like “meadow mines (fort polio),” from his upcoming record garagearray bring to mind Ray Davies, with whom Shearer shares a prenatural talent for finding pathos in the homey.
— adhoc.fm

The Cairo Gang is playing some rad live shows this month in support of the The Corner Man (out 10/23). THEY WILL EXPLODE YOUR DOME!

Live Cairo Gang Dates:
9/26 – The Dirty Three + The Cairo Gang, Lincoln Hall, Chicago

9/27 – The Dirty Three + The Cairo Gang, Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis

10/9 – The Cairo Gang, FREE In-store at Reckless Records (Broadway), Chicago (EXCLUSIVE PRE-RELEASE!)

10/24 – Crime and the City Solution + The Cairo Gang, Slims, San Francisco

…also catch Pillars and Tongues tomorrow, Tuesday, night at Subterranean in Chicago!

9/25 – Here We Go Magic, Pillars and Tongues, Golden Birthday, Subterranean, Chicago

Empty Cellar Records is more than stoked to present the sophomore full-length LP by San Francisco’s elusive pop wizard, Dylan Shearer, at once a continuation of his distinctive and infectious melodic sensibilities and an evolution, fully exploring the romance and isolation only hinted at in previous releases. Perhaps familiar, Dylan is a stand-out artist on the popular San Francisco compilation, In a Cloud: New Sounds from San Francisco.

Raven Sings The Blues and Ad-hoc co-premiered the album, Porchpuddles, this morning. Check out the opening track below, or at either of the above links:

We have been listening to this record non-stop since we received the tracks from Dylan. It is unlike any contemporary release out there. But, don’t take our word for it… take Tim Cohen’s (Magic Trick, Fresh & Onlys):

“There is a new specter among us. Dylan Shearer’s throaty baritone seems to have been borne on the slow-moving winds off some far-away coast. Plaintive and honest, his voice recalls Syd Barrett, Bill Fay, Skip Spence, and others whose words and melodies never seemed in a rush to get anywhere, yet always arrived fully formed in the listener’s ear nonetheless. Porchpuddles, Shearer’s second full length and first for San Francisco’s hodge-podge Empty Cellar records, is rare in its perfect timelessness. Sounds are heard and understood perfectly, yet the combination of these sounds is beyond a simple pop understanding. Songs of longing and songs of seeming indifference are bedded together seamlessly. Perhaps, questions about the record’s origin and its mysterious creator will abound, for taken at face value, Porchpuddles has little to no recognizable counterpart in today’s one-hit warehouse. Indeed, there is a new specter among us; let us all welcome in the ghost of the present.”
– Tim Cohen

This first pressing (limited to 500 copies) comes in a classic uncoated tip-on sleeve. Keeping with the times, all LPs include a high quality download of the full album plus seven bonus tracks!

You can pre-order the LP HERE