Monday, August 15, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Reviews x19, I/Vs x2
Glory Glory press:
The fast-paced energy cosmogony presses and lays the groundwork for the mutation, giant harbinger of the setting sun, spring evening before and after the golden afternoon, what could upset me now?
MonthlyMusic.It [translated from Italian]
It is a folk toy, their, reinterpreted in electro, poptimistico hundred percent, with detour tropical diving summer
StoriaDellaMusica.It [translated from Italian]
Everything is whispered melodies, instruments touched and inspired craft on the first album of Wet Wings, who reveals himself fully on the day of its release on Lil' Chief Records.
MagicRPM [translated from French]
The first feature format, Glory Glory, is an allegory to the sweetness and the mixer. The rustling of the reeds and the caress of the sand you are familiar with?
Lords of Rock [translated from French]
Pasta Primavera, Under the Radar, Cheese on Toast, Rose Quartz, Einstein Music Journal, Listen Before You Buy, Guerolito Music, Zen Tapes, Musical Coma, Wears the Trousers, Their Bated Breath, Glo-Fi Must Die, Crack in the Road, Me Hace Rudio, Music is My Radar
Interviews: Under the Radar, Tonight We Dance, Tomorrow We Cry
Buy Glory Glory through Lil' Chief Records or Infinity Tapes.
The fast-paced energy cosmogony presses and lays the groundwork for the mutation, giant harbinger of the setting sun, spring evening before and after the golden afternoon, what could upset me now?
MonthlyMusic.It [translated from Italian]
It is a folk toy, their, reinterpreted in electro, poptimistico hundred percent, with detour tropical diving summer
StoriaDellaMusica.It [translated from Italian]
Everything is whispered melodies, instruments touched and inspired craft on the first album of Wet Wings, who reveals himself fully on the day of its release on Lil' Chief Records.
MagicRPM [translated from French]
The first feature format, Glory Glory, is an allegory to the sweetness and the mixer. The rustling of the reeds and the caress of the sand you are familiar with?
Lords of Rock [translated from French]
Pasta Primavera, Under the Radar, Cheese on Toast, Rose Quartz, Einstein Music Journal, Listen Before You Buy, Guerolito Music, Zen Tapes, Musical Coma, Wears the Trousers, Their Bated Breath, Glo-Fi Must Die, Crack in the Road, Me Hace Rudio, Music is My Radar
Interviews: Under the Radar, Tonight We Dance, Tomorrow We Cry
Buy Glory Glory through Lil' Chief Records or Infinity Tapes.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Infinity Tapes Cassettes
Infinity Tapes have been incredibly supportive of Wet Wings - last year it produced 100 cassettes for Skin to Soil (now sold out). This year Infinity Tapes have made another 100-limited hand-numbered cassettes for Glory Glory.
The cassettes come with download codes and you can buy here for US$7 before everyone else buys one (and to take advantage of the weak US dollar!).
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Video from Album Release
Thanks everyone for walking through the southerly rain to come to our Wellington album release party with Mount Pleasant and City Oh Sigh. If you missed it, you can attend a virtual album release party:
Step 1: Watch the following videos that the talented Rachel Brandon took:
Step 2: Buy our album online: compact disc, cassette, or digital.
Step 1: Watch the following videos that the talented Rachel Brandon took:
Step 2: Buy our album online: compact disc, cassette, or digital.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Glory Glory
Image: Used with kind permission from Dutch artist Sebastiaan Bremer, who has some pretty amazing works on his website.
After months of recording and mixing in the crumbling Cranmer Court we can finally show our eleven-track album, Glory Glory.
You can buy it in
1. Compact Disc, with mp3s through Lil' Chief Records;
2. Limited-edition Cassette, with mp3s through Infinity Tapes. Limited to 100;
4. Digital download, through Bandcamp.
Thanks to everyone who has helped us make the album. These people include (but are not limited to) our parents, Jon Lemmon, Matthew Scobie, Jonathan Bree, Matthew Reinertson, Fleur & Rémi and everyone we've played with or borrowed instruments from.
Album-release Eve
Lil' Chief Records are releasing our album Glory Glory tomorrow (July 4)!
Not really sure what this will mean on release day.
Imagine it'll feel properly ~released~ at the release shows.
Buy Glory Glory here.
Limited-Edition French Cassettes (sold out)
Our friends from La Station Radar and Atelier Ciseaux (Jeans Wilder, Best Coast, Dirty Beaches) have put together a very limited cassette release of Glory Glory. These cassettes, hand-tied with string, come with scenic postcards found in French antique shops.
Be quick, as there will only ever be thirty copies sold. Buy online from here or here. Sold out: but we still have cassette tapes available from Infinity Tapes.
Friday, June 17, 2011
The Things We Miss About Christchurch
December last year Indie Rock Reviews asked us to write a guide to our home town. This was after the September earthquake which disrupted the city for a month but before the February earthquake. The city is still blocked off with fences and barbed wire. In December Lucy and I were preparing to move to Wellington and wrote about the things we'd miss. Now many of these things (Bar Antonio's, The Lyttelton Coffee Co.) the whole city will miss. Here it is:
The Things We Will Miss About Christchurch
Christchurch is the city where scientists and soldiers make their last departure to Antarctica. This perhaps indicates how far south the city is, and how we sit on the border between the international community and parochial isolation. It’s easy to hide yourself here. The way the suburbs spread around a weak centre encourages solitude. Christchurch is a grid-like city, with straight lines reflected in its streets, architecture and people. The university specialises in engineering. We’re a community drawn on mathematic exercise books. Lucy and I are leaving Christchurch soon for Wellington, a city which seems more of a life form—lichen colonies in weird corners—than a concrete grid. These are the places and activities in Christchurch we will miss.
Bays: Corsair Bay. This is a bay which seems to have been carved out of the Banks Peninsula especially for families to swim in and picnic around. This photograph of Corsair Bay was taken in the 1920s and the view on a hot summer day today looks almost identical.
Cafés: The Lyttelton Coffee Company. This is a café with tall ceilings, nice staff, interesting music, and bread they bake on site. I don’t know the difference between ‘good’ and ‘average’ coffee so I won’t claim they have great coffee but I’ve heard other people say that Lyttelton Coffee Company’s coffee is nice.
Bars: Bar Antonio’s. Bar Antonio’s, “The smallest bar in Christchurch”, is so insanely and naively kitsch that it’s almost the equivalent of outsider art, in bar form. An outsider bar. It was founded by a Japanese man, Antonio, who moved to Christchurch to pursue windsurfing, snowboarding and flamenco dancing. He started a cultishly successful Japanese restaurant called Osaka (“Cheap but yummy”) and began piano lessons in his mid-60s. If you’re lucky, Antonio will play his interpretation of Celine Dione’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ on the bar’s digital piano.
Sports: Cycling. Christchurch city is completely flat, with well defined hills surrounding it. So road cycling is totally easy and wind is minimal. This year my route to university passed through two parks (Cranmer Square and Hagley Park) and a native reserve (Dean’s Bush) with generous cycle lanes in between. The pine-plastered hills have some great mountain bike trails as well.
Activities: The Lyttelton market. Lucy and I took a traveller here. Some of the things that were for sale: a box of cassette tapes, a translation of Mein Kampf, a silver Stalin bust, and a miscellaneous iron tool which looked like a long beak with scissor handles. We tasted some super tasty smoked cheese but refrained from buying it as it would have perished in the car’s heat.
Festivals: The Chinese New Year Lantern Festival. Wandering around here I feel like I’m in some anime film. It seems as if a dark/magical-realist adventure is about to pounce onto you in a dark corner.
Architecture: University of Canterbury. Christchurch’s architecture comes in two varieties: gothic revival or brutalism. The University of Canterbury is relentlessly adorned with concrete slabs, forming a village of brutalism which looks not too dissimilar from a gulag. It’s a style that tends to polarise people—it’s rough, dirty and square. Much like Christchurch itself, brutalism is criticised for its precise edges, its utilitarian functions, and its perfunctory materials. But these buildings and the philosophy from which they were built in the 1970s will be the parts of Christchurch we’ll dream about.
The Things We Will Miss About Christchurch
Christchurch is the city where scientists and soldiers make their last departure to Antarctica. This perhaps indicates how far south the city is, and how we sit on the border between the international community and parochial isolation. It’s easy to hide yourself here. The way the suburbs spread around a weak centre encourages solitude. Christchurch is a grid-like city, with straight lines reflected in its streets, architecture and people. The university specialises in engineering. We’re a community drawn on mathematic exercise books. Lucy and I are leaving Christchurch soon for Wellington, a city which seems more of a life form—lichen colonies in weird corners—than a concrete grid. These are the places and activities in Christchurch we will miss.
Bays: Corsair Bay. This is a bay which seems to have been carved out of the Banks Peninsula especially for families to swim in and picnic around. This photograph of Corsair Bay was taken in the 1920s and the view on a hot summer day today looks almost identical.
Cafés: The Lyttelton Coffee Company. This is a café with tall ceilings, nice staff, interesting music, and bread they bake on site. I don’t know the difference between ‘good’ and ‘average’ coffee so I won’t claim they have great coffee but I’ve heard other people say that Lyttelton Coffee Company’s coffee is nice.
Bars: Bar Antonio’s. Bar Antonio’s, “The smallest bar in Christchurch”, is so insanely and naively kitsch that it’s almost the equivalent of outsider art, in bar form. An outsider bar. It was founded by a Japanese man, Antonio, who moved to Christchurch to pursue windsurfing, snowboarding and flamenco dancing. He started a cultishly successful Japanese restaurant called Osaka (“Cheap but yummy”) and began piano lessons in his mid-60s. If you’re lucky, Antonio will play his interpretation of Celine Dione’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ on the bar’s digital piano.
Sports: Cycling. Christchurch city is completely flat, with well defined hills surrounding it. So road cycling is totally easy and wind is minimal. This year my route to university passed through two parks (Cranmer Square and Hagley Park) and a native reserve (Dean’s Bush) with generous cycle lanes in between. The pine-plastered hills have some great mountain bike trails as well.
Activities: The Lyttelton market. Lucy and I took a traveller here. Some of the things that were for sale: a box of cassette tapes, a translation of Mein Kampf, a silver Stalin bust, and a miscellaneous iron tool which looked like a long beak with scissor handles. We tasted some super tasty smoked cheese but refrained from buying it as it would have perished in the car’s heat.
Festivals: The Chinese New Year Lantern Festival. Wandering around here I feel like I’m in some anime film. It seems as if a dark/magical-realist adventure is about to pounce onto you in a dark corner.
Architecture: University of Canterbury. Christchurch’s architecture comes in two varieties: gothic revival or brutalism. The University of Canterbury is relentlessly adorned with concrete slabs, forming a village of brutalism which looks not too dissimilar from a gulag. It’s a style that tends to polarise people—it’s rough, dirty and square. Much like Christchurch itself, brutalism is criticised for its precise edges, its utilitarian functions, and its perfunctory materials. But these buildings and the philosophy from which they were built in the 1970s will be the parts of Christchurch we’ll dream about.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Feeeel It
Today we've 'released' the first single of our album, Glory Glory. It's called 'Feeeel It'. I guess this means that you'll be able to request it at your local easy listening radio station. (Here's the contact details for The Breeze.)
Johnny Lyon and Sophia Jenny have kindly made this video for the song:
Pre-orders for the album can be made here, or limited cassette here.
Johnny Lyon and Sophia Jenny have kindly made this video for the song:
Pre-orders for the album can be made here, or limited cassette here.
Friday, March 25, 2011
RQEQ
Just as we had left Christchurch we heard that there'd been another big earthquake back home. I sent a text to my mother and father saying 'how was the earthquake?' The only indication I had of the scope of the damage was that it was '6.1'. News websites were down and Twitter only had apocryphal claims that 'the cathedral [was] down' and blurry phone-camera photos of dust and smoke in the air. I was at work, in an office. I just wanted to know if my parents were all right. That seemed all that mattered.
Lucy and I have been fortunate enough to not have anyone we were close to die in the February 22 earthquake, but some of our friends haven't been able to say this. It seems that a lot of people have lost their homes and businesses. The apartments--a converted Gothic 19th Century school--where my parents lived and where we recorded most of Skin to Soil and Glory Glory have suffered pretty extensive damage, was red-stickered, and face an uncertain future. Lucy and I are safe for now in Wellington sitting on the Southern fault line. Until then we walk to work and University past beautiful towers looking increasingly ephemeral.
Richard from Rose Quartz made a Christchurch-earthquake fundraiser compilation which features some sweet Christchurch bands and other cool bands who have played in Christchurch. You can donate to Red Cross here, and then (once you've made a generous donation), download the compilation here. We've contributed the first song, 'Feeeel It', from our upcoming album, Glory Glory. (It's all done, it's just getting mastered now!) It's a nice mix, including Shocking Pinks, Grouper, and our friends Canterbury Rams, Mount Pleasant, and With Moths.
Friday, February 18, 2011
News x4
CALH 2011: Thanks Blink and everyone who helped make Campus A Low Hum 2011. Reviews here and here.
Album: All songs are recorded. We just need to add bass to 'Last Day of Summer'. If anyone in Wellington wants to lend us a bass for a few days that would be sweet ^_^ Mixing continues...
Show: Playing on Monday night at Happy on March 7 supporting The Ocean Floor and City Oh Sigh. Hopefully the show will start and end early so that people can safely go to work or university on Tuesday morning.
Tapes: Skin to Soil has sold out online, but there are seven copies left which we'll sell at the show. Once these are gone, they will be gone. I think it would be disingenuous/reflect poorly on Wet Wings if we were to produce more tapes as they were promoted as 'limited edition', so we won't.
Album: All songs are recorded. We just need to add bass to 'Last Day of Summer'. If anyone in Wellington wants to lend us a bass for a few days that would be sweet ^_^ Mixing continues...
Show: Playing on Monday night at Happy on March 7 supporting The Ocean Floor and City Oh Sigh. Hopefully the show will start and end early so that people can safely go to work or university on Tuesday morning.
Tapes: Skin to Soil has sold out online, but there are seven copies left which we'll sell at the show. Once these are gone, they will be gone. I think it would be disingenuous/reflect poorly on Wet Wings if we were to produce more tapes as they were promoted as 'limited edition', so we won't.
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