Yards & Gods » ARTISTS

Nonreturner

ted — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 06:40:09 +0000

“What’s initially striking about Columbia, Mo.’s Nonreturner is how their music reverberates with the stately, supernatural beacons of the world’s iconic mysteries—this could be a perfect soundtrack for a trip to a Mayan pyramid or a voyage through the Bermuda Triangle.”
-Mike Rengel, PLAYBACK:stl

Nonreturner has been described as sounding similar to “Radiohead circa Kid A and Amnesiac; The Church; a rock-n-roll Autechre, if such a thing dared to exist; The Verve’s first two LPs; the busy three way intersection of psychedelia, indie rock, and IDM” (PLAYBACK:stl) “it’s a little bit ambient, a little bit shoegaze, a little bit indie-pop” (A Ravenous Horde)

Nonreturner was a band from 2005-2011. Nonreturner consisted of Zach Biri, Michael Hopkins, Logan Epps, and a rotating cast of bass players which included John-Paul McFarland of In Dark Trees, Clint McMillen of Ursus Arctos, Carrie Wade of Conceal and Carry, Erik Moore of Burger Kingdom, and Jarrett Crader of Kingdom Flying Club.

The band has two releases, the first under Barn Owl as the Barn Owl EP, which shows the seminal stages of Nonerturner’s sound which evolved into more fully realized compositions with Nonreturner’s first full length eponymous release in 2008.

Conceal and Carry

Zach — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:56:28 +0000

Sexy but creepy, adorable but dark and droney, Conceal & Carry conveys all these things by layering analog synths and vintage electric pianos. Gloomy lyrics sing out from the instrumental fray in a scintillating girly sing-song. Despite the name, Conceal & Carry is the solo project of a band-hopping guest keyboardist, sometimes singer, sometimes bassist, sometimes lyricist and resident rock and roll photographer for the Yards and Gods gang, Carrie Wade.

In February 2010, boredom and solitude led to the creation of Conceal & Carry in the living room of an apartment in Champaign, Illinois. Wade learned to sing again, and her thoughts became songs.

At then end of 2010, Conceal & Carry relocated to her hometown of Kansas City, MO and continues to musically evolve from the comfort of her childhood bedroom. Often reluctant to play shows, Conceal & Carry always wears a trademarked wire crown during performances, and has been known for creating sublime moments with improvised synth songs and passing out sparklers to audience members.

Conceal and Carry @ Myspace

Fliight

ted — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:43:14 +0000

Fliight took off in late 2009, and is primarily a two man collaboration between Ted Sharp and Josh Cochran, though they often draft the help of others to bang a tambourine, sing, or charm the theremin. Both bandmates in groups like The Makeouts, The Pale Family, Highway Robbery and Cpt Captain, the two collaborate on Flight as a side project. It started in a shed as a two hour jam session with a running tape. This session resulted in a few tracks, one of which—Wirebird—made it onto the Yards and Gods Compilation Vol II released at the end of 2009.

Their sound pulls influences in from late 1960s and early 1970s krautrock bands like Ash Ra Tempel and Tago Mago era Can with some of the noise experiments of Faust. Songs have a stream of consciousness feel to them as Cochran and Sharp appear to share a brain that enables Cochran’s distortion washed guitar wails to groove amid Sharp’s lacerating percussion. However, unlike their German predecessors, Flight’s songs do not stretch ad infinitum. Rather, it makes an attempt to condense the usually sprawling genre for those with shorter attention spans. It’s digestible and deliciously krauty.

Flight was recently featured on Yards & Gods Compilation Volume 2, and they have been busy jamming out in a storage shed somewhere off of Paris Road – many of these recorded and posted at their MySpace.

Flight @ MySpace

Prize Wolf

ted — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:42:17 +0000

A soundtrack for drunken laments, Prize Wolf’s aesthetic of down tempo acoustic guitar based broken folk with keyboard embellishments. Every song is for the post-break-up spree of binge drinking and subsequent hangovers: full of heartache and vocal harmonies. And though the lonely man crying out may voice these tunes, each song is a group collaboration between Michael Cane, Zach Biri, Brandon Robertson, and Logan Epps often layering three voices to amplify the Prize Wolf’s howl.

Depending on how much liquor is in the boys’ systems, performances can range from low-key subdued acoustic shows to high energy sets that arrest the attention of anyone within a 100 foot radius. A full ensemble show features Chicago transplant Michael Cane on guitar and vocals, with both Zach Biri and Brandon Robertson alternating between guitar and keyboard but both providing vocals as well, all accented by Logan Epps rhythms.

The quartet formed after the dissolution of another band all four had played in at one time or another in 2007. Initially, it was just a project between Robertson and Cane but later Biri joined and brought Epps on as a drummer. Due to the plethora of “wolf” bands in existence the band briefly switched to Palisades, before eventually changing it back to Prize Wolf because of the wealth of bands named Palisades.

Someone once said their band “mixes in some Lips-like warped samples and subtle organ work to separate it from flat, hippie, folk music. This material surprises me the most with its mix of warbly folk and alt-country that actually sounds fresh.” (via Living In Misery)

Prize Wolf’s sound reflects the complexities of human interactions and difficulties of existence from the voice of a restless soul crying out from the bottom of your empty bottle.

The band is working (slowly, as bands separated by so many miles must) on their debut album Status Post, but many recordings can be found at band member Zach Biri’s audio archives, as well as on the Yards & Gods Compilations.

Prize Wolf @ MySpace

In Dark Trees

ted — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:41:59 +0000

Since 2007 John-Paul McFarland–under the name In Dark Trees–has crafted ambient electronic compositions that contain echoes of the band’s namesake, Brian Eno, but also genre exemplars Boards of Canada. Composed by computer, In Dark Trees’ soundscapes evoke the sublime power of music that makes one greatly aware of the expansiveness of our universe. Subtly meditative, In Dark Trees relies on the power of lyricless music to communicate—abstractness is expressed abstractly without cliché. His songs are proof that music exists as necessity because on its own it can communicate what verbal language so often fails to.

With a wealth of creative momentum in 2008 and 2009, In Dark Trees has 3 albums available on the Yards & Gods Label. In 2008 he released a full length album, Skin and the Have Gone Static EP. In 2009 he followed up with another full length album, The Aquarium.

Rarely seen on stage, In Dark Trees is the perfect music to listen to at your own convenience. The atmospheric ambience of IDT’s oeuvre lends itself to chilling and/or contemplating.

The Makeouts / Pale Family

ted — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:41:22 +0000

The Makeouts and the Pale Family: a strange case of multiple personality disorder, or two great bands bundled into one?

An unpredictable quartet of gentlemen, depending on their mood they can be either plaid clad crooners or smartly attired garage rockers. An ensemble with a case of multiple personalities, the alt-country wails of the Pale Family can swing drastically in the opposite direction with gritty, 60s inspired rock in the form of the Make Outs. This is a guise they have used to hoodwink the press and even a few fans since their formation in the fall of 2006.

Juggling—and often reveling in—two different personas, The Pale Family/The Make Outs show a musical versatility with their ability to master multiple genres. Lead vocalist and guitarist Ryan Murphy has mastered both the lone wolf’s twangy howl and the rock n roll rebel’s gristly, angst-filled yell. Deftly played guitar from Josh Cochran can range from a skiffle-like shuffle to full blown distorted rock chords. Ray Luxby’s bass might be a plodding steady support or a dexterous, intricate line, he also has been known to garnish a song with pure, sweet whistled melodies. When original drummer Damon Hombs left the band, Ted Sharp took over the drumset with a style that ranges from easy tambourine timekeeping to thunderous cymbal crashes.

Neither band has any official releases available, but The Make Outs have tracks available on Yards & Gods Compilation Volumes 1 and 2

Burger Kingdom

ted — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:41:10 +0000

Masters of reverb, delay, fuzz, loops, puns, and supreme hipness, Burger Kingdom has been churning out hazey lo-fi shoegaze since summer 2008 when the instrumental guitar comedy duo formerly known as Umbros morphed into the current guitar and drums setup. Seated behind a bass drum with “Burger Kingdom” scrawled in glowinthedark puff paint over the aged mark of “UMBROS” Stephen Howard provides the beastly beats while Erik Moore bounces before a massive pedal board that gives his guitar the perfect wash of distorted echo. Sitting atop of the mealstorm of drums, and guitar noise is Moore’s choir like falsetto, sang lovingly into his signature gold plated microphone.

In addition to original tunes, the fast-food royalty has an artillery of cover songs they occasionally pull out, like the Cranberries’ “Dreams” and Brian Eno’s “Needle in the Camels Eye” to “Oh My My” by Y&G’s very own Nonreturner. In 2009 they recorded and released the Hand of Gold Cassette, which features one side of originals and a b-side of covers all in the distinct style of Burger Kingdom.

Burger Kingdom was recently featured with their single Hand of Gold (available in cassette format on Lillerne Tape Club and Bifocal Tapes) and an exclusive cover on Yards & Gods Compilation Volume 2. And February 2010 sees the release of their debut full length Shugazi on Chomp Womp and Yards & Gods.

Ataraxic Ataxia

Zach — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:41:09 +0000

Ataraxic Ataxia is a drone and noise pair whose sonic vocabulary is vast and ranges from startling beauty to violent eruptions of circuit-bent, blown out cascades of sound. Their name, a tongue twisting juxtaposition:

at-a-rax-ic (adjective) – a state of serene calmness
a-tax-i-a (noun) - the loss of full control of bodily movements

Their live show resembles a pair of mad scientist pouring over a card table covered in home made and boutique effects. The ingredients come from a microphone, feedback, a violin, and sometimes what appears to be thin air. What returns must be the result of some kind of black magic – a synesthete might see locomotives and stormclouds exploding, or the ground hinting at the first tremors of an earthquake.

Ataraxic Ataxia also has many releases on an array of media on their own Side of the Sun Recordings imprint.

Arthurian Honey

ted — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:40:54 +0000

Arthurian Honey is the brainchild of former child prodigy turned average citizen James Alex Hilderbrand. Born in the somnolent suburban clutches of Springfield, MO, Alex moved three hours north to Columbia, MO and helped form the smash hit supergroup Nascar Diarrhea. After repeated requests from unimpressed girlfriends and one-night stands, the band officially changed its name to Capt. Captain in the Spring of 2009.

Then they broke up.

Arthurian Honey was birthed soon after, providing an outlet for Alex’s guitar-driven slop pop and twee, often mock-religious lyrical subject matter. With Alex Brittain on drums and the prodigious Anderson Huffman Cardwell manning both the bass and theremin, Arthurian Honey played their first show at Mojo’s in Columbia, MO and on January 21st, 2010. Alex Brittain soon parted ways with the band leaving Alex H. and Anderson C. to spend the next four months writing new material fora recording session at Central Cellar Studios with the fabulous Wil Reeves.

Soon after, Alex left Anderson and Missouri altogether for the hilly, hot asphalt of Austin, TX where he is currently releasing singles and B-sides for the Yards & Gods record label.

Arthurian Honey @ MySpace

Ursus Arctos

ted — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:40:23 +0000

They may appear to be an unassuming quartet of vertically challenged married dudes with jobs and other adult responsibilities, but Ursus Arctos–formerly known as Kodiak–produces pop rock explosions that assault the listener with aggressive vocals, hearty basslines, and dynamic percussion. Ursus Arctos is like a bear attack in rock form. With two guitars churning from Travis Metcalf and Clint McMillen supported by Eric Mericle’s flexible and complex basslines and Mike Weston’s frantic drumming, this bear’s sound can range from the esoteric storytelling math-rock of Slint to the energetic cries of Les Savy Fav.

In 2005 or so, Mericle and Metcalf formed a trio with Weston on drums from the ties of working at/regularly visiting local pizza joint, Shakespeare’s. The three started off working on some of Metcalf’s songs. After several weeks of pracicing Mericle drafted his good friend, McMillen, to fill out the sound with another guitar.

Around 2008, having realized there were a wealth of other Kodiaks out making music, the band underwent a name change to Ursus Arctos, the Latin binomial nomenclature for the Kodiak bear. Around this time they hit the studio to record their eponymous album with help from Wil Reeves and Total Amatuers, which was released on Yards and Gods in 2009.

Ursus Arctos @ MySpace