Kori Gardner (keyboard/vocals) and Jason Hammel (drums/vocals) were both playing guitar and singing in the Kansas music metropolis of Lawrence before forming the Mates of State in 1997. With their dual vocal harmonies and minimal pop appeal, Omnibus Records released Mates of State's first EP as a split with Fighter D in 1999. Upon a relocation to San Francisco, the duo's second EP, It's the Law/Invitation Inn, and a debut studio effort, My Solo Project, followed in 2000.
Tours of the Midwest followed into the next year and creative ideas continued to swirl. Hammel and Gardner, who were married in early 2001, inked themselves a deal with Polyvinyl prior to recording a follow-up. Summer days were spent playing shows with Superdrag, the Anniversary, and Beulah while writing songs on the road. Those sessions lead to the second album, Our Constant Concern, in 2002. The next spring Polyvinyl reissued their debut album, My Solo Project, and later on the full-length Team Boo. After their contract was up with Polyvinyl (ending with the 2004 EP All Day), Mates of State decided to head over to Barsuk, the label that released Bring It Back in 2006 and Re-Arrange Us in 2008.
Their next full length album entitled "Crushes (The Covers Mixtape) is set to be released to be released on their own label June 15, 2010. "Crushes" is an album consisting of covers of songs by some of the Mates’ personal favorites by artists ranging from Nick Cave to Death Cab For Cutie to Fleetwood Mac to Girls, whose “Laura” is now available in its Mates reinterpretation as a free download at matesofstate.com. It is the first full album recorded and produced by Mates Hammel and Gardner themselves, with a mixing assist from longtime collaborator Peter Katis (The National, Swell Season, Interpol, etc.).
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"There’s no track this writer’s thrashed more this year than Other Lives’ single For 12. It’s suspenseful, dreamy and awestruck in equal measures, combining undulating strings (possibly Mellotron), lightly galloping Morricone rhythms, subtle shades of piano and acoustic guitar and vocals that run the gauntlet from sighing to falsetto. Imagine an eagle’s eye view over an unbroken stretch of Brokeback Mountain prairie. Or imagine Fleet Foxes influenced by Radiohead’s Pyramid Song. And if For 12 is the absolute jewel here, the rest isn’t far behind.
Tamer Animals is the Oklahoma quintet’s second album, following 2009’s eponymous album and, back in 2006, the debut under former alias Kunek. Neither matches this watermark of quiet grandeur or strikes the same balance between lavishness and restraint. If band lynchpin Jesse Tabish’s choruses don’t instantly lasso like, say, Adele or a Simon Cowell prodigy, his tunes appear to swoon through the air and might haunt your deep sleep. File under Pastoral Americana alongside Fleet Foxes and Midlake (you could bet your house on at least three members sporting beards), but there is a major difference: Tabish worships instrumental music, and classical minimalists Steve Reich and Philip Glass, which accounts for the album’s pulsating orchestrations. Piano, bassoon, bass clarinet, violin, trumpet, French horn, cello – in Tabishworld, instruments harmonise as much as, if not more than, voices. If his restrained, wistful, almost shy vocal is double-tracked for bonus comfort, it’s an unbroken stretch of land away from Crosby, Stills & Nash and any notion of 70s retro.
Even more than Tabish’s influences, there’s liable to be something in Oklahoma’s water, or those huge skies, that gives Other Lives their panoramic aura. Perhaps Tabish is the modern equivalent of the ‘singing cowboy’, roaming that prairie and drinking up the Mexican and Anglo-Saxon influences from America’s south-west (though strictly speaking, Oklahoma is north of Texas and geographically central-southern) which moulded the ‘Western’ half of C&W.
Lyrically as well, Tabish sounds enthralled by nature’s ineffable power. Old Statues – the most Morricone-esque cut, with a fantastic lonesome patina – documents how man-made structures will eventually fall back to earth. Other tracks are titled Dust Bowl III, Weather and Desert, reinforcing Tabish’s minimalist bent. There is an orchestral finale, Heading East (so not the usual western gold trail to California? East to Reich and Glass in New York, perhaps?), but even here he manages to embrace ‘epic’ without a hint of bombast, and all in two-and-a-half minutes. For all Tamer Animals’ expansive horizons, its only lasts 40 minutes. But it’s the most uniquely sublime, meticulous and heroic 40 minutes of 2011." BBC
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"First on the bill was Chicago based Yawn. Having experienced their music for the first time when they walked out on stage, I didn’t know what to expect. I’d heard about them as they’ve generated a fair amount of buzz on the interwebs, but you know most of those reviews just put me to sleep. Their music has a nice combination of psychedelic trance, dance, electronic sounds and rock. Needless to say, I became a fan before the first song was over. Hoping to score some merch at the conclusion of the band’s 40 minute set, lead singer Adam Gil uttered the magic words – “you can download our EP for free on our official site.” He failed to mention you can also download a free remix EP from the same place! Get to downloading (please donate money for the download if you can as well) and put Yawn on your musical radar. They will make you do anything but fall asleep." - According To G
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$15, 18+
Doors @ 9 pm
Advance tickets available @ Ticket Alternative, Criminal Records,
Decatur CD, Fantasyland Records and the following CD Warehouse locations: Buford, Duluth, Kennesaw, Lawrenceville and Roswell.
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