Review: Winter | Supreme Blue Dream

Samira Winter and Nolan Eley's rich musical partnership tomorrow returns at long last, and as promised, with the release of the pair's wholly charming first dream-pop long-player, Supreme Blue Dream. While the set is being released under the Winter b(r)and name, Ms. Winter relentlessly gigs with a fresh cohort of players now that she has relocated from Boston to Los Angeles, and even Mr. Eley no longer calls Boston home (although he remains on the east coast). None of that change, however, and none of the 2,800 miles that now separates the erstwhile bandmates, has disrupted the duo's facility for casting classic pop hooks in inventive dream-pop settings.

Ms. Winter's seemingly effortless and pleasantly pure songwriting is not new to Clicky Clicky readers, no matter the alias. And she doesn't dramatically change up her game on Supreme Blue Dream. Here she is consistently arresting as a vocalist, particularly on the album highlight "Some Kind Of Surprise." She lifts the boundlessly romantic ballad up and up with a committed performance, elongating her vowels as if she knows each breath makes the song more and more buoyant. Her final line "I'm just sitting lonely looking into nowhere waiting for some kind of surprise" hangs in the air as the accompaniment drops away, equal parts vulnerable and ready to take a risk.

The songwriter/producer dynamic is considered a commercial-radio pop phenomenon, and is less prevalent (or at least less visible) in indie pop. But given the perfectly synthesized results in evidence here and stretching back to the debut Winter EP, we're game to hear more of it. While this may change now that she has assembled a band on the left coast, Ms. Winter typically works with producers; her sparkling solo set Tudo Azul from last summer was produced by Rodrigo Lemos in Brazil, for example.

Eley, who Clicky Clicky readers know primarily from his work fronting Brooklyn's devastating shoegaze unit Infinity Girl, performed, recorded and mixed all of the music for Supreme Blue Dream's 10 songs. He chases solid, song-serving instincts that surprise without shocking, and excels in applying varied and thoughtful textures to -- and amplifying moments and moods in -- Ms. Winter's compositions. Supreme Blue Dream is introduced with a burbling, melodic jumble of synth tones that precipitously slips beneath swaying synth and guitar chords that are foundation of the solid opener "Someone Like You," and a similar electronic fantasia is presented in the deep-album cut "Don't Stay Away." "Crazy" bobs along on top of heavily distorted guitar chords and ringing feedback that echo the joyful cacaphony of The Magnetic Fields' delightful Distortion album. A perky, canned beat provides a particularly delicious foil for the sampled alto saxophone on "Strange Emotions," which is also appointed with curious voices lurking in the channels in its final moments. Similarly spectral sounds haunt the stereo field of the hypnotic, bilingual incantation "Like I Do." While their manifestations are relatively subtle given their even weighting in the mixes, Mr. Eley is similarly creative in his treatment of Ms. Winter's vocals, which were sung on the West Coast and sent through the Intertubes for Mr. Eley to integrate into the tracks.

Ms. Winter and Eley probably had no idea how much many of us would be needing this record right now (given the snowpocalypse) when they were making it. There is a sunshiney, estival ease to Supreme Blue Dream, a coolness that unsurprisingly persists throughout the Winter catalog. It is emphasized, perhaps, by the repetition of the word blue on Ms. Winter's two most recent outings (recall her aforementioned June 2014 EP is titled Tudo Azul). Supreme Blue Blue Dream will be released tomorrow by L.A.-based indie label Lolipop Records on vinyl, CD and cassette and as a digital download. Pre-orders were not offered and there is presently no way to buy the set on the Lolipop web site as far as we can tell, so we suggest checking back later in the week. While you wait, stream the swaying lead single "Someone Like You" via the Soundcloud embed below. The current band incarnation of Winter includes guitarist Matt Hogan, bassist Edward Breckenridge and drummer Christina Gaillard, and it embarks Wednesday on a tour down to and back from the annual South By Southwest corporate branding exercise. Full tour dates are listed below.

Winter: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instapants | Soundcloud



03.11 -- Santa Ana, CA -- Wayfarer
03.12 -- Phoenix, AZ -- Time Out
03.13 -- El Paso, TX -- Monarch
03.15 -- Marfa, TX -- Padres
03.16 -- San Antonio, TX -- 502
03.17 -- Austin, TX -- Hotel Vegas
03.18 -- Austin, TX -- Hotel Vegas
03.19 -- Austin, TX -- Whip-In
03.20 -- Austin, TX -- Reverb Records
03.22 -- Houstin, TX -- Walters
03.23 -- Dallas, TX -- Pariah Arts
03.24 -- Albequerque, NM -- Sisters
03.25 -- Flagstaff, AZ -- Firecreek Coffee
03.26 -- Las Vegas, NV -- Bunkhouse

Prior Winter Coverage:
Today's Hotness: Samira Winter
Today's Hotness: Samira Winter
Clicky Clicky's Choice: Our Abridged Version Of Samira Winter's Song A Day... Did You Know That's A Thing?
Today's Hotness: Winter
Today's Hotness: Winter
Premiere: Winter's Dreamy, Innocent "Bedroom Philosophies"
Today's Hotness: Winter

Today's Hotness: Weed, Samira Winter, Diet Cig

>> Lefse Records has unveiled a real blinder from Vancouver three-piece Weed in the form of "Thousand Pounds," the first single taken from the band's forthcoming sophomore set Running Back. "Thousand Pounds" bursts open with a two-chord curtain composed of distorted guitar and white-out cymbal crashes, which enshrouds a relatively serene, slap-backed vocal from fronter Will Anderson that ultimately leads the song to an uneasy, clanging denouement. The flipside, a tune called "Turret," is a "super old b-side" taken from the band's first-ever studio session. For context, Weed issued its debut long-player Deserve in September 2013 on Couple Skate, and also has an EP and another single under its collective belt. Lefse will release "Thousand Pounds" b/w "Turret" as a vinyl 7" and digital download Feb. 24, and pre-orders are being taken right here. Running Back is a 10-song set slated for release April 7, with a limited run of vinyl being pressed to bright pink media. These LPs will come packaged with a lyric sheet and large newsprint poster, and -- magically -- they, too, are also available for pre-order. Stream "Thousand Pounds" via the Soundcloud embed below. Weed embark on a brief West Coast tour Feb. 5 -- its first since 2013 -- and all the dates are listed at the act's Bandcamp right here.



>> The original inspiration for Clicky Clicky's sorta neglected Regolith songwriting challenge feature, Samira Winter, is back at it, hammering away at a song-a-week project that is producing terrific results. Ms. Winter's latest entry, the eleventh in the present series, is the hazy dream-pop gem "She Said No." The tune is a collaboration with a producer/engineer named Scott Barber, and its power is in its simplicity: while it is of average length, the entire thing feels like one long, affecting chorus. The actual chorus is a knockout, pairing a rich, descending guitar melody with Winter's arresting voice -- backed, presumably, by Mr. Barber's -- insistently repeating "all because she said no." Ms. Winter recently soft-announced the sophomore set from her full-band project Winter -- the first recorded with her more recent left-coast lineup -- which will be called Supreme Blue Dream. The set will be issued by LA's Lolipop Records, according to this article in LA Weekly, but there is no official word yet on formats or a release date (although our recollection is Lolipop favors cassette releases). We've heard the record and expect fans will be very pleased to hear what is coming. The band Winter has been gigging very regularly since relocating to California about a year ago; it is on a hot bill next week supporting Dead Meadow at the Continental Room in Fullerton. We previously wrote about Samira Winter's first song-a-day thing right here in September 2013, and have a written a bunch of other stuff, like this piece about Winter's "Alligator" single here, and we premiered the video for "Bedroom Philosophies" right here. Considering how strikingly strong the material from the current songwriting challenge is, we would be very surprised if some of it didn't end up on a forthcoming Winter record, especially as -- although we don't want to give too much away -- certain tunes from her first songwriting challenge will appear on Supreme Blue Dream. All of that, of course, remains to be seen. But we highly recommend "She Said No," which you can stream and download via the embed below, to your attention.

>> From the same fertile scene that brought the indie rock world What Moon Things comes the fresh new indie punk duo Diet Cig. Fronter Alex Luciano and drummer Noah Bowman ably conjure the sort of scruffy charm that made Tiger Trap records so listenable, oh, a 100 years ago. Which, if you don't know from Tiger Trap, means strong pop fundamentals, substantial vim and appealing rough edges, with occasional inbursts of classic girl group reverie ("Scene Sick"). It's a sound that places Diet Cig in the good company of contemporary acts like Swearin' and Radiator Hospital. Diet Cig are debuting with an almost absurdly strong five-song EP called Over Easy, which will be released by Father/Daughter on cassette and as a digital download Feb. 24. The short set is already drawing raves, and it is easy to hear why: we've listened to the thing on repeat for hours at a time and Over Easy has yet to feel stale. Stream the scathing rocker "Harvard," with its defiant chorus "fuck your Ivy League sweater," and the aforementioned, concise and more introspective (but similarly fuck-filled, radio programmers be warned) ballad "Scene Sick" via the embeds below. Pre-order Over Easy from Father/Daughter right here, it's the right thing to do and the tasty way to do it.

Today's Hotness: Samira Winter, The Bilinda Butchers, Kittyhawk

>> We noted here in our electronic pages last fall the departure from Boston to the west coast of dream-pop luminary Samira Winter. In the intervening months she has kept busy, putting together a new band, germinating new demos and executing fairly regular gigs in and around Los Angeles and, more recently, up the coast. A trip early this year went south to Ms. Winter's native South America, where she played a handful of shows and, somehow, managed to find enough time in Curitaba, Brazil, to record a superlative, short set of sparkling music, which will soon be released on cassette by LA's Lollipop Records. The collection, Ms. Winter's first solo release, is titled Tudo Azul, which (the Internet tells us) literally translates to "all blue," but figuratively means something more like "everything's cool" to Brazilians. The title certainly jibes with the EP's sunshiney, carefree vibe, which is readily accessed despite the fact that three of the four songs on Tudo Azul are sung in Portuguese. The title track leads with a descending melody that hints at the first tune on Ms. Winter's band Winter's debut EP Daydreaming, which we wrote about here in January 2013. "Tudo Azul" soon reveals itself via a lightly syncopated rhythm and hand percussion, embedded keyboard tones and organ, and tidy vocal arrangements. And, of course, pretty guitars. Every song is a winner, but opener "Eu E Eu" brings the most sizzle, with its snappier tempo, crashing cymbals and overdriven guitar in the verse. The sessions for the EP were produced by a fellow named Rodrigo Lemos and engineered by Lucas Pereira, who we mention by name here because, really, these are presently the only two names we know in Brazilian indie rock. Tudo Azul is available in a bundle that includes a limited edition CD, t-shirt, and "surprise goody." If you hate waiting and/or surprises, the EP is also presently available as a free download via Bandcamp, at least ahead of the cassette release on Lollipop. The label issued a cassette version of the aforementioned Daydreaming EP late last year; it is now sold out. Ms. Winter's music is a delight and with each successive release her rise seems all the more inexorable. So why not like now the thing that everyone else will be liking two years from now?



>> Mere days ago we made a sidelong reference to San Francisco dream-pop act The Bilinda Butchers, and now, as if on cue, we've got new music from the trio. It's spirited new tune "Edo Method" is anchored by fuzz bass and sharp rhythm tracks, which serve as a sturdy foundation for a percolating guitar melody and yearning vocals. The song is our first taste of the act's forthcoming debut full-length Heaven, which will be issued by Orchid Tapes July 15. Despite the name of the label, Heaven will be available domestically as an LP pressed to white vinyl in a limited edition of 250 pieces; every 50th order (so, you know, 50, 100, etc.) will received a bonus in the form of a test pressing of the collection. Fastcut Records will release a CD version of Heaven as well as a 7" in Japan. Heaven is a concept record concerning the diary documenting the tragic life of a woman living in late-Edo period Japan. It's unclear whether the conceit of the album is fictional, and you can read more about it here, but it sounds like everyone dies in the end, and it doesn't get much more real than that, eh? BOOM. Blew your mind, didn't we? Despite that downer, "Edo Method" is a tremendous, emotionally affecting and feedback-spangled jam, and one that abides by the adventurous pop aesthetic of the band of The Bilinda Butchers' namesake, which if you don't know, is My Bloody Valentine. We previously wrote about The Bilinda Butchers and their excellent single "The Lover's Suicide!" (whose B-side featured a cover of Rocketship's "Love So Estranged"( right here in April 2013. Pre-order Heaven from Orchid Tapes right here, and stream "Edo Method" via the Soundcloud embed below. The Bilinda Butchers have two dates booked around the release of the LP, July 17 at The Chapel in San Franciso and July 20 at The Echo in Los Angeles, and we're going to go ahead and assume that these are release shows, so plan accordingly.



>> Can we make an entire Hotness blurb based on the flimsy premise that one band is not a different band? Well, let's see. If there is a moral to the story, we suppose it is that if you cover the hits of Thompson Twins you are probably going to get our attention. Such was the case with a band called Kitty Hawk, who not only take their name from a place at which we vacationed in the late '70s, but who also covered Thompson Twins' "If You Were Here" for the 2005 American Laundromat Records compilation High School Reunion: A Tribute To Those Great '80s Films. The comp notably features former Blake Babies/Lemonheads guy John P. Strohm, Matthew Sweet and Frank Black, among others. But that's not the point of this blog post. The point of this blog post is we were very surprised to see last week that emo powerhouse Count Your Luck Stars Records had signed a band called Kittyhawk. And we thought to ourselves, "nah, couldn't be..." And it turns out we were right. The two-words-and-a-space Kitty Hawk eventually changed their name to Kitty Karlyle and we will now let them gracefully slink away from this blog post. The one-word-no-space Kittyhawk, it turns out, is actually something of a supergroup based in Chicago fronted by sometime Into It. Over It. collaborator Kate Grube; the quartet also features members of leading hitmakers of the day Dowsing, Joie De Vivre and Pet Symmetry. More importantly, Kittyhawk is fucking awesome. Its songs from a four-way split with Droughts, Frameworks and Prawn released in late 2013 tout big guitars and ample application of glorious feedback and guitar chords that just hang there in silence and lead lines that spiral around the terrifically poignant narratives put by Ms. Gruber. Count Your Luck Stars will release Kittyhawk's full-length debut Hello, Again Oct. 14th, which seems like a terribly long time to wait. That said, there is a whole lot of back catalog in the form of split singles and an EP to tide you over, all of which you can listen to at the foursomes Bandcamp dojo right here. Better still, for local folks anyway, is that you -- YES YOU -- can see Kittyhawk this coming Wednesday night at Roggie's. That's called serendipity, FOOL! Stream the amazing tunes "The Daily Dodger" and "Food Fight" below, and then get thee to Roggie's midweek to be rocked most steadfastly.

Introducing... Regolith

Regolith: [reg·o·lith] noun \ˈre-gə-ˌlith\, unconsolidated residual or transported material that overlies the solid rock on the Earth, Moon, or planet.

Geology, as Ellis Boyd Redding taught us, is the study of time and pressure. If that is enough to shape one kind of rock, Clicky Clicky wondered, would it work on another? To find out, we are embarking on a new project, a serial feature that asks songwriters to commit themselves to 30 days (or, one lunar cycle) of writing and recording music to see what shapes, textures, patterns, and sounds such an endeavor might yield. The parameters are simple: write, record, and mix original material, without any outside help. Do not use previously existing song fragments or ideas. And in 30 days time, send us the results.

The objectives: to contribute to a deeper understanding of what goes into writing and recording a song, and, from the artist-end, to provide a new creative context that might allow for a reevaluation of the artistic process. We want to see what, if anything, is changed in trying to produce music in a fixed amount of time, and how artists mix and match quality and quantity.

For the Clicky Clicky reader, the process will be revealed in three parts: an introductory piece on our featured artist, a glimpse into their home or practice space studio and into their recording equipment and techniques, and lastly, the unveiling of the music, and an opportunity for the artist to talk about the results. Your guide through this entire exercise is the intrepid and longtime Clicky Clicky confidant L. Tiburon Pacifico, who will reveal in the next few days our first featured artist, who as we speak is already toiling away in the midst of his allotted 30 days. Clicky Clicky is grateful to Mr. Pacifico for his stewardship of this project, and we are excited to hear what comes of it.

Finally, we must acknowledge our specific inspiration for Rigoleth, which was Samira Winter's Song-A-Day project undertaken last summer. Sure, songwriters working under self-imposed constraints is nothing new -- we immediately think of Into It. Over It's 52 Weeks project, or Clicky Clicky faves The Weaks' initial song-a-week gambit. But something about Ms. Winter's effort, which we wrote about here, fired our imaginations. And out of this comes Regolith. We look forward to sharing it with you.

Here are four (easy) hints as to the identity of the first songwriter. 1. 2. 3. 4.