Praise for Pillars & Tongues – Lay of Pilgrim Park
“With just three members, Pillars and Tongues manages to craft powerful folk abstractions and interwoven, trance-inducing vocal dynamics. Both composed and improvisational, these shifting forms evoke spiritual vibes in their soulful essence, heavenly harmonies, and repeated patterns.”
– Alarm Magazine, “This Weeks Best Albums”
“Recording much of their material live, their antecedents are as modern as drone and as old as early American folk, though with the latter they’re often stretching the definition of the genre. . . . it’s hard to believe Lay of Pilgrim Park is the work of just three people in the same room, and their roles are so fluid it’s hard to pick out where one member’s contributions start and another ends. The album’s abrupt changes, deliberate silences, and movements rather than verses and choruses feel almost more classical than folk (or jazz, or indie, or anything else they might be considered). . . . a tightly focused album-length piece”
– Jason Crock, Pitchfork
“The energy that emanates from this album, is enormous. Not massive, huge, but magnificent and powerful, brilliant and wise.”
– Das Klienicum
“Is it too early to name an album the best of the year? Ok, I’ll slow down, but the new album from Pillars and Tongues is something special.”
– The Deli Magazine (Chicago)
“Filled with lush strings, improvised vocals, and a chamber-folk core, the latest album from Chicago’s Pillars and Tongues, Lay of Pilgrim Park is impressively beautiful.”
– This Zine Will Change Your Life
“This is definitely for Dead Can Dance fans. Very interesting listen all together. While listening to this you can actually picture the singing moment on Brendan Perry from DCD. “The Center of” and “Park Saint and Folly” really lift up this whole title. Give it go…”
– The Sirens Sound
“With the magic that I thought their Daytrotter session was, as well as the album Protection . . . , I had pretty high expectations for the new release, and I most certainly wasn’t disappointed. Pillars and Tongues have their craft finely tuned, and Lay of Pilgrim Park is the perfect evidence for it.”
– Satellite for Entropy
“Lay of Pilgrim Park is one kickass album. Beautiful packaging”
– BabySue
Purchase at the Endless Nest Store
The Cairo Gang on tour with Baby Dee (UK)
The Cairo Gang will embark on a UK tour tomorrow with Endless Nest favorite,
Baby Dee. Emmett and Dee will play in each other’s sets, and it will be amazing. Don’t miss this.
The tour is brought to you (if you live in the UK) by the amazing Tin Angel group (Tin Angel Space / Tin Angel Label). Empty Cellar will be releasing Holy Clover (a four song 7″ EP) by the Cairo Gang with Tin Angel next month. You can pre-order it now at the Endless Nest Store where we also have The Cairo Gang’s sophomore album Twyxt Wyrd (Disneyland Reform Party) for sale.
The Cairo Gang Tour Dates (with Baby Dee!)
Pillars and Tongues – Lay of Pilgrim Park: In stores 2/9/10 (presale available)!
Empty Cellar Records is stoked to announce the release date for Pillars and Tongues –
Lay Of Pilgrim Park: February 9th, 2010!
Reserve your presale copy now at the Endless Nest Store. All presale orders ship before the release date.
About the record:
After spending more than a third of 2009 touring the United States and Europe, including a month-long tour supporting Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Pillars and Tongues returned to Chicago and executed, in two days, Lay of Pilgrim Park. Recorded primarily live, Lay of Pilgrim Park reads like a map, like a document of a certain space. Rich string textures molded by violinist Beth Remis and bassist Evan Hydzik and fluid vocal improvisations by all three members of the trio flow alongside deep, primal, danceable grooves; percussionist/singer Mark Trecka’s bold lyrical enterprises, styled like a cross between Pandit Pran Nath and Tim Buckley, explore concepts of constant mystery, the impossibility of absolute knowledge, and the purging of those unwanted or crippling things acquired along the way. The music on this record is not easily situated within genre constraints, but has drawn comparisons to music as varied as Dirty Three, Dead Can Dance, the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir and Moondog. Pillars and Tongues has shared the stage with a great variety of artists, from Tuvan
throat-singing icons Chirgilchin to feral instrumental-rock pioneers the Dirty Three. This Empty Cellar release of Lay of Pilgrim Park marks the band’s first time on vinyl. This LP comes with a free CD-quality digital download of the entire album. Limited to 500 copies.
The Dry Spells’ “Too Soon For Flowers” is NPR Album of the Year!!!
Bob Boilen, the creator and host of NPR’s
All Songs Considered, selected the Dry Spells’ “Too Soon For Flowers” yesterday as his pick for “Album of the Year”. Congratulations to the Dry Spells!
Listen to a stream of the show “Discussion: The Year In Music, 2009” HERE
Purchase the LP + Download at the Endless Nest store HERE
…and check out what other people have been saying recently:
“Lush, eerie, dreamy and haunting, gorgeous vocal harmonies, minimal percussion, equal parts seventies British folk and seventies Laurel Canyon pop, woven into a witchy gothic brew that is totally enchanting. Strings soar, unfurling melancholy melodies, and guitars jangle, but it’s the female vocals that seal the deal, a la Sandy Denny, Jacqui McShee of Pentangle, Bobbie Watson from Comus, Stevie Nicks, you get the idea, bewitching and ethereal, raw and powerful and emotional, and the harmonies, so captivating and otherworldly, wow. The Dry Spells manage to sound so timeless, this record definitely sounds contemporary, but if the lush production was dialed back just a little, this could easily have been some lost seventies psych folk reissue. Absolutely stunning. ”
– Aquarius Records
“They balance folk and the kind smoldering 70’s rock balladry that moved Stevie Nicks’ shawl to action, bent strings in Pentangle and Fairport and has more recently been embraced by fellow Frisco-dwellers The Sandwitches. […] The band manages to wring soaring emotion and sadness out with a triumphant and wide-flung delivery rather than adopt the tendency of latter day folk-rock to wrestle with and finally succumb to overwhelming melancholy. A definite rare surprise in a bewilderingly narrowing field of entrancing folk.”
– Raven Sings The Blues
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