what about the show after the show?

Does anyone need two tickets to the Empty Bottle show? I'm not sure if I accidentally bought four, or if they accidentally sent four.

http://www.drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4135837

Frightened Rabbit tour diary (part 1)

When is the show? I might be interested.

I really dig this record, but it's undeniable that this band has massive generic-teenage-girl's-favorite-indie-band potential.

Britt Daniels better get hisself a gun.

you guys spin the first record lately? i'm loving it this week.

So who wants to upload their first record? Eh? Eh?

15th December sees the release of a Frightened Rabbit Christmas single for the second year running. Whilst the same song appeared on 7” exactly a year ago, it is re-issued here in a radically re-mixed version – trimmed down and instrumentally re-scored and expanded - including the addition of sweeping strings, flutes, brass, Rhodes piano and a full choir - by fellow FatCat artist, David Karsten Daniels. Simultaneously rousing and uplifting whilst informed by a brutal sense of realism, ‘It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop’ is a brilliant xmas song in the bleak vein of The Pogues ‘Fairytale of New York’.

Enhanced by its stunning reconstruction, ‘It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop’ remains a glorious, festive slice of kitchen-sink realism; a candid breath of fresh air amongst the glut of commercial excess, knowing and somehow celebrative despite itself. As chief Rabbit Scott Hutchison expands: “’It’s Christmas…’ is about people deciding to be pleasant to one another for about a day, regardless of whether or not they actually get along the rest of the year. There's the same fallout after christmas as perhaps a night out where you end up in someone else's bed - the next day, after the drink has worn off and the warm lights are turned off, everything's just as shit as it was the day before and that feeling of comfort disappears. I feel like i have a similar relationship with christmas as i do with booze. Each make me feel nice in a fairly false way, and they are really the only two things i actually spend money on, aside from food. It’s also about that total indulgence period, which always comes with the promise that you'll eat less, drink less and spend less really, really soon... always tomorrow. I feel it’s maybe healthier to live a little more consistently (not that i do), but often humans need excuses to be nice and giving and loving to one another, and Christmas is one of those times, for better or worse’. This is borne out in lyrics such as “let the rot stop just for one day”, or the hammered-home pay-off, “the next day life went back to it’s bad self”.

Oregon-based David Karsten Daniels (whose gorgeous ‘Fear Of Flying’ album was released on FatCat in April this year) speaks about the track, and how he approached the project as a re-fit:

“On first listen, I had trouble hearing what could be done to make it any better – ‘It's Christmas So We'll Stop’ is such a simple, lovely little song and I was fond of the mix and arrangement as it already existed. So when the tracks finally arrived in the mail I put them into the computer and got the mix going as close as possible to the original. With a very light touch I began to add little things: a solo cello part to join the viola that was already there, a regal trumpet part and small group of trombones, the high strings that you hear towards the end.

“Once the band and label heard what I'd done, they asked for even more of it and gave me full license to really run with the song and make it something new. As my father is a church choir director, one can imagine I've sat through many a Christmas concert. John Rutter, Ralph Van Williams - all the old Christmas sacred music heavyweights (most of them English) kept coming into my head. Along those lines, harp was added as were winds (flute, bassoon, oboe) and a Rhodes piano (played in the upper register so as to sound like a celeste).”

The result is a stunning new version that lusciously optimises and expands the old, increasing the dynamics and the pull between light and shade, building incrementally and extracting the absolute essence of the tune. The B-side of the vinyl release features an etching drawn by Scott Hutchison, whose distinctive graphic style has graced all the band’s records to date.

this is so fucking good!

so...
guys...

if fr plays at my house, how many of you dudes would drive to pittsburgh? show of hands?

I really dig this record, but it's undeniable that this band has massive generic-teenage-girl's-favorite-indie-band potential.

so...
guys...

if fr plays at my house, how many of you dudes would drive to pittsburgh? show of hands?

this is so fucking good!

yeah i cant stop listening to this...btw if you wikipedia this song it says there is a version with a 40 piece choir...does anyone have this...i think theres only one song on the download...

there's a version they put out a year or so ago, too. another 7". exact same song, but totally different. the 2007 version has the song with a 40 piece choir i believe as well as the song sans choir. here's a youtube video for you:

i got my Christmas 7" in the mail yesterday

i like the etching on the one side


i'll have to fire that thing up later this eve

I listened to some of the first record a couple of years ago and I was whatever about it. I honestly don't remember it well at all. So when I would see this epic Frightened Rabbit thread on here, I have to admit that I thought "What the fuck, Frightened Rabbit? Really?" But it kept getting positive things said about it from places and people I like or trust and I'd been trying to hit all the albums that looked like they'd be getting EOY consideration in magazines and such. So I gave this new record a shot recently. Upon first listen, I liked it but it didn't really hit me. I kept thinking that the 19 year-old version of me would have loved it, though. Derivative of bands I liked back then, had an earnest heart-on-sleeve sensibility and had blunt, profane lyrics about love lost and relationships and shit, man. After a few listens, I got past the "hm, "Good Arms vs. Bad Arms" starts off a bit like a Neutral Milk Hotel song" first impressions and analyzing it and really let this sink in. If some people want to think that this is generic indie and that this record is nothing new, there's nothing I can say to change that. But I find it comforting that there are records like this and that there people that keep making music that isn't trying to forge ahead or anything - they just want to write good songs. This record could have been made in 1998 or 2008. So you can say "its just more sad indie rock" or you could just think that this a collection of pretty, memorable, timeless songs.

how many troll threads are there about FR now? i think that new one is maybe the 3rd or 4th? i see that as a pretty indicative sign of this band's powers for good.

yeah, the etching is pretty cool...

how many troll threads are there about FR now? i think that new one is maybe the 3rd or 4th? i see that as a pretty indicative sign of this band's powers for good.