There’s a great interview with our friend Payam from Sholi here. Lots of great background on that great Sholi 7″ we helped put out. Enjoy!

We’re pleased to announce that we’ll shortly be releasing a fantastic 7″ from new San Francisco friends Sholi. Containing two precisely chosen covers — Iranian pop diva Googoosh’s “Hejrat” and Joanna Newsom’s “The Sprout and the Bean,” this release is truly special, and we are so stoked to be a part of it. Lead Sholi dude, Payam Bavafa, explains it better than I can:

“Googoosh was the most celebrated pop-singer of Iran during the 1970’s before the Islamic Revolution in 1979. After the revolution, most pop-music was banned from the country and she stopped singing entirely. Many Iranians fled to the United States and Europe, and Googoosh’s voice resonated as the soundtrack for their former lives in Iran before everything changed. The song “Hejrat” itself translates to “Migration”, and is commonly interpreted as a song of mourning for a lover that has departed. We hoped to reframe “Hejrat” as a medium for telling the story of Googoosh and other Iranian expatriates. As we explored the project and uncovered layers, we were surprised at the number of ways Googoosh’s tale was contrasted, mirrored, and amplified by themes embedded in Joanna Newsom’s deeply moving “The Sprout and the Bean.” Both songs speak to a displacement, a search for place or identity, that could be interpreted at the individual or cultural level, and we find that the pairing ties two worlds together in a deeply moving way, at a time when political rhetoric unfortunately escalates to the opposite extreme.”

You can read a bit more on Sholi here, and pre-order the 7″ in the shop here.

There’s a wonderful article on Alela in the Boston Globe today, which you can read by clicking here. Alela’s also being incredibly well-received in France, where our friends at Fargo have just released The Pirate’s Gospel. Last we heard she was #6 on iTunes France (above Britney AND The Eagles!) and the press seems to be eating her up. Here’s a video of Alela playing live for Les Inrocks, which I believe is one of the biggest music mags over there. So awesome! Alela is currently touring the States, so make sure to go out and see here if you have the chance.

Our guys the Shaky Hands have been getting some play on the BBC (how awesome is that!?), but they need YOU to take to the next level! Each week BBC Radio 2 DJs Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie select four of their favorite tracks, and ask listeners to select the best one. The winning track is then played on their show every day for the next week. Shaky Hands jam “The Sleepless” (free MP3 here) is currently nominated, so we’re urging all of you to click here starting at 2pm PST today (today being Thursday 10/18) and vote for the guys. How awesome would it be if they won this thing? Answer: totally. LET’S DO THIS!

Our friends at Daytrotter just posted an encore session from Alela. Four songs total, two totally unreleased, all totally wonderful. Download here!

It’s true! Our beloved Shaky Hands have announced a string of dates in support of reigning indie champions The Shins. Pretty amazing right? And that’s not all: the band has also signed with our buddies Memphis Industries in the UK, who will be releasing the Hands’ self-titled debut over there on November 19th, preceded by a single for “The Sleepless,” to be released on November 12th. And you thought these guys were spending all their time hanging out at the river! OK, you were totally right, but they’ve also got BIG THINGS going on. Watch out world, the Shaky Hands are coming to shake you down.

We’ve just posted the new video for Alela’s achingly beautiful song “Pieces of String.” Many people have told us this is one of their favorite songs from her album The Pirate’s Gospel, so we’re glad to report that the video turned out great. It was filmed in Oregon’s gorgeous (no pun intended) Columbia Gorge region, and stars her hella cute little cousins Emily and Lily. The video has already been getting major love on the interwebs, thanks to our friends at Gorilla vs. Bear and YouTube (they gave it the editor’s pick in the Music category this week). Anyway, enough from me, click here to watch the dern thing!

Our friends at the amazing Daytrotter site have just posted some exclusive live Alela tracks. Check them out here. These were recorded at this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, and they sound fantastic. There are some new jams on here too, including live faves “To Be Still” and “White As Diamonds,” both of which will likely be featured on her forthcoming sophomore album.

If you live in Portland, odds are you’ve noticed there’s a bunch of feet on the cover of the Willy Week today. And if you’ve happened to read the issue’s Best New Band feature then you know that (a) those feet belong to our guys The Shaky Hands and (b) they totally won the Best New Band poll! How great is that? What’s more, Alela bagged a very respectable third place position! (And let’s not forget that Swan Island won last year.) This is a pretty big deal here in the PDX, so we couldn’t be more excited. Congratulations guys!

You can celebrate with us in person at Willamette Week’s Best New Band showcase this Friday at Berbati’s. The show is FREE and features performances by The Shaky Hands and two of our other favorite Portland bands: Horse Feathers and Laura Gibson. See you there!

Our girls Swan Island are currently in the running for Logo’s Click List Top 10, and they need YOUR help to make it there! Please head over to LOGOonline and vote for their excellent “Crumble” video, as directed by the inestimable Molly & Mariah. They’re up against some stiff competition (read: Beyonce) so every little bit counts!

It’s true, the much anticipated debut from our very own Shaky Hands comes out TODAY! We are so excited to be putting out this fantastic album, and so far other people seem pretty stoked to. There are reviews coming up in SPIN, Magnet, Pitchfork, etc, and Portland has been going totally nuts. You can order the album in our store right now, and trust us, you’ll be happy you did. And did we mention this is pretty much the perfect album for the impending summer weather? IT SO IS.

In other Shaky news, the new video for album track “Why & How Come” has been making the rounds on the ol’ interweb. You can see it now on our media page.

You can also catch the guys live at their all ages CD release party at The Artistery in Portland this Saturday, along with the incomparable Adrian Orange and The Evolutionary Jass Band.

Stay tuned for way more on these guys, including summer tour dates and all that good stuff. All hail Shaky Hands!

The ladies of Swan Island will be hosting the new episode of Logo’s music video show “NewNowNext” this weekend, which also just happens to feature the TV premier of their wonderful “Crumble” video! The hosting footage was filmed at last year’s Ladyfest in Olympia, and the “Crumble” video was filmed in sunny Los Angeles by the ever-amazing Molly & Mariah. The episode premiers Sunday at midnight, and will air again Wednesday (4/11) at 1pm and 1am, Friday (4/13) at 7am and 7pm, Saturday (4/14) at 4pm and Saturday (4/15) at 9am. Exciting!

We’re about to head out to Austin, Texas for this year’s installment of the premier music industry schmooze n’ booze, SXSW. Our girls Swan Island and Alela Diane have some great shows linded up, and you can bet your bottom dollar we’ll be out there sippin’ Lone Stars and sunning our pathetically pale Pacific Northwest bodies. Here’s the lowdown!

Alela Diane

03.15 :: Austin, TX - The Peacock - 2:30pm
SXSW - Gorilla vs. Bear Party w/ Ariel Pink, Dirty Projectors
[info] [flyer]

03.15 :: Austin, TX - Habana Calle 6 - 9pm
SXSW - Leafy Green Booking Showcase

03.16 :: Austin, TX - French Legation Museum - 12:30pm
SXSW - Arthur Day Party
[flyer]

03.17 :: Austin, TX - Jovitas - 3pm
SXSW - Twangfest Day Party
[info] [flyer]

Swan Island

03.16 :: Austin, TX - BD Riley’s
SXSW - 8pm

03.18 :: Austin, TX - GayBiGayGay
SXSW - w/ Erase Errata, Lesbians on Ecstacy
[info]

Our guys The Shaky Hands got some real nice words on Pitchfork this morn, which you can totally read here. Also, you can now pre-order the album in the shop. Holy crap, these guys are so good.

Whitey [The Thermals, Panther, Band of Horses, Kinksi, The Shins] is looking for a few hundred (that’s right) extras for his video for the Shaky Hands song “Why & How Come”. Filming is happening at Holocene (1001 SE Morrison) at 1:30pm on Monday February 12, 2007. Please send as an email if you’re interested, and then show up at 1:30pm at Holocene on the 12th!

Requirements:
you must be 21+ [we will be checking IDs, sorry]
you must be wearing your best hipster getup [sounds lame, but it’s part of the plot, trust us]
no bright colors [maybe a scarf but no main clothing]

What you get:
to be in a video
surely some good food
surely something fun to drink
lots of love from the band, Whitey & crew and Holocene Music

AND YOU KNOW THAT SHIT AIN’T CHEAP! …thanks in advance!

There’s a nice podcast featuring music and some interviewage with Alela up at KEXP’s blog today. Here’s the link. This is once again courtesy of the homie Dave Allen.

Our buddy Dave Allen just posted this really nice interview with Alela, recorded live in her apartment this past weekend. You can get the amazing 10″ they’re discussing, released in the UK via our friends at Names Records, here. And did we mention Dave plays bass in Gang of Four? Worlds collide!

Ladies and gentlemen, you can now view Swan Island’s totally great video for “Crumble,” right here on our media page. Pretty awesome, right? We’re currently working on getting this on TV and blogs and stuff, so please let us know if you have any ideas. Enjoy!

It’s true, you can now buy Swan Island’s The Centre Will Hold and Alela Diane’s The Pirate’s Gospel from the ever-rad iTunes music store. Click the links in the sidebar or shop to do so. Huzzah!

This just in from the totally flattering news department (yeah, we have one): Willamette Week just named us one of of Portland’s best labels of 2006. Here’s the link. We also made runner-up status here. Hey, thanks guys!

The good people at New York’s / the planet’s premier independent record store, Other Music, have given Alela a glowing review in this week’s installment of their crazy awesome email newsletter. OM’s Hartley Goldstein pretty much says everything we’ve been wanting to say about this record, but better. Seriously, we couldn’t agree more. Here’s the full text of the review:

“I know we’re all supposed to be over freak folk by now. If anything, once a genre gets a whole three-page spread in the Sunday Times it might be time to jump ship. And hell, that article ran over a year ago. Indie labels seem to be doing aesthetic 360’s, signing everyone in sight with a beard and a bandana. Reissues are no longer out of the question. Even Joanna Newsom, whose Ys is one of the best “freak folk” records of 2006, has routinely denounced the term in just about every single one of her so many interviews of late. The girl has even started to namedrop Randy Newman as her biggest influence, and we all know that the freakiest thing about Randy was the soundtrack to Toy Story 2.

So if anything were actually possible to hinder Alela Diane’s stunningly beautiful debut, The Pirate’s Gospel, it’s the timing. Had Gospel come out three years ago, Alela would be as big as Ms. Newsom (her very good also-Nevada City, California hailing friend), and certainly as respected. Gospel is yet another fully-formed new-folk classic. And it is a classic. Homegrown. Patchwork. Arrestingly intimate. Brazenly playful. Immaculately arranged. It’s as good as Milk-Eyed Mender, or Rejoicing in the Hands. In fact, Gospel, is ever so slightly more accessible than either of those records; Alela’s lyrics are more direct, her hooks are sharper. Sometimes a whole song is just a refrain and one gets the distinct impression that Alela’s biggest influences are spirituals. She’s into sing-a-longs, and it’s no surprise that some of the most gorgeous moments on all of Gospel are when chorus’ of children, or groggy baritone booming men, or just about anyone else in the room rejoices in Alela’s…er…chorus’ (see: the scene-stealing title track). Sometimes that means just whistling (”Foreign Tongue”), sometimes that means clapping your hands or singing soulful gibberish like “o-we-o” (”The Pirates Gospel”) or “clickity, click, click, clack” (”Clickity Clack”), and sometimes it means just plain blissfully singing-a-long as her children’s meta-chorus wonderfully does on “Pieces of String.” It’s all there.

And if Diane comes off sounding a little like Devendra from time to time, mourning over her “tired, tired feet” in a wounded multi-tracked brass howl on the album’s opener “Tired Feet,” it’s only cause she, like Devendra, has studied the late Karen Dalton like a Bible. Alela even hints as much on the song’s gauzy refrain — she coos, “I know that here I’ve sung before / Here I’ve sung before.” And if Gospel is any proof at all, Alela will be singing here before for a very, very long time to come. Best New Artist of ‘07?”