|
Bejar/Vermont Together As Hello, Blue Roses
11/12/2007
From: Fanatic Promotion
The romantically entwined duo of Dan Bejar (Destroyer, Swan Lake, New Pornographers) and
Sydney Vermont (visual artist, Bonaparte vocalist, former Toronto Children's Choir kid singer);
performing under the moniker Hello, Blue Roses have announced the release of their first
album. Their debut will be released by Chicago-based label Locust Music.
"When I listen to the sound of it, I hear European pastoral music butting up against a harsh
'80s reality," Bejar says. "The Hello, Blue Roses songs are completely un-tethered to any of
the bullshit streams coursing through the scene right now. That's just how Syd writes them;
it's not her fault. They're completely melodious, but still so strange. It's a product of not
really caring what people think, but still caring a lot about people."
"Dan supports every strange idea I have ever had," says Vermont, "and then we craft it into
something to our liking. We hear different things in the songs and try to bring both visions
into it, which involves a lot of trust and generosity, because we are very different. It makes
for an overall eclectic sound, which still has its own organic logic."
Hello, Blue Roses' debut will hit stores on January 22, 2008. In the interim, fans can sample
exclusive Hello, Blue Roses tracks on a tour-only split 7" with Frog Eyes due out on
Absolutely Kosher in December and a split 7" with kindred British-based, Locust Music act,
Starless And Bible Black which will usher in the new year in physical form and see digital
release around the holidays.
Hello, Blue Roses' decision to team up with Locust Music is totally apropos given the
celebrated label's wide-eyed approach and Hello, Blue Roses' own deeply accessible but
eclectic sound. "The roster seemed impossibly all over the place, and also not tied down to
any era or genre," Bejar says. "But once you start looking at everything they've done, it's
pretty impressive and head-scratching."
"Outside of the influences of '60s and '70s singer/songwriters, Bejar and Vermont are
touching on some of the popular music of the '80s that a lot of us 30-somethings have lived
with whether we liked it or not," says Locust label head Dawson Prater of the Hello, Blue
Roses material. Prater continues, "At the heart of it, I think all of us have this repository in
our heads where popular music takes root and Hello, Blue Roses has gone there in a totally
unironic way. Dan and Sydney have recast the sweetness and mismatched optimism of the
music of the Reagan era to the way it should sound, the way this stuff often sounds in our
heads - and that's what timelessness is all about."
Hello, Blue Roses - "Shadow Falls" - MP3
|
|
|
|
|
|
