News

June 5, 2012

Jherek Bischoff releases album, tours with Amanda Palmer

Jherek Bischoff's Composed drops today so dust off your record players, clear out your iPods, fire up your computers, and take those ratty old mix CDs out of the car to make some room. (Does anyone still have CD players? Or cars?) What a wonderful day Tuesday June 5th is! That is, unless you live outside of North America in which case maybe you started enjoying the record yesterday and Monday June 4th is looking pretty awesome, too.

We know you've been counting down the days to this joyous moment! Sadly, Jherek hasn't had any time to savor his days. He's been too damn busy taking part in Amanda Palmer's Grand Theft Orchestra. Maybe you've heard about his involvement in Amanda's paradigm-shifting (yep, we just said paradigm) $1 MILLION Kickstarter project. Well, guess what, Jherek is not only part of her band, we've just found out he'll be playing an opening set at every one of her upcoming shows.

Basically it's like, whoa but you can clicky-click for more info too, or just scroll to the end of this news story for the list of tour dates. A few more things to whet your appetite.

First, this music video for "Young and Lovely" featuring two of Jherek's long time associates, Zac Pennington & Soko:



Second, a special offer! Of course, the new album is available from Amazon, iTunes, Insound, and the Brassland online store. But -- brace yourselves -- it's available from physical record stores, too.

Because we're old school like that, we've even provided a handful of shops a little leg up on the competition, namely a limited number of lovely 7" singles featuring Jherek's collaboration with David Byrne and the aforementioned "Young & Lovely." These are available for free with your album purchase. There's only 1,000 copies of this 7" worldwide so race to your local retail shop! Here they are listed by STATE.

- CALIFORNIA: Rhino Records (235 Yale Ave., Claremont, CA 91711)
- COLORADO: Twist and Shout (2508 East Colfax, Denver, CO 80206)
- DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Politics & Prose (5015 Connecticut Ave. Northwest, Washington, DC 20008)
- ARIZONA: Stinkweeds (12 West Camelback Road, Phoenix, AZ 85013)
- DELAWARE: Rainbow Books (54 East Main St. #1, Newark, DE 19711)
- FLORIDA: Park Ave CDs (2916 Corrine Dr., Orlando, FL 32803)
- GEORGIA: Criminal Records (1154-A Euclid Ave. NE, Atlanta, GA 30307)
- INDIANA: Luna Music (5202 N College, Indianapolis, IN 46204)
- MAINE: Bull Moose (17 Arbor St. Portland, ME 14103)
- MINNESOTA: Electric Fetus (2000 4th Ave. So., Minneapolis, MN 55404)
- NEW JERSEY: Princeton Record Exchange (20 South Tulane St., Princeton, NJ 05842)
- NEW YORK: Other Music (15 East 4th St., New York, NY 10003)
- NORTH CAROLINA: School Kids (2114 Hillsborough St., Raleigh, NC 27607)
- OHIO: Shake It Records (4156 Hamilton, Cincinnati, OH 45223)
- OHIO: Culture Clash (4020 Secor Rd., Toledo, OH 43623)
- OREGON: Music Millennium (3158 East Burnside Ave., Portland, OR)
- TENNESSEE: Grimey's (1604 8th Ave. South, Nashville, TN 37203)
- TENNESSEE: Disc Exchange (2615 Chapman Hwy, Knoxville, TN 37920)
- TEXAS: End of An Ear (2209 South 1st St., Austin, TX 78704)
- TEXAS: Good Records (1808 Lower Greenville Ave., Dallas, TX 75206)
- WASHINGTON: Easy Street (20 Mercer St., Seattle, WA 98109)
- WASHINGTON: Sonic Boom (2209 NW Market St., Seattle, WA 98107)
- WASHINGTON: Silver Platters (701 5th Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98109)

Now that we've fully prepared you to get in on the record release action, we'll sign off with this heartfelt letter about the project from the artist himself. Get into it!

"I've been working on this album since 2009 and began this wild journey as a very behind the scenes guy, always afraid to ask people to participate in my own thing. What started as songs written on a ukulele with me humming gibberish has blossomed into a full orchestral record with pretty much all of my heroes! Most of the people on COMPOSED had never heard of me before I approached them, and had no obligation to be involved, but decided to collaborate because they believed in the music. This gives me a lot of hope both personally and for humanity! All the musical and non-musical growing pains of the past have brought me to an insanely special place.

"My recent New York shows at the Ecstatic Music Festival and the Brooklyn Academy of Music brought together many of the guests, and a couple of my best friends filling in here and there. The first concert featured all the tunes from COMPOSED and the second included some of my previous work. It was wonderful to see all of these people whose work had been put together on my little laptop in the same room together. These were the most beautiful nights of my life (so far)!

"This record is a celebration of my friends, family, collaborators, and every musician I have crossed paths with so I am taking this moment before it is released into the world to hope this love travels into your ears and spreads love bugs all over your brain.

"I will have some real news soon. I will be doing several tours with my friend Amanda Palmer, playing bass in her band and also opening a lot of her shows. I am planning some big shows of my own later this year in Seattle and New York City. One day I hope to travel to your neck of the woods, so check in to my website, Facebook & Twitter every once in a while and come see a show!"


And here are those dates he's talking about.




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