Gar Hole Vinyl, CD & Tape 3 Items

"released October 11th, 2024. 140 gram SANDWICH BLUE vinyl with printed innersleeve lyric page. Chris Acker's latest collection of songs, Famous Lunch is, in his words, a "growing pains album." When writing the record, Acker found himself hunting for a voice that wasn't just an imitation of the one he'd been using on the last 30 songs he'd made. "At the same time, I worked hard to find a certain voice for myself over the previous 3 records and I didn't want to abandon that." While the album finds him continuing to transcribe life's fleeting and provocative banalities with refreshing grace, the songs on Famous Lunch are intentionally more absurd, stylizing his lyricism as both poetic and disarming simultaneously- commencing with "Shit Surprise"-an earworm with a vernacular that stays true to it's title. Inspired by George Saunders and Sasha Pearl (and wanting to make a song that sounds like Eagles saying the word "shit" over and over), "Shit Surprise" is the most Chris Acker song possible, in that it's earnestness arrives in spades and comes varnished with a one-of-a-kind, spectacular gnarliness. "We'd match our breath in the upstairs room and we'd hold together 'til I smelled like you," Acker sings, before nose-diving into that unforgettable chorus about stepping in a smelly, disgusting pile of shit. "It was definitely the first record I had to make while working and trying to be a real musician," he says. Across the record's 10 songs, Acker is joined by his Growing Boys bandmates Zach Thomas (bass), Nikolai Shveitser (pedal steel), Dave Hammer (guitar, vocals), Sam Gelband (drums, vocals), and Howe Pearson (piano). They made the album in December 2023 in the same place where their debut Re-Runs was recorded on a reel-to-reel more than seven years ago. "It's a fun full-circle moment," Acker says. "We really wanted to do another fully live record in that room, but, we're a way different band now, so it was especially cool." Many of these 10 songs are about an appreciation for closeness, no doubt a product of Acker having written many of them in pieces while on the road and during a two-week residency in Butte, Montana in the spring of 2023. On a track like "Swimming in My Calvin's," Acker takes a pause from musing about making swimtrunks out of underwear to meditate on the intimate warmth shared between lovers ("When I come home and lay down and you turn your body into me, I hold you below your belly button and you make the softest sound"). Album centerpiece "Wouldn't Do For You (Buddy)" Acker sings about "drawing my finger along your spine, crossing the room in your underwear" and a face next to a candle that looks like "a corner house under turning headlights." Though none of the songs on Famous Lunch came to Acker in a dream like "If I Needed You" did to Townes Van Zandt, the music sounds like the environment it was composed in: in-between self-booked gigs and late-night crashes on cross-continent couches, with different routines in different cities for years. When Acker sings about "doing dishes in the glow" or "follow[ing] whims like birds carry seeds" or "the inevitable ever when we're no longer together," you can hear the pages and pages of Moleskin journals being ripped through. He calls it "frankensteining" songs, the act of cobbling together memories-both drunken ramblings and clear-eyed yearnings-into poems with new lifespans, tape-hiss fadeouts, and plucky introductions. Famous Lunch contains some of his best work yet ("Stubborn Eyes," "Wouldn't Do For You (Buddy)," "Eyelash") and some raucous, bar-ready new joints ("Don't You Know (Who I Think I Am)," "Cursive Proverbs"). Caught someplace in-between the cowboy laments of Jerry Reed and the tender-hearted annals of Gram Parsons, Acker puts his world on a clothesline and let's it dry out in the sun. Famous Lunch is full of confusion and fragility, but it's also full of love not taken for granted and a profoundly familiar ache for domesticity and a clock turned ba

2024 - INDIE RECORD STORE EXCLUSIVE YELLOW VINYL. 140 gram color vinyl with printed inner sleeve and marketing sticker. Although recorded in the band's hometown of New Orleans, Meet The Lostines - the full-length debut from songwriters Casey Jane Reece-Kaigler and Camille Wind Weatherford - is an album that charts it's own geography. This is where the swampland meets the sock hop. Where golden-age rock & roll crosses paths with old-school country. Where timeless American roots music drops it's anchor and climbs skyward, finding some balance between the earthy and the otherworldly. At the center of that sound are the entwined voices of Casey Jane and Camille, two longtime friends whose songs explore the uncharted territory between genres. There's rarely a melody on Meet The Lostines that the two don't sing together, stacking their lush harmonies against a backdrop of baritone guitar, spring reverb, orchestral strings, Cajun fiddle, upright piano, and Theremin. It's an immersive sound.

Released August 16th, 2024. 140 gram BLUE SMOKE vinyl with printed innersleeve lyric page. Maddy Kirgo writes songs that allude easy definition. Based in New Orleans, Kirgo weaves timeless tunes of warmth and longing, with lyrics that simultaneously feel carefully composed but not overthunk and a voice that will stop you in your tracks. Depending on the day, you may hear a little Gram Parsons or the Beatles, a little Dolly Parton or Weyes Blood, however what makes Maddy so compelling is her ability to rise above and chart her own path, forever adding new rooms to a sonic palace of her own design. 'Shadow on My Light', the her second full-length record, is synthy, New Orleans indie twang at it's finest, equally informed by both the sunken city's swampy americana and dreamy pop scenes. Produced by members of Video Age and constructed during the pandemic, "Shadow on My Light" thoughtfully renders tales of hard times, enduring the modern world, and grieving the loss of a friend into playful, yet sincere pop songs, warmed by catchiness and lush compositions and handled with care. In advance of new music from Chris coming out later this year, Gar Hole Records is proud to present this first pressing of 'Good Kid', an essential release for fans of modern alt-country and Americana. At the center of that sound are the entwined voices of Casey Jane and Camille, two longtime friends whose songs explore the uncharted territory between genres. There's rarely a melody on Meet The Lostines that the two don't sing together, stacking their lush harmonies against a backdrop of baritone guitar, spring reverb, orchestral strings, Cajun fiddle, upright piano, and Theremin. It's an immersive sound that bridges the gaps between genres, created by two songwriters (along with a revolving door of collaborators, coconspirators, and fellow Big Easy residents) who're happy to build their own world.