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Bret Busch – Pills Lace & Confetti

(out July 14)

Although Pills Lace & Confetti bears the name Bret Busch, it’s a product of working relationships formed over his 25-plus years as the singer of a half-dozen Atlanta bands, including Parlour, Pardner, Ramada and The Hollidays, projects that sprung from the same fertile Cabbagetown scene that launched artists like Cat Power and Benjamin Smoke.

The core team behind Busch’s new solo debut came from two wonderfully disparate ends of the musical spectrum—the indie-centric Merge Records roster (including members of Destroyer and The Rock*A*Teens) and the backing band of hyper-creative R&B star Janelle Monae. These guest artists’ combined talents and Busch’s admirable range as a vocalist coalesce on Pills Lace & Confetti, creating a sparkling, unapologetically loungey, lysergic trop-pop album—a laidback, caipirinha-sipping affair peppered with breezy tropicalia, sweltering disco, pensive jazz and boozy country flourishes.

It’s worth noting that when Busch isn’t making his own music, he moonlights as the lead singer of beloved Smiths tribute band Smithsonian, convincingly conjuring the expressive voice, tender heart and tongue-in-cheek melodrama of Stephen Patrick Morrissey. Going back decades, Busch has also had a long-running musical relationship with his friend—and frequent Neko Case collaborator—Kelly Hogan.

The groundwork was first laid for Busch’s new album years ago when he ran into Rock*A*Teens bassist (and Pills Lace & Confetti producer) Will Joiner at a mutual friend’s wedding. Having recorded together years earlier, Joiner suggested it was high time Busch made a formal solo release.

From there, the two pieced together an impressive supporting cast of musical acquaintances. “Will and I have such an amazing network of musician friends,” Busch says. “I mean serious, working musicians. We joked that he and I are the only ones who have day jobs.”

Rafael Pareira, from Janelle Monae’s band (and Tribo Records), was tapped by Joiner to engineer the album, co-produce and add percussion. Fellow Monae backing musician Terrence Brown contributed a lush psychedelic feel on synth & keys, and Destroyer’s Joseph Shabason provided some decidedly chill saxophone on the album.

The fourth member of Busch’s core team for Pills Lace & Confetti is Rock*A*Teens / Tenement Halls singer-guitarist Chris Lopez. A full third of the record, including two originals and a cover of “Sun’s Up” from The Rock*A*Teens’ brilliant 2000 album Sweet Bird of Youth, were written by Lopez. “I’m from South Georgia, and I think Chris is a quintessential, modern Southern rock artist,” Busch says. “I knew that his whole ’50s-influenced vibe and his fascinating lyrics would be the perfect fit for this project.”

The personal touch of each artist involved with Pills Lace & Confetti informs a varied approach that—whether soulful or serene—always accentuates the upbeat story-songs. “Since I love and have played so many styles over the years, I wasn’t trying to do just one thing with this record,” Busch says. “I didn’t want it to be too crazy, and I wasn’t trying to be too avant-garde. Really, I’m a singer first, and that’s what I wanted to present by doing this project under my name. I wanted to have at least one country-ish song on there (“Where I’m Going”) because I’d done a lot of that with my band Pardner. But, other than that, I really just let my collaborators guide the sound.”

Further examples of the variety offered up by Busch and his supporting cast include the hushed, dreamy jazz ballad “Wedding Waltz,” a faithful cover of Gerry Rafferty’s AM Gold hit “Right Down the Line,” the soulful Brazilian flavor of “Small Town Fight,” the upbeat Afro-Caribbean-injected indie rock of the Lopez-penned “Ink Black Sea,” and the downright danceable “Summer” and “Puget Sound.” Each new track underscores the versatility of the musicians involved.

Outside the dark confines of a seedy fetish club, pills, lace and confetti might not seem like an obvious combination, yet Busch and his friends have emerged with a satisfyingly cohesive record culled from a diverse set of musical interests and backgrounds. While the project’s modest namesake goes out of his way to give most of the credit to his collaborators, his seasoned vocals—an alluring blend of uptown class and rock & roll depravity—are what most noticeably ties together these potentially incongruent strands into something focused and beautiful.

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For press inquiries, please contact:  Rachel Hurley

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BIO:

Matthew Ryan is experiencing a kind of noisy renaissance. It began in 2014 with the release of Boxers, a fevered and smart rock ‘n’ roll record about the working class, produced by Kevin Salem. May 2017 will see the follow-through with Hustle Up Starlings, a heart-on-the-sleeve collection of silvery anthems that further illustrate Ryan’s reinvigorated love of language, noise, and cinema.

Produced by Brian Fallon from The Gaslight Anthem, Starlings shimmers with an immediate and captivating focus. The 10-song set clocks in at 40 minutes with no prevarication or bluster, just a celebratory noise alight with hearts and history, broken-in voices and poetry.

Matthew Ryan grew up in Chester, Pennsylvania just south of Philly, and spent his teens in Newark, Delaware. In his early 20s, he moved to Nashville, where he was first signed to A&M Records, releasing May Day (1997) and East Autumn Grin (2000) before falling prey to the titanic label mergers of the early aughts.

What followed was more or less an album a year by any and all means possible until 2012’s In The Dusk of Everything. After moving to Western Pennsylvania in 2011, Ryan quietly decided that he’d had enough. Dusk would be his last album. “Music had become too lonely,” he said.

But soon after that declaration, a sudden friendship with the frontman from The Gaslight Anthem, Brian Fallon, reignited something in Ryan. Fallon invited him out on some tour dates, and after performing a version of Ryan’s “I Can’t Steal You” (off of 2003’s Regret Over The Wires) together in New York City, the two decided they’d like to work together one day. Fallon just wanted to play guitar, but Ryan suspected he’d found a producer.

Hustle Up Starlings was recorded last summer in Nashville at Doug Lancio’s place on the East Side. Ryan assembled the cast because they all shared a common ethos and similar roots — The Clash, The Replacements, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, The Cure, The Jam… Each of them hard working lovers of pop music with a black eye, a brain, and soul.

Things were a little tense at the start. “Artists are like boxers,” Ryan says. “They have to test each other a little before they can trust each other.” And this was a roomful of artists. Brad Pemberton (Steve Earle, Ryan Adams) played drums and percussion; Brian Bequette (long-time blood brother and band member of Ryan’s) played bass; Fallon played electric and acoustic guitars while helming production; Doug Lancio engineered and mixed while adding synth and additional guitars. Ryan sang and played guitar as well. David Henry (former cellist for Cowboy Junkies) added strings where needed.

Fallon had a sense of the orchestration and arrangement already filed in his mind. They’d gather and play a song acoustically, discuss what they were hearing and what needed to happen, then Fallon would take the lead, check in with Ryan and off they’d go. Lancio would hustle around getting the mics and levels sorted then press record. They kept the takes that moved them, that felt alive. Most of the vocals you’ll hear were of the moment, as is the band’s performance.

There was some minimal overdubbing, then Fallon would add backing vocals while the energy of just capturing a new recording was still in the room. Song after song played out like this. 7 days were booked, and they were finished in 5.

Hustle Up Starlings is an album in the truest sense of the word — it’s a cohesive sonic and narrative expression with a beginning, middle, and end. It was in a conversation with the great producer and songwriter Joe Henry that Ryan realized once again the importance of committing to the fullness of experience that an album offers. “It’s an intimate story I’m telling here. These songs are personal, but if I’m lucky and I’ve done my job, they become universal. The story I’m living and writing about is happening in the context of this world we’re all observing and feeling right now, a world that feels like it might catch fire with all its uncertainty and friction, the ugly politics and rising impulses.”

Ryan explains further, “You see, this is what we do though, even when the world feels like it’s about to burn down, we keep leaning for tomorrow in our own lives and stories and families. It’s all hope and perseverance. We get up and we go to work. We believe in tomorrow, even when we’re not sure what tomorrow will be. Joe helped me to realize that I should probably tell the whole story as best I could. Brian and Doug and the band helped me bring it to life so it could be heard and shared. And hopefully felt.”

On Hustle Up Starlings, we find an artist who has shifted into some higher gear and come into full fruition. The entire collection is not only bolstered by a great band and their sonic immediacy, the songs are so generous with incisive couplets and soaring, searing choruses that repeated listens don’t dull its charm. Each song and performance in this collection leans on perseverance like a car leans into a hard curve — the thrill of “(I Just Died) Like An Aviator,” the inspired grit of “Battle Born,” the unguarded intimacies of “Maybe I’ll Disappear,” the jilted humor and meanness of “Bastard.”

There’s romance and doubt, there’s memory informing the phantoms of the future, there’s work and hope-tinged despair. There are moments that arrive and feel like instant classics. The title track, “Hustle Up Starlings,” comes in like an ambient Rolling Stones tune and unfolds in a filmic, breathtakingly honest way. Each detail glows as the story builds upon itself, cool and warm, incisive. The entire album works like this, each song into the next, moment after moment. It doesn’t let up.
Hustle Up Starlings will be released on May 12th, 2017.

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For press inquiries, please contact:  Rachel Hurley

Website – Facebook – Instagram – Press Photos – Tour Dates

BIO:

Levi Thomas is a twentysomething Missouri-born songwriter, currently residing in the Bay Area, where he ended up after chasing the same West Coast American dreams as his forebears. The former singer/guitarist of sludge-psych outfit Ghost Dance, Thomas released one album on Rough Beast Records—also home of bands Ranch Ghost and Del Sur—before leaving behind his old band’s heavier garage-psych/space-punk sound to pursue a cosmic-country solo career.

“The Fear” is the first single from Thomas’ debut album, Billie, which was recorded throughout the winter and spring of 2016 with Winston Goertz-Giffen (Grass Widow, other notable credits???) at Oakland’s Santo Studio.

“The Fear” is defined by Urban Dictionary as the sense that you have done yourself some lasting damage after a night of drinking. “As with most of my songs,” Thomas explains, “it’s about 50/50 autobiographical / poetic embellishment. I had experienced a pretty strange and lonely year, including the harshest winter of my life, in which I was stricken with the fear so frequently the only way to shake it was through the power of song.”

Levi Thomas’ Billie is scheduled for a late 2017 release on Rough Beast Records.

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For press inquiries, please contact:  Rachel Hurley