Alpenglow official site | Alpenglow on Facebook | Alpenglow on Instagram

Alpenglow released their debut album, Callisto, in early 2016 on Yoshi Ashi’s Chizu Rekodo label. They are currently working on their next LP.

SOFTSPOT on Facebook | SOFTSPOT on Bandcamp | SOFTSPOT on Spotify | SOFTSPOT on Twitter

Originally formed in 2009 by artists Sarah Kinlaw and Bryan Keller Jr, SOFTSPOT has evolved over the years into a four piece of friends with a long history of creativity. Blaze Bateh joined on drums for the writing and recording of 2014’s MASS with Jonathan Campolo on synths for the tour to follow. Recorded by Keller, the completion of Clearing marks the band’s first full length as a quartet with all members’ artistries permeating its new yet mature incarnation. Putting illustrative lyricism at the forefront of lush and clean instrumentation, Clearing centers on themes of exposition and openness as a means for connection and progression. Like a dream, to process stimuli is to synthesize memory. Actions are symbolized through our behavioral and physical awareness, the polarity of the everyday and the masks we wear. SOFTSPOT’s new music navigates through this emotional and creative culture, hoping to reach a clearing through the belief that one exists.

Norwegian Arms official site | Norwegian Arms on Soundcloud | Norwegian Arms on Facebook | Norwegian Arms on Twitter | Norwegian Arms on Instagram

Three years, two EPs and one album since his Siberian sojourn, Keith Birthday of Norwegian Arms has turned his focus away from the confines of his tiny apartment in the Taiga which largely informed the songs on Wolf Like a Stray Dog. That doesn’t mean that the sunny folk music generated by his time in Tomsk, Russia has become any less relevant, or that the sound has changed drastically. Instead, it’s morphed from real-time cultural awe and suffering to nostalgia, and while the memories remain, new ones have taken their place. That being said, nothing has, or perhaps ever will, replace the childhood mandolin on which these songs are written, perhaps the only constant in this ever-evolving project.

In the time since returning to his native Philadelphia, Birthday has found new beauty in the wreckage that surrounds his post-industrial warehouse apartment. Dilapidated buildings, shifting friendships, and late night bicycle rides inform this new batch of songs, a celebration of deeper personal understanding. Still deeply influenced by his continued travels, these new songs draw from trips to South America and Europe, and the sense of Wanderlust remains.

Still obsessed with languages and their systems, Birthday refers to these new songs as imperfective, referring to verb ‘aspect’ present in Slavic languages, which focuses on the current process, not a past event or a future result. He still feels strongly that it’s about the journey, not the destination.