Cat’s Cradle Back Room

The Mystic Braves embody a century of boundary-pushing Southern California creativity-from the birth of Hollywood in the early 1900s to the lysergic mania of the psychedelic ’60s to the pure-pop bliss of the ’80s Paisley Underground to the new wave of streetwise garage rock that’s right now blasting at top volume from some East LA nightclub. Mystic Braves deliver that legacy in their records: last year’s The Great Unknown pares down their previous peregrinations-shelving the exotic instrumentation of 2015’s Days of Yesteryear and the fuzztone feedback of 2014’s Desert Island and 2013’s debut Mystic Braves-for classic, unforgettable songwriting. It’s not that the Braves have abandoned the weird, but rather the weird is now but another color in a prismatic palette. The Great Unknown finds bassist Tony Malacara and drummer Cameron Gartung pulling tempos like taffy and adding expansive backing vocals, while rhythm guitarist Shane Stotsenberg and organist Ignacio Gonzalez fill in mesmerising sonic filigree. With his searing guitar and dreamy, yearning voice, bandleader Julian Ducatenzeiler steers the ship right and true. They deliver that legacy in their lifestyle, too. The band members spent their early days living and playing together in a two-bedroom Echo Park house that was also headquarters to Lolipop Records-the family label founded in 2013 that’s since become one of the prime movers of the international psych-rock scene. And while being embraced by LA’s music cognoscenti, Mystic Braves went global via the fashion world when iconoclastic Yves Saint Laurent designer Hedi Slimane hand-picked them to soundtrack the luxury brand’s spring collection in Paris in 2015. They bring that legacy to the stage, as well. After playing countless shows across the U.S. & Europe over the years and performing at festivals like Desert Daze, Burgerama and Austin Psych Fest-alongside acts such as the Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Zombies-they’ve developed their live act into a energized outburst of sing-along-able tunes, tight instrumental interplay and all-around good, gooey vibes. Like their sound in general, their shows take well-studied composure right to the edge of barely controlled chaos. Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music

This is a seated show. Renowned for his eloquent Americana style, engaging live shows, and off-the-cuff clever observations, John Craigie carries on the legacy of classic singer-songwriters, while blazing a trail of his own. Recently, that trail twisted and turned into new territory for the Portland, OR performer who The Stranger appropriately dubbed, “the lovechild of John Prine and Mitch Hedberg.” His music speaks loud to both audiences and fellow artists. Todd Snider notably hand-delivered a gift on-stage, and Chuck Norris has sent fan mail. His fifth full-length album, No Rain, No Rose boasted two collaborations with Gregory Alan Isakov, namely “Highway Blood” and “I Am California.” Both quickly cracked 1 million Spotify streams and counting, as his knack for a captivating narrative and rustic aural palettes powered the 13-track offering together. “It’s about transparency,” he explains. “The storytelling enables listeners to relate. Really good music doesn’t make you feel good; it makes you feel like you’re not alone.” As No Rain, No Rose landed, he caught the attention of none other than Jack Johnson. Through a serendipitous series of events, Craigie’s 2016 live effort Capricorn in Retrograde… Just Kidding… Live in Portland landed in Johnson’s car stereo during a California coastal road trip. Shortly after, Jack reached out and Craigie soon found himself onstage for 12 shows during Johnson’s 2017 summer tour including performances at The Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California and The Gorge in Washington state. Along the way, he earned acclaim from SF Weekly, Seattle Times, AXS, and more. Festival appearances also include Oregon Country Fair, Kate Wolf Music Festival, High Sierra Music Festival, Burning Man, and many others. When Craigie plays, it’s one of those special shows that can make you laugh and cry in the same song. It’s a musical journey that can’t be denied. Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bandcamp | SoundCloud | Spotify | YouTube | Apple Music

Thank You Scientist is an eclectic, vibrant and well-hydrated progressive rock band from New Jersey. Their upcoming album, Terraformer, sees the boy-ish septet at their most ambitious and most unpredictable. The band has taken their experimental, genre-bending sound to the next level by delivering an extremely ambitious and constantly stimulating 84-minutes of experimental rock and roll music. Some might even say it’s the band’s Oop… I Did It Again. I’m saying it right now. Terraformer is the Oops… I Did It Again of progressive rock. Founded by guitarist and bandleader Tom Monda, the band self-released the Perils of Time Travel EP in 2011, before signing with Claudio Sanchez’s label Evil Ink Records. Their 2012 full length debut, Maps of Non-Existent Places made it onto the Billboard Hard Rock and Heatseekers charts, and was eventually named “Album of the Week” by Revolver Magazine in 2014. They followed up in 2016 with Stranger Heads Prevail, which cracked the Billboard Top 200 and co-starred on “Home Improvement” with Tim Allen. In addition to Tom Monda and vocalist Salvatore Marrano, the bandʼs lineup has gradually evolved to include violinist Ben Karas, bassist Cody McCorry, drummer Joe Fadem, trumpeter Joe Gullace and saxophonist Sam Greenfield. Thank You Scientist has spent the past several years touring internationally, both as headliners and as direct support for acts such as Coheed and Cambria, Periphery, Haken, Protest the Hero, the Devin Townsend Project, and Tim Allen. Terraformer is in stores NOW! Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | Apple Music

About Charles Latham: “Latham’s music is passionate with biting wit.”–NPR “Reminiscent of the glorious sloppiness of Neil Young & Crazy Horse.” – Folk Radio UK “One of the sharpest songwriters to emerge of late on the antifolk sphere…Charles Latham could be your new hero.”–INDY Week Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Produced by longtime collaborator Dan Horne (Circles Around The Sun, Allah-Las), Mapache’s new album, From Liberty Street, captures the Los Angeles duo at their finest, with Sam Blasucci and Clay Finch weaving airtight harmonies around stripped-down, organic arrangements that blur the lines between traditional folk and modern cosmic country. The songs here reckon with longing, desire, and change, and the arrangements draw on everything from Hawaiian-steeped surf and Mexican boleros (Blasucci spent two years living South of the border) to Bakersfield twang and lonesome cowboy campfire tunes, all delivered with the kind of easygoing charm and natural intuition usually reserved for blood brothers or married couples. It’s an instantly engaging chemistry the two share, a captivating musical bond that mirrors the comfort, closeness, and camaraderie of the album’s homespun roots. “This record is about as close to the sound of home as you can get,” says Blasucci. “We recorded it with a bunch of our friends in the house where we were living in a neighborhood that we loved. The studio was right downstairs, so we had the freedom to try all kinds of new ideas without any pressure or limitations. All the other folks who lived in the house were musicians, too, so it made for this communal atmosphere where everyone was always collaborating and creating together.” The freedom of living where they recorded meant that Mapache could take their time experimenting with sounds and textures in the studio, a far cry from the way the pair captured their self-titled debut, which was cut live and raw around a single microphone. Praised by Aquarium Drunkard as sounding like “a blazed up Everly Brothers” and given a six-star review by UK magazine Shindig, that record helped the band earn festival appearances from Hardly Strictly Bluegrass to Pickathon, where Rolling Stone named their set one of the weekend’s top highlights, as well as tour dates with Chris Robinson, Beachwood Sparks, and Mandolin Orange among others. The Boston Globe hailed the duo’s “intricate, intertwined acoustic guitar and close harmonies wedded to simple, plainspoken lyrics,” while No Depression fell for their “lilting melodies,” and Saving Country Music declared that the pair “can fill up a room with more soul soaring harmony than most symphonic assemblies.” The music also caught the attention of veteran indie label Yep Roc Records, which recently reissued the group’s debut album in advance of From Liberty Street’s arrival. Links: Website | Facebook | Instagram | SoundCloud | YouTube

With a true brotherhood that comes from growing up together, indie rock band Ona merge all their musical history for their second album, Full Moon, Heavy Light. The band shares its name with a small town just outside of their home base of Huntington, West Virginia. All five band members of Ona were raised in the area, with a couple of guys knowing each other since grade school. By tapping into their own social circles, the current line-up took hold in 2016: Brad Goodall (keys), Bradley Jenkins (vocals/guitar), Zach Johnston (bass), Max Nolte (drums), and Zack Owens (guitar). The band agreed on their name after Jenkins happened to wear an Ona Little League ball cap to rehearsal. Recorded at various intervals over the course of 18 months, Full Moon, Heavy Light showcases a band that could easily deliver an arena show while still retaining the sincerity of the ’70s songwriters in their parents’ record collections. Wistful songs like “Summer Candy” and “Young Forever” are at once timeless and contemporary. The band says that they aimed to make a record that’s perfect for intensive listening on headphones as well as mood music for dinner parties with friends. The optimistic streak that runs throughout the project is both genuine and disarming. “In the production, I wanted people to recognize emotion,” Jenkins says. “There’s a lot of ear candy that we snuck in there, but it might be an album that you need to sit with. We want our audience to experience and feel the music. There are ups and downs, and sometimes people might ignore those feelings, but we want people to recognize every emotion.” “When I like a record, it’s because it makes me groove and it makes me smile, or it makes me contemplative,” says Johnston. “I just hope people will feel something when they hear it.” Ona built their following the old-fashioned way – through word of mouth, lots of touring, and a little bit of luck. For two years, they played venues within a three-hour radius, cultivating fan bases in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Lexington, Kentucky, in addition to West Virginia. Opening slots for Tyler Childers connected them to audiences hungry for indie music from the region. In addition, West Virginia Public Broadcasting helped place a song from Ona’s 2016 debut album, American Fiction, on a broadcast of NPR’s Heavy Rotation. Then a programmer at SiriusXM’s The Loft chanced upon their debut album while looking around Bandcamp and invited them to tape a segment in Washington D.C. After that, the esteemed PBS series Mountain Stage, which is filmed in Charleston, West Virginia, asked them to film an episode. However, part of what makes Ona so unique is that their sound stands apart from the country and bluegrass heritage that the state is known for. “I grew up in the woods, but my dad only listened to glam rock, so sometimes it’s hard for me to identify with the quintessential West Virginia image,” says Nolte. “I spent a lot of time, as a youth, kayaking and exploring West Virginia’s rivers, so I agree with everyone that it’s a beautiful state. But we don’t really exemplify it as a band, as far as what we ‘should’ sound like to outsiders, which I think confuses some people. We’re not stereotypical West Virginians and I think it’s important to shine a light on another aspect of the state as well.” Goodall observes, “Living in a place like Huntington does alleviate some time and money pressures. We had this great rehearsal space with so much square footage, and we had the room and the time to develop our craft – to practice, to record demos on our own. We had all the time in the world to develop the music, which in the end is the most important thing.” Links: Website | Twitter | Instagram

Positive Mental Attitude. This is the mantra that is not only a driving force for Raleigh, North Carolina based Alesana, but also a way of life. Celebrating eleven years as a band, the pop-metal sextet is always in high spirits and accustomed to playing their hearts out every night when on the road. Countless US tours, several trips around the world, and seven major releases later, Alesana is living proof that hard work and dedication to dreams can go a long, long way. Calling Revival Recordings their home, the band released the conclusion to their Annabel Trilogy in April 2015 with Confessions. Released in December of 2013, the stand-alone single Fatima Rusalka progressed the band’s conceptual trilogy en route to its conclusion with Confessions. The song does what has come to be expected of the storytelling rock machine which is to draw from past influences while incorporating new possibilities, dynamics, and sonic exploration. Having spent time on Tragic Hero Records, Fearless Records, and Epitaph Records, Alesana’s entire catalogue, consisting of Try This With Your Eyes Closed, On Frail Wings of Vanity and Wax, Where Myth Fades To Legend, The Emptiness, A Place Where The Sun Is Silent, and Confessions, has charted on the Billboard Top 200. In summer 2016, Alesana released a special edition of Confessions including two new tracks along with a novella, entitled Annabel, which inspired The Annabel Triology. The album is available on all digital outlets now and the novella is available for purchase on Amazon Kindle now. In 2017, Alesana began working on the ulitmate fan project which they called Origins. Filled with hours worth of behind the scenes and never before seen footage, demos, and a brand new EP The Lost Chapters, Origins was born as a visual history of the past thirteen years of the band. In early 2018, Alesana released The Lost Chapters EP digitally. Origins bundles are currently available on the Revival Recordings shop page. The Lost Chapters EP is available to stream on all digital platforms and to purchase on iTunes now! Links: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Apple Music