Posts in release news

God's Foot, as most of us know all too well, is the mid 90s album that has never been released. Many fans suspect it may be Juliana's masterpiece. You can read more about it here.

Today, we got perhaps the next best thing to your actual mastered studio mixes. Juliana has released some demos from the era, available as an exclusive on PledgeMusic as part of the Juliana Hatfield Three reunion project (archived). Surely we've all bought this one, yes?

The tracks as originally labelled back in the day:

1. How Would You Know
2. Mountains Of Love
3. Fade Away
4. Eye To Eye
5. Get Over Me
6. Don't Need A Reason
7. You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory
8. Chance Is Waiting
9. I Didn't Know
10. Simple Man / Take Me To Your Master
11. Charity

Of the release Juliana says:

the recordings were taken from an old cassette--the only version of these recordings that i have. so the sound quality is going to be possibly very slightly unlike status quo to ears that are used to, like taylor swift..or digital high resolution everything..the songs were recorded onto 2-inch reel-to-reel tape and then most likely transferred to half-inch tape and then transferred onto a cassette for my listening pleasure and then that cassette ended up in the basement sitting in a paper bag full of cassettes and then years later (circa now) the cassette was transferred onto a CD. and then this will be converted to mP3’s..it is by no means a sonic disaster..it sounds great and fine to me. but i am a caveman. and i know there are some serious audiophiles out there and they might notice something sounds a little off..but i don’t, really. and the demo versions of the songs are really cool… and some are quite different than what ended up on the album that never came out.

there are 11 songs..there were some different songs that ended up being considered for the album but either we did not demo every single song, or there are some that just cannot be found. although i never finalized an official version and sequence of the album, some of you have heard versions of what people who made the songs available (not me) were calling “god’s foot”. but, again, i never sanctioned the song choices. since i knew the album was not ever scheduled for release, i never needed to finalize the song choices or mixes or the sequence. i am telling you this so that no one is disappointed that a few songs you might’ve been expecting to be part of the GF demos will not be there. for example, “perfection” is not included in the demos. i don’t remember doing a demo for that one. maybe it exists somewhere, but i can’t find it. so that one is not in the list of GF demos…

These near 20 year old demos are sacred artefacts to this Juliana fan and I'm so pleased she's released them.

The 2014 reformation of the JH3 is a massive deal but given what we know so far about what's to come, I'll admit to being more excited to hear early versions of these GF songs than, say, a reworked 'If Only We Were Dogs'.

There are songs here that I've wanted to write about for years but have been reticent given the circumstances. Maybe now is the time for a kinda sorta God's Foot review. I'll give these tracks a good number of listens first anyway.

Big day.

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.

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.

1. Buried Plans
2. I Don't Know What To Do With My Hands
3. Far From The Roses
4. If I Wanted Trouble
5. Maxon
6. Wish You Were Upstairs
7. Mixed Feelings
8. Radio Static
9. Lonely Low
10. Waiting For You
11. 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.

The tracklist for Juliana's new album, released today via PledgeMusic (subscribers only):

1. Sleep
2. June 6th
3. Spit In The Wind
4. Parking Lots
5. Dog On A Chain
6. Hurt Me
7. Tracks
8. Push Pin
9. Or So They Say
10. Love Is Like The Wind
11. Never Beg

It is titled 'Wild Animals', acoustic and very much a solo effort, similar to the sound of the Peace & Love album.

It's available to download as mp3 and...drumroll...FLAC.

Juliana says to pledgers:

I am eternally grateful and so happy and lucky to be able to keep making my music for you. I sincerely hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed assembling it in my little back room with the bird songs coming in through the windows.

Currently this is a PledgeMusic exclusive but as per the last two projects we can expect a general release within a few weeks. UPDATE - the release date is September 10. Pre-orders are being taken at julianahatfield.com.

Juliana's new fan funded project launched today.

A whole brand spanking new album is in the works.

Juliana:

This is my third Pledge Music project and I am optimistically jumping into it because I have been so encouraged by your energy and your generosity and your many ongoing kindnesses. I am excited to bring this new batch of songs to life. I am going to make a mostly (but not totally) acoustic album but I am not going to overthink or overproduce any performances. It will have the loose energy of, say, my album “Bed”, without all the distortion (but maybe with some) and with more prettiness.

The 'incentives' include an online acoustic performance on Aug 10, more original artwork, a signed guitar, an unworn high school varsity jacket (!) and a whole bunch of back catalogue on cd.

There's also some tour books, and unreleased demo / master tapes - but most if not all of these high ticket items are already gone having been snapped up in seconds by the eager kings and queens of browser refreshing.

Tantalisingly Juliana goes on to say:

Throughout this process, as I work on the new recordings, I will be sharing other music with you that you might not have ever heard before, music I have recently unearthed from my vast archives.

Marvellous.

Juliana Hatfield, aka The Covers Album is now on general release.

The album is available on cd from julianahatfield.com and digitally at iTunes and Spotify with other digital services expected to follow.

Juliana has announced that she will be closing the PledgeMusic project for the covers album tomorrow (Friday 31 August 2012).

There's a handful of artwork and posters still available so if you want them you'd better be quick.

Here we go.

Juliana's new album of covers - the oddly titled Juliana Hatfield, is now available as a download for PledgeMusic subscribers ahead of the global release, which remains scheduled for August 28, 2012.

This site hasn't published the artwork, title and track list before now because Juliana has wanted, in her olde worldy ye olde records style, to keep it a secret.

Although some of the arrangements will come as a surprise the chosen songs are pretty much in line with what she has posted to PledgeMusic / Twitter and the live shows in June.

1. Cells
2. Learn To Fly
3. Bad Moon Rising
4. Ready For Love
5. Selfmachine
6. Fruit Fly
7. Closet
8. Sweet Is The Night
9. Do I Wait
10. Friend Of Mine*
11. My Wife*
12. Rock And Roll

*omitted from the vinyl version.

What are you waiting for? Allez. Avante. Now.