ARTIST: The Winter Sounds
TITLE: Porcelain Empire
LABEL: Livewire Recordings
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 231kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 49m total
RELEASE DATE: 2007-06-26
RIP DATE: 2007-03-17
Track List
----------
1. Windy City Nights 3:50
2. Gone To Save Mankind 3:57
3. Static In The Whole 4:13
4. Sound Forged Like Spine 4:25
5. A Call To Arms 5:28
6. Minnesota 2:56
7. Poor Sailors 3:46
8. You Can't Give Up 2:46
9. The Great Forgotten 4:04
10. Oblivion 3:15
11. Sad Reminders 3:59
12. Earthworm Song 2:51
13. The Tournament Of Getting Older 4:22
Release Notes:
The Winter Sounds are an ambitious, atmospheric indie-pop outfit completely
unique in style and sound, hopeful and triumphant. The band creates an aural
study of contrasts, most noted in the song ôThe Great Forgottenö which begins in
a world of dreamy darkness; exploding into a land of hope and salvation when the
songÆs chorus comes in. With flourishes of violin and a plaintive verse the
track öPoor Sailorsö morphs into a synth-pop dirge that recalls bands diverse as
The Smiths, The Sisters Of Mercy, The Killers and Interpol. ôThe Earthworm Songö
with its hymnal-like vocals shows off the strong lead and harmony arrangements
from singer Patrick Keenan, culled from his Catholic upbringing. The Winter
Sounds create an alluring sound tapestry that chills to the bone at times, but
somehow always leaves a sublimely angelic impression on the listeners psyche.
Back in the 90Æs current band members Tim Lilly (guitar), Joseph Kass (guitar),
and Patrick Keenan (vocals, bass) went to school together in South Carolina.
They did the ôhigh school band thingö playing weekends at the local punk venue
doing Minor Threat, Op Ivy, Misfits, and Ramones covers while toying with some
originals. Some time passed and as college called the band split up and they all
moved to different locations. Over the years, Patrick joined forces with Gina
Asalon, an accomplished clarinet player who had just learned her way around the
piano/keyboards.
In May of 2005, Patrick decided to move to New Orleans to join the band
Zydepunks, a gypsy punk band specializing in klezmer, Slavic, zydeco, Cajun
irish punk rock which also featured Tim Lilly on guitar. It had been five years
since they had played together and they were excited to be creating music
together again but unfortunately they got one practice in before the Katrina
struck. Patrick and Gina fled to Athens, GA where Joseph Kass was residing; Tim
actually stayed in NOLA and roughed out the storm surviving at a bar with a
generator and plenty of cold draft beer. Eventually after a missing persons call
was issued, communication with Tim was re-established and he also took up
residence in Athens with Patrick, Gina and Joseph. Thus the childhood friends
were reunited and The Winter Sounds were born.
Using school money, credit, friends, family, work and every possible resource
imaginable the band went to Chase Park Transduction, an Athens studio, and put
up the down payment on the Winter Sounds first EP ôThe Land of No Output.ö For
drums, they found Donovan Babb, from the AthensÆ bands Boulevard and
Engineering. Recording the EP took 16 days from January to March of 06. The
title of the CD was a phrase coined by engineer David Barbe (Drive By Truckers,
Sugar, Son Volt). The song stylings were very complex and had an enormous amount
of layers - they would be mixing sometimes 70+ tracks at once. Anything that
could be considered peripheral was cast into the ôland of no output.ö
The idea that the Winter Sounds were a real band and not only a studio recording
project haunted the group and the itch grew to take the act on the road. The
band started gigging in April and didnÆt slow down for anything. By mid-August
2006 they were touring full-time and would stay out until December. In those
four months they would travel all through the southeast, northeast, and Midwest.
By the end of 2006 they had played over 150 shows.