Ann Powers includes Anna Tivel’s “Small Believer” on her annual Top 10 Unheard Albums list for NPR’s The Record. The single, “Alleyway”, clocked in at #67 on NPR’s Best 100 songs of 2017 list. Powers opines that the album “repeatedly achieves this exquisite balance of the quotidian and the sublime with imagery that’s deeply poetic without being fussy, in musical arrangements that form like intuition around Tivel’s insights.

Anna Tivel’s fourth studio album ‘Small Believer’ is a collection of patchwork stories drawn from conversations with strangers, on the road, in restaurants, bars, and rest stops. Produced by guitar mastermind Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell), the songs float on a raft of electric guitar, pump organ, and sparse bass and drums.

‘Small Believer’ is spacious and honest, a lyric-driven exploration of the things that move within us. Tivel takes great care with every syllable and every story, chipping away until what remains is blindingly true and deeply affecting.

The record is available now on lp, cd and digital formats, as well as at Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

Limited edition gold vinyl, hand-numbered to 125 is in short supply.

Anna Tivel’s “Alleyway” clock in at #67 on NPR’s Best 100 songs of 2017 list. Jacob Ganz writes “Anna Tivel has one of those voices that shivers with intimacy, so even when she’s singing about cars and the weather, you lean in to hear how she puts the words together.”

Anna Tivel’s fourth studio album ‘Small Believer’ is a collection of patchwork stories drawn from conversations with strangers, on the road, in restaurants, bars, and rest stops. Produced by guitar mastermind Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell), the songs float on a raft of electric guitar, pump organ, and sparse bass and drums.

‘Small Believer’ is spacious and honest, a lyric-driven exploration of the things that move within us. Tivel takes great care with every syllable and every story, chipping away until what remains is blindingly true and deeply affecting.

The record is available now on lp, cd and digital formats, as well as at Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

Limited edition gold vinyl, hand-numbered to 125 is in short supply.

This morning (11/17/17), The Parson Red Heads are releasing a new single, “TV Surprise”, recorded during their Blurred Harmony sessions. Accompanying this single is an announcement that the album will be released in a digital Expanded Edition on 12/8 via Fluff and Gravy Records, featuring 2 bonus tracks – “TV Surprise” and “It’s Hard For Me To Say”.

Here’s how Evan Way describes the new single…

“TV Surprise” is a song that’s been around for probably 10 years at least, maybe more. It’s got a real Felt / Feelies vibe to it that I really like – those are two bands that we were just starting to get into around the time I wrote the song, so it’s no surprise that was coming through. The abstract feel of the lyrics is the thing that ended up making it not a perfect fit for inclusion on the Blurred Harmony album sequence, but Danny (O’Hanlon, who mixed the record), did a really great job creatively mixing the song – he added a lot of the textures that make this recording of the song have such a cool atmosphere and mood.

Fun fact – the ambient sound drone that opens the song is a combination of a Casio Keyboard, vacuum cleaner, bass guitar, and Evan’s 5 year old son George recorded into my Tascam 4-tracker and slowed down.

Thanks to No Depression for taking the time to interview Fluff and Gravy Records Co-Founder, John Shepski. Dig in right here and read up on the history of the label, new and exciting upcoming projects, and find out how John feels about FnG being pegged as an Americana label.

Nick Jaina visited the Daytrotter studios back in June to record songs and stories with Stelth Ulvang, including “All the Best Fakers” from his FnG release, Primary Perception. Perhaps the highlight of this set though, is a haunting version Phosphorescent’s “Song for Zula“, during which Nick recounts a famous exchange between Johnny Cash and Ray Charles on the Johnny Cash Show. Charles had reportedly kicked heroin recently, but Nick ponders whether he was really clean, based on his body language and performance. “If he is on drugs, it is quite an argument for doing drugs”, Jaina concludes.

Give a listen to the entire session here

In Today’s installment of NPR’s Songs We Love, Anna Powers highlights Anna Tivel’s “Illinois”, from her most recent LP, Small Believer.  “A compassionate chronicler of those lives often overlooked, Tivel is simultaneously clear-eyed and open to dreaming”, Powers suggest. We couldn’t think of a more fitting description.

Anna Tivel’s fourth studio album ‘Small Believer’ is a collection of patchwork stories drawn from conversations with strangers, on the road, in restaurants, bars, and rest stops. Produced by guitar mastermind Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell), the songs float on a raft of electric guitar, pump organ, and sparse bass and drums.

‘Small Believer’ is spacious and honest, a lyric-driven exploration of the things that move within us. Tivel takes great care with every syllable and every story, chipping away until what remains is blindingly true and deeply affecting.

The record is available now on lp, cd and digital formats, as well as at Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

Limited edition gold vinyl, hand-numbered to 125 is in short supply.

“If you’re looking for elegant sorrow, for compelling and gracious misery, for poetic sadness, then Jeffrey Martin is the musician you need.” So says the today’s review at Folk Alley.  It’s not an uplifting album, at least on the surface. The songs are “dark and sad and real. And that – that realness – that’s what’ll make you want to listen to the next story. And the next. And the next.”

After Jeffrey Martin released 2014’s Dogs In The Daylight, the Portland Mercury posited that he “might be the best songwriter in Portland.” No Depression called the record “as close to a masterpiece as a folk album from an emerging singer-songwriter can get.” One Go Around is the long-awaited follow-up to that record.

There’s a quiet dignity to the 12 new tracks on One Go Around, but a kind of quiet desperation as well. With subjects ranging from the shocking story of William Burroughs’ casual murder of his wife during a drunken party, to themes of love found and lost, the stories hit hard, because we know we may not be far off from them ourselves in this time of uncertainty.

The record is available now on LP, CD and digital formats, at the Fluff and Gravy Store, Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

In addition to black vinyl there is a Limited Edition run on Red vinyl, hand-numbered to 123.

The headline at Impose Magazine today sums up Jeffrey Martin’s latest in just three words… “Very Powerful Music”.  The review goes on to go through a few tracks a bit more in depth, including “What We’re Marching Toward”, which is referred to as Martin’s “Pete Seeger moment”.

Check it out in full here.

After Jeffrey Martin released 2014’s Dogs In The Daylight, the Portland Mercury posited that he “might be the best songwriter in Portland.” No Depression called the record “as close to a masterpiece as a folk album from an emerging singer-songwriter can get.” One Go Around is the long-awaited follow-up to that record.

There’s a quiet dignity to the 12 new tracks on One Go Around, but a kind of quiet desperation as well. With subjects ranging from the shocking story of William Burroughs’ casual murder of his wife during a drunken party, to themes of love found and lost, the stories hit hard, because we know we may not be far off from them ourselves in this time of uncertainty.

The record is available now on LP, CD and digital formats, at the Fluff and Gravy Store, Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

In addition to black vinyl there is a Limited Edition run on Red vinyl, hand-numbered to 123.

Today, we are proud to announce the release of Jeffrey Martin’s One Go Around.

After Jeffrey Martin released 2014’s Dogs In The Daylight, the Portland Mercury posited that he “might be the best songwriter in Portland.” No Depression called the record “as close to a masterpiece as a folk album from an emerging singer-songwriter can get.” One Go Around is the long-awaited follow-up to that record.

There’s a quiet dignity to the 12 new tracks on One Go Around, but a kind of quiet desperation as well. With subjects ranging from the shocking story of William Burroughs’ casual murder of his wife during a drunken party, to themes of love found and lost, the stories hit hard, because we know we may not be far off from them ourselves in this time of uncertainty.

The record is available now on LP, CD and digital formats, at the Fluff and Gravy Store, Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

In addition to black vinyl there is a Limited Edition run on Red vinyl, hand-numbered to 123.

Anna Tivel’s fourth studio album ‘Small Believer’ is a collection of patchwork stories drawn from conversations with strangers, on the road, in restaurants, bars, and rest stops. Produced by guitar mastermind Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell), the songs float on a raft of electric guitar, pump organ, and sparse bass and drums.

‘Small Believer’ is spacious and honest, a lyric-driven exploration of the things that move within us. Tivel takes great care with every syllable and every story, chipping away until what remains is blindingly true and deeply affecting.

The record is available now cd and digital formats.

Limited edition gold vinyl, hand-numbered to 100 and classic black vinyl will be available in November 2017 (pre-order now and receive the digital download).

Small Believer is Anna Tivel’s 3rd full-length solo release. It’ finds the Portland-based songwriter hitting yet another high mark, with masterful production from Austin Nevins. The songs on Small Believer were written while Tivel was touring, but also in-between shifts at the odd waitressing job, or driving Meals on Wheels in her spare time. She has an extraordinarily keen eye for recasting the images she sees into song, so that a homeless man drawing comfort each day while sitting and watching a building go up, brick by brick, becomes the song “Riverside Hotel.” A chance conversation with a neighbor, also a waitress, who makes an empty promise becomes “Last Cigarette.” Each image or moment that burned itself into Tivel’s memories becomes a launching pad for a larger story that she spins into song.
Listen to the singles “Illinois” and “Dark Chandelier“.

The record is available for pre-order in all formats,including limited edition gold vinyl (limited to 100 hand numbered copies), black vinyl, cd, and digitally.

Paste Magazine included “Blurred Harmony” among the 5 Best Albums of June 2017, calling it “smart, lucid songwriting”. The latest album by The Parson Red Heads was produced and recorded by guitarist Sam Fowles, and is available now from the Fluff and Gravy Store, Bandcamp, or your favorite digital/retail outlet.

Blurred Harmony is the 4th studio full-length album from indie psych-folk stalwarts, The Parson Red Heads. It is the overdriven jangle of Teenage Fanclub and Big Star power-pop, the skewed psychedelics of the Paisley Underground, the bittersweet energy of New Zealand’s “Dunedin Sound” movement, and the muted twang of Cosmic Americana, all crammed into 44 minutes. It was released on June 9 via Fluff and Gravy Records (US) and You Are The Cosmos (Europe).

As the band’s frontman, Evan Way puts it, “This record is more a true part of us than any record we have made before – we put ourselves into it, made ourselves fully responsible for it. Even the themes of the songs are more personal than ever – it’s an album dealing with everything that has come before. It’s an album about nostalgia, about time, change, about the hilarious, wonderful, bittersweet, sometimes sad, always incredible experience of living. Sometimes it is about regret, or the possibility of regret. These are big topics, and to us, it is a big album, yet somehow still intimate and honest.”

Paste Magazine gave the record a rating of 8.9/10, calling the band “scholars of the back-porch jangle-pop”. The record is characterized by “smart, lucid songwriting… a fantastic soundtrack to the psychoses of your summery, sunny days.”

Blurred Harmony is the 4th studio full-length album from indie psych-folk stalwarts, The Parson Red Heads. It is the overdriven jangle of Teenage Fanclub and Big Star power-pop, the skewed psychedelics of the Paisley Underground, the bittersweet energy of New Zealand’s “Dunedin Sound” movement, and the muted twang of Cosmic Americana, all crammed into 44 minutes. It was released on June 9 via Fluff and Gravy Records (US) and You Are The Cosmos (Europe).

As the band’s frontman, Evan Way puts it, “This record is more a true part of us than any record we have made before – we put ourselves into it, made ourselves fully responsible for it. Even the themes of the songs are more personal than ever – it’s an album dealing with everything that has come before. It’s an album about nostalgia, about time, change, about the hilarious, wonderful, bittersweet, sometimes sad, always incredible experience of living. Sometimes it is about regret, or the possibility of regret. These are big topics, and to us, it is a big album, yet somehow still intimate and honest.”

Paste Magazine gave the record a rating of 8.9/10, calling the band “scholars of the back-porch jangle-pop”. The record is characterized by “smart, lucid songwriting… a fantastic soundtrack to the psychoses of your summery, sunny days.”

Check it out on Spotify (below) and purchase it here on Limited edition clear vinyl with blue “smoke”, black vinyl, cd, or digitally.

“Blurred Harmony” received a review of 8.9 today from Paste Magazine. The album, which will be officially released TOMORROW (6/9) is the 4th from the psych-jangle-pop band, The Parson Red Heads.

The review describes a few of the tracks:

“Opener “Please Come Save Me” flutters in a Fleetwood Mac groove, with guitarist/vocalist Evan Way and Fowles’ warbling leads orbiting Neil Young rhythmic jitters thanks to the steady thrum of drummer Brette Marie Way. The song blossoms purposefully, allowing for the Red Heads’ Americana tentacles to slither and coil around a cosmic jam that finally breaks after a minute-and-a-half with Way singing dreamily, “Days like this I remember things that I tried to forget.” As the tune chugs along, Way confronts his past with a nose toward the future in the determined line, “The future cannot tell me I’m wrong or make me sigh.” It’s heady stuff from the band, who are equally as ballyhooed for their exploratory affinities for late ‘60s psych as they are for their anthemic songcraft.”

“Sunday Song” floats on a plume of smoky leads and an easy-does-it beat, again slowly evolving from a long, trippy intro into a David Gilmour flashback that flexes and contracts at all the right moments. “Time is a Wheel” seeps feel-good harmonies and breezy, jangly rock that despite its relative non-flashiness most dutifully typifies the Red Heads’ satisfying stranglehold on stoney, county fair power-pop.

If it’s possible for the record to get any more space-y, that can be found in its final three tracks. The psychotropic “Out of Range” is a stunted trip replete with one of the album’s more intoxicating harmonic verses, with Way and Fowles singing, “Sorry I fell out of range/The part that was so strange/is I was always there.” The song is over just as it’s about to lead you into a spiraling tailspin to the benevolent foot of the Overmind, when the aptly titled “In a Dream” clears the aural cobwebs with a delightful Chris Bell homage. The song’s potent drive clears yet another trippy path to the album-ending sound collage “Nostalgia on the Lakefronts.” This is the cosmic broadcast from the band’s internal, time-fearing transmissions, and is a bizarre but fitting way to close the book on Blurred Harmony.

You can Pre-Order the record now at the Fluff and Gravy Store, Bandcamp, or your favorite digital/retail outlet.

Way back around 2009, when The Harmed Brothers were still in their infancy, Eugene-based percussionist Adan Morehouse received a phone call from North Carolina. It was Ray Vietti on the phone, saying that they’d like him to join the band, and that they needed him immediately to hit the road with them. He had played in a band that had opened for them a few times, and had struck up a friendship with Ray and Alex Salcido. Problem was, Adam had a job that he didn’t feel comfortable leaving, and was planning on going to barbering school, so he turned them down.  2 weeks later Ray and Alex were knocking on his door, and they weren’t going away without a “yes’. Reluctantly, Adam quit his job, sold his stuff, and hit the road. In the end, the touring life proved to be too stressful for Adam, and his fear of tornadoes (made problematci by the band constantly touring the Midwest) proved to be too much for him. He ended up leaving the band and following up on his original plan. He was going to barbering school.

Fast forward to 2017… After working for other people for years, Adam and his friend Kurt Foster decide to open their own place, Morehouse Barbers, in the North Portland neighborhood of St. Johns. On March 3, the shop opened it’s doors, and of course, The Harmed Brothers were there for the grand opening to record a video. 

Check it out here!

[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wTsAuOvzW8&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

Stream and purchase up the new album here