Join Under the Radar on Patreon to Enter to Win a Vinyl Copy of the Latest Album by The Decemberists
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May 30, 2018
The Decemberists
If you support Under the Radar‘s Patreon page at the minimum contribution of at least $1.00 a month you get access to our Patreon-only feed featuring exclusive content only available to Patreon supporters and you will also help keep one of the last print music magazines strong and vital. Now our friends at Capitol have also donated a vinyl copy of The Decemberists’ latest album, I’ll Be Your Girl, to give away to one lucky Under the Radar Patreon supporter. One runner-up will get a CD copy. We’ll be picking one random Patreon supporter next Friday, June 1 to win the album.
The Decemberists released a new album, I’ll Be Your Girl, back in March via Capitol. Previously they shared its first single, “Severed” (it was one of our Songs of the Week) and album opener “Once In My Life” (which was also one of our Songs of the Week). John Congleton produced the album, which is being touted as a change of direction for the band as they embrace synth-pop.
Vocalist/guitarist Colin Meloy had this to say about the album in a previous press release: “We were talking about music and our references. It kept coming back to Roxy Music and early glam, and we dove in with that in mind. The Decemberists are a record-collectors’ band, we’re all fans and scholars of music, so there a lot of touch points that we all get, but they don’t always come through. So we were trying to embrace that Bryan Ferry aspect, that kind of set the tone.”
“When you’ve been a band for 17 years, inevitably there are habits you fall into,” Meloy further explained. “So our ambition this time was really just to get out of our comfort zone. That’s what prompted working with a different producer and using a different studio. We wanted to free ourselves from old patterns and give ourselves permission to try something different.”
The album is the follow-up to 2015’s What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World. “On the last record,” Meloy said in the press release, “there were moments when I thought I was making familiar choices. I tried to be mindful in the songwriting process of challenging myself and being a little more critical. The idea was, how can we make unfamiliar choices, turn off the light a little and grope around in the dark a bit?”
In addition to Meloy, the band’s lineup remains guitarist Chris Funk, keyboardist Jenny Conlee, bassist Nate Query, and drummer John Moen. According to Meloy, “Severed” was meant to be more of a punk song, but they decided they needed to rethink. “Jenny set this arpeggio throughout it, and it became like an early New Order song,” Meloy continued. “And I had forgotten that when we made the demo, I also started a file to turn it into more of a Depeche Mode song - I actually wanted it to be a synth song all along.”
Meloy summed up I’ll Be Your Girl as such: “Making music is an infinite choose-your-own-adventure, and when you go down one path, the other paths get sealed off. So every time we could, we said, ‘If this is what our impulses would tell us to do, let’s try to imagine it in a different way.’”
Read our recent interview with The Decemberists on I’ll Be Your Girl.
The Decemberists Tour Dates:
05/30 Sony Centre for the Performing Arts @ Toronto, ON
05/31 Benedum Center @ Pittsburgh, PA
06/02 Murat Theatre at Old National Centre @ Indianapolis, IN
06/05 Iroquois Amphitheater @ Louisville, KY
06/07 Mann Center for the Performing Arts @ Philadelphia, PA ^
06/08 College Street Music Hall @ New Haven, CT ^
06/09 The Green at Shelburne Museum @ Shelburne, VT ^
06/10 State Theatre @ Portland, ME ^
06/13 BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival at Prospect Park Bandshell @ Brooklyn, NY ^
06/15 MASS MoCA @ North Adams, MA
06/21 Paramount Theatre @ Seattle, WA ^
06/22-23 - Edgefield @ Troutdale, OR ^
08/04-05 Travelers’ Rest @ Missoula, MT
^ with M. Ward
Support Under the Radar on Patreon to enter to win.
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December 4th 2018
2:13am
This is great news. I never thought Under the Radar will actually start their account on patreon. Anyway, this is good news to the fans and followers. And it was a great move by offering such a cool prize.
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