Fans of shitty ruined photography cool filters may wish to note that Juliana is now on Instagram.
Minor Alps are scheduled for a radio session on KEXP next week (Friday, November 8) at 1pm Seattle time. This is ahead of their debut live appearance in the city later that day as part of the Barsuk Records 15th anniversary.
Further reviews of the new Minor Alps album:
The Minor Alps have arrived, and Get There is a worthy story of their journey.
Justin Weller, mxdwn.com
And while the current hipster generation might be unfamiliar with these veteran alt-rockers, fans of contemporary indie pop and electro-folk (Bon Iver springs to mind) will definitely find enjoyment in songs like the gorgeously rustic Maxon, the poignant Waiting For You and thoughtful Buried Plans., 4/5
Kevin Mathews, Today
Hopefully this isn't a one-off, since Get There is as pleasurable as anything Hatfield or Nada Surf have offered listeners in recent years.
Mark Deming, AllMusic
There's an audio interview with Juliana at WYEP, where she discusses Minor Alps.
(Diffuser): We’re going to put each of you on the spot for a second: Matthew: What is your favorite Juliana Hatfield song or album? Juliana: What is your favorite Nada Surf song or album?
MC: Whoa. Well, there’s a recent song called ‘Candy Wrappers’ that I adore. I love a lot of songs by the Who, but the first one I fell for was ‘Can’t Explain,’ and it’s still my favorite. So in this case, the [Blake Babies] song called ‘Out There’ on ‘Sunburn,’ is still one of my favorite songs by anybody. But I’m just a big fan in general. I really feel like a lot of what Juliana does is stuff that I wished I did myself. I said once that I thought maybe our ancestors are from the same town in Scotland. There’s something deeply connected for me, melodically.
JH: It’s weird how when we sing together, it just falls into place easily. It just makes so much sense without having to think about it. It’s just like a real nice thing that happens to happen. You can’t really explain it. I, like many people, think that the ‘Let Go’ album is probably like Top 10 desert-island-disc-type [material], and then from the recent album [‘The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy’], I was really obsessed with the song ‘The Moon Is Calling.’ I was in art school that year — for that one year the record was out — but I would drive back and forth to school every day and that song was on repeat; it was the only thing I’d listen to over and over and over again to art school for months. And I was really obsessed with it. I’m not sure why. It’s nothing I can explain. Something just hit that spot deep inside of me.
There's a terrific interview with Juliana and Matthew at Diffuser, where they talk in depth about the songs and recording of Get There.
Some links for reviews of the Minor Alps album:
However, despite this largely being an album about isolation and the internal struggles that come with it, Hatfield and Caws sing nearly every line on Get There together, as in simultaneously. Naturally, I expected the two to trade off lead vocal duties on the album, but instead they share almost every lyric, never fighting for the spotlight and often using this dynamic to create really beautiful, moving harmonies, such as at the end of “Buried Plans.” 8.8/10
Michael Garrity, Paste
This combo creates a very intimate and satisfying listen as you might already guess. Caws typical hush vocal delivery shines in this setting and when Hatfield chimes in on a harmony, it is the perfect complement. 3.5/5
Rather than simply trading lead vocal duties, they take the effortless harmonies route instead, making it hard to discern where one voice ends and the other begins. While the acoustic songs are satisfyingly pretty, particularly "Maxon," it's when they make the switch to electric that it comes alive. 7/10
Michael Edwards, exclaim.ca
The duo co-write, sing and play nearly every instrument on a predominantly lush, lovely rendered debut that is never less than pleasant. Unfortunately, it’s seldom more than that either as these amiable tunes drift on a dreamy haze that threatens to slide into a memorable chorus or melody, but seldom does. 2.5/5
Hal Horowitz, American Songwriter
A few weeks on from releasing her solo acoustic album we have more Juliana music to enjoy this week.
Minor Alps (Juliana's project with Nada Surf's Matthew Caws) release their album Get There today (Oct 28) in the UK via Ye Olde Records. The album is available on physical CD (Amazon UK affiliate link) and is also up on digital download sites.
The album is out tomorrow (Oct 29) in the US via Barsuk.
Labels for other regions vary, with release dates between now and mid-November.
Fire Records have this month reissued the first three Lemonheads albums - Hate Your Friends (1987), Creator (1988) and Lick (1989), "featuring copious bonus tracks and many never-before released rarities and live recordings."
Rampant Juliana completists may care to note that track 24 on the reissue of Creator is a Lemonheads branded version of the Blake Babies' From Here To Burma, featuring composers Strohm on drums and Hatfield on vocals. Rdio link.
A week ahead of the US release date, Rolling Stone is streaming the Minor Alps album Get There.
It would seem that this stream is not available outside the US.
UPDATE As Andrew mentions in the comments there is another stream at MuchMusic, which might be Canada only.
As was the case with last year's covers album it doesn't appear that Juliana has sent any review copies out or employed any kind of publicist for 'Wild Animals'.
Reviews are therefore in short supply.
Snob's Music gave a 7/10 score in a write up posted within days of the Pledge release in August.
Other than a few comments there hasn't been much else.
Today Andrew Griffin has posted a 4/5 rated review at Red Dirt Report. Thanks to Andrew for sharing the link.
my new secret lo-fi acoustic solo album, "Wild Animals", is officially available now
— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) September 12, 2013
The album is now appearing on the digital outlets including your iTunes.
Looks like you can still order the CD at julianahatfield.com too.
Some sad news.
Some of you may have known fellow fan Mary Haddon.
Allison Hardin has contacted this site:
I am saddened to share the news that Mary Haddon passed away yesterday after her battle against breast cancer.
One of the biggest joys of the last year of her life was the opportunity to meet Juliana Hatfield; Mary was an avid Juliana fan and had followed her for years.
You may recall that Mary wrote a heartwarming account of her trip to Boston in Summer 2012 to see Juliana's PledgeMusic shows at the Q Division Studios. You can read the account where she mentions the moment Juliana played 'Shining On' here. (scroll to July 3, 2012)
Thoughts and best wishes to Mary's family and friends.
Juliana:
I was living in a studio apartment in Allston, Massachusetts, which is sort of like a student ghetto of cheap apartments. Evan Dando was sort of crashing there. He had nothing to do with it, but I just remember he was around. And I was trying to write something catchy and accessible, but not in a crass, commercial way. I just came up with those four chords that are the verse, and then it sort of ended up not having a chorus.
I've always been in this sort of perpetual state of existential longing. I feel like something's missing. I almost feel like I have a twin who died at birth but no one ever told me that the twin existed. And with this song, I was trying to explore the idea of a sister who I never had. In the beginning, that seemed like a really nice idea. I had two brothers, but I never had a sister. But then the song ended up being kind of sad. It was more of a longing for a sister who was never nice to me, or a relationship lacking the things that I wanted from it.
SPIN has a lengthy article revisiting 1993's My Sister featuring quotes from many including members of The Juliana Hatfield Three and, yes, the Violent Femmes and the Del Fuegos.
You don't want to miss this one.
a great piece on Become What You Are: http://t.co/vg23YDEwuw ("defying any pop expectations of a winning narrative")
— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) August 21, 2013
Elizabeth Barker:
There wasn’t much opportunity for daydream or the invention of more extraordinary selves in Become What You Are. Instead Juliana showed you her reality and all the ways it let her down. Some of her angst was existential, like on “For The Birds” (the dead-bird one, the one where she finds a dying bird in the first chorus, and in the second chorus argues that “Humans only wreck the world/They’d kill your whole family for a string of pearls”). A few of the songs were painfully personal: “Addicted” was at least partly about her anorexia (“The skeleton trees remind me of me/They got no leaves/To make the air we breathe”), while “Little Pieces” was a breakup anthem stripped of any cheery delusions of romantic grandeur (“Feels like a heartbreak/But it’s nothing near that great”). And several tracks served as social commentary, taking on everything from rape (“A Dame with a Rod”) to the false promise of rock-star worship (“I Got No Idols”) to the emptiness of the fashion industry (the album-opening “Supermodel,” on which she warns that “Those magazines end up in the trash,” stretching out the lyric’s last syllable for eight weird and gorgeous seconds).
Read the whole article at Popdose.
Barsuk Records have released the track list for Get There by Minor Alps (Juliana Hatfield & Matthew Caws). You can also now download the first track (Buried Plans) from their site.
- Buried Plans
- I Don't Know What To Do With My Hands
- Far From The Roses
- If I Wanted Trouble
- Maxon
- Wish You Were Upstairs
- Mixed Feelings
- Radio Static
- Lonely Low
- Waiting For You
- Away Again
Barsuk:
Along with sharing lead vocals and writing credit on all of Get There's eleven tracks, Matthew and Juliana played every instrument beside the drums, conjuring up an ever-shifting range of sounds and feelings. It's not just the timbre of the voices and the shared vision of their musical explorations, but the emotional tone of Caws and Hatfield's songs and lyrics that blends so seamlessly. Their attraction to themes of restless solitude and constant longing have always been a compelling part of their individual repertoires, and Minor Alps expresses an ageless existential yearning tempered by hard-fought wisdom, maturity, or maybe just acceptance of certain eternal truths.
Much anticipation at liveontomorrow hq for this record.
If you've been paying attention to the odd tweet from various parties since the beginning of this year, you'll know that Juliana has been working with Nada Surf's Matthew Caws.
They're now ready to go public.
They're calling themselves Minor Alps and releasing Get There - an eleven track album of songs written together on October 29, 2013.
There are live dates in the US during November:
08 Neptune Theater - Seattle, WA
09 Hawthorne Theater - Portland, OR
11 The Independent - SF, CA
12 Echoplex - LA, CA
14 Soda Bar - San Diego, CA
16 Cedar Cultural Ctr - Minneapolis, MN
17 Schubas - Chicago, IL
19 Black Cat - Washington, DC
20 Bowery Ballroom - NY, NY
22 World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA
23 The Sinclair - Boston, MA
Fan pre-sale for the November tour dates starts Wednesday noon eastern time: http://t.co/WtdFVF2jOz General on sale is Friday, August 16th.
— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) August 12, 2013
From the bio at Paradigm Agency:
In the year before they recorded these songs (mostly with Caws’ old friend Tom Beaujour at his studio in Hoboken, NJ) Hatfield and Caws wrote together in brief but intense bursts at his studio in Brooklyn, at her place in Cambridge, MA, and at Caws’ current home in Cambridge, England. Those sessions themselves inspired one of the songs, as Matthew explains: “We were hanging out and working on ideas for a few days in England and it was such a positive thing that I really missed it when it was over. We spent most of the time working together, but sometimes we’d go to separate rooms to write. ‘Wish You Were Upstairs’ is about energy by proxy—how collaborating with someone, or just being industrious at the same time, can be comforting and inspiring, particularly if they’re just fifteen feet away.”
“That’s exactly what it’s like,” Juliana interjects. “I wanted us to have a mind meld, a musical one, because I know there are these barriers between people and it takes a long time to get close to someone. We were just getting to know each other while we were trying to write songs together. When we first got together writing, I felt very vulnerable because I usually do it alone. It’s a delicate balance to go to that vulnerable place yet do it in front of another person. That was the challenge, but the more we did it, the more it felt natural.”
Choosing a name for their self-sufficient combo became one of those long mulled-over decisions that ultimately get resolved in an instant. Decades ago, Matthew’s family had purchased a cheap mountainside cottage in France, with no running water or electricity, where he spent several summers as a child. The mountain overlooking the region, the Mont Ventoux, while technically part of the Alps, isn’t referred to as such because there are no other mountains nearby. Matthew described it as a “minor alp” to his friend, photographer Autumn de Wilde, years ago, who immediately said “great band name, write that down.” So, as Matthew puts it, “in the tradition of Iron Butterfly or Led Zeppelin, band names that contain contradictions, we chose Minor Alps—humble mountains.”
On a more metaphorical level, Hatfield believes, the moniker suits them: “Maybe the whole world doesn’t know who we are, but the people who do really appreciate us” – making Minor Alps nothing less than a major event.
The official home for the project is minoralps.tumblr.com. Also on Facebook.
Ooh.