Big Potato Records News... & you'll find all our music for sale at our Shop
22nd JULY 2010 - Big Potato Records Presents NEIL HALSTEAD, COMMON PRAYER & THE SILENT LEAGUE dj Sonic Cathedral !!!!
26th JULY 2010 - THERE IS A MOUNTAIN by COMMON PRAYER
will be released on Down Load & Ltd CD
“A deep reservoir of vitality, nuance, and charm” One Track Mind
“One of the finest records of the year” Les Enfants Terribles
Spring 2009: In the English village of Steventon, Brooklyn based songwriter/principal heretic Jason Sebastian
Russo (formerly of Mercury Rev) and a constituency of British pop talent hauled several half-tuned guitars,
myriad scraps of rusty metal and a piano with a knee-high flood watermark into a cow barn on Hill Farm. So was
born Common Prayer’s first album, There Is A Mountain.
There Is A Mountain’s eleven elaborately cinematic outsider-pop tracks, violin innuendos and organ riffs tangle
with scrap metal samples and found sounds. It opens with the beautiful, frazzled skiffle of “commonprayer” then
dips straight into the skeletal boogie of “Hopewell”. “Marriage Song” happily weds tin can percussion to strings
and country slide above which glides Russo’s yearning vocal. He has one of those voices. The kind that’s at once
high lonesome, intimate and rocking. Rarely have our ears heard fragile hooks soar so sweet and sad since Mark
Linkous was in his spidery pomp.
It’s no small thing to make a record both weighty and loose. Funny and sad. At first glance, throwaway - but full
of beautifully wrought arrangements. We think it’s the sound of a band taking off.
Live Dates:
5 July Mercury Lounge, NYC
11 July Death By Audio, Brooklyn NYC
18 July Buffalo Bar, Cardiff
22 July Upstairs @ The Relentless Garage, London (w/ The Silent League & Neil Halstead)
23 July Truck Festival, Steventon
1 August Shhh Festival, London
COMING SOON
LOVE IN THE MIST by Holton's Opulent Oog
to be released on Vinyl, CD and DL It features Neil Halstead, Joe Bennett, Robin Bennett, Ian McCutcheon, Tom Crook, Paul Blewett & Roger Proctor
Live Dates:
7th August at Edinburgh Fringe - Ten Tracks, Roxy Art House, Edinburgh.
Other releases for 2010 will include
Black Hearted Brother, President Sweetheart, Caz Mechanic & Sparton Dyes