News

August 9, 2012

Buke and Gase announce new EP, tour with Deerhoof

Ever since Buke and Gase's new song "Hiccup" was released to the public in May, people have been wondering when the next album would be out. Well folks, today is the day!

Well, sort of! We're not actually ready to announce the band's next album but we sure as heck are announcing the crap out of a new 4-track, digital-only EP.

It's called Function Falls and you can preview the first track "Mishaping Introduction" on their Bandcamp page. In other pre-news, you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp too. If you do so the pre-cious new material will be pre-sented to your email inbox on or before September 11th, a heavy release date for a heavy band.

You p...


July 12, 2012

Jherek Bischoff tours with Amanda Palmer, here & abroad

If it seems like Jherek Bischoff has been touring nonstop, it's because he has. And guess what? More tour dates are coming this fall!

Jherek will be joining Amanda Palmer as part of the Grand Theft Orchestra for a long list of U.S., Canadian, and European shows that will start in September and continue through November. And that's not all. If you happen to be a kick ass string player these dates could feature YOU. We'll let Amanda take it from here in this excerpt from her newsletter announcing the dates:

"Grand Theft bassist and arranger/composer JHEREK BISCHOFF will be giving us a dose of BEAUTIFUL string quartet music off his newly released album 'Compose...


June 27, 2012

Clogs re-emerge, go on tour

What ever happened to Clogs? It's a question we periodically ask ourselves. Well, guess what, they're re-emerging this summer for a tour that will explore the northeastern U.S. and Maritime provinces. (We'd never heard of the Maritme provinces either. Apparently it's a Canadian thing.) They also played Los Angeles this past weekend but we forgot to tell you about it. We hear it was awesome.

Anyway, band co-founder and O.G. Brasslander Bryce Dessner will be sitting out this round, but they group will have several guests joining in the music-making. Guitarist Ben Cassorla will join the group throughout the entire tour. Creatures vocalist Shara Worden will sing at the H...


June 22, 2012

Brassland on the road (mostly in Northeastern North America)

Guess what happened last week? Spring sprung into summer and three of our artists began their journeys on the road. (Not to be confused with On the Road, though that's good too.) Why just last week Doveman and Clogs played exceedingly rare live shows -- Doveman in New York's Bryant Park, and Clogs at Los Angeles's Bootleg Theater. And Jherek Bischoff played a three gigs at London's Village Underground, all of them opening for Amanda Palmer. And they'll all be playing more shows in the near future!

I know what you're thinking: "Thanks a lot Brassland, how about you tell us about these gig before they happen? You pretentious NYC a**holes."

(A rejoinder...


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 invo...


May 14, 2012

A look back at Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

We hope everyone enjoyed the Crossing Brooklyn Ferry music festival held earlier this month at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Maybe we enjoyed it a bit too much? Hence the delay in this event wrap-up.

As you probably know already, Bryce and Aaron Dessner curated the event, which featured St. Vincent, The Walkmen, Beirut, Atlas Sound, The Antlers, and many more of Brooklyn's best and brightest and up and comers. (We almost called them "acts" but then thought better of it. Whew, close call.) Brassland's roster was well-represented performances by Jherek Bischoff, People Get Ready, and Buke and Gase. In addition, Bryce sat in with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Aaron guested wit...


April 26, 2012

Buke and Gase working on new album, curating The Stone

Like many others on our roster, Aron and Arone of Buke & Gase are getting a chance to stretch their curatorial muscles this spring. (Get it? That picture is of them stretching. Ha, well, at least we crack ourselves up.) Anyway, the Stone has asked the duo to function as curators for the first two weeks of May. If you've never heard of The Stone, it's a small, drafty, legendary and awesome music performance space on the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street, started by jazz-slash-uncategorizable musical innovator John Zorn. The building used to be a corner grocery story and the only signage guiding you to the club are the words "The Stone" in small gold lettering glued onto the door, wor...


April 10, 2012

The National + Grateful Dead

We just want to point out that this happened. The Bridge Session, a collaborative concert involving Bob Weir, members of The National, The Walkmen, Takka Takka, Yellow Birds and Thomas "Doveman" Bartlett took place in Northern California (and on the internet) in late March. No it wasn't a collective hallucination. You can read about The National's continuing interest in reinterpreting the Dead legacy elsewhere on the internet, or this more personal take on drummer Bryan Devendorf's appreciation for both the Dead & Phish. Despite our punk & DIY roots here at Brassland, we have erected a big tent all up in here -- and if you go back far enough you sort of start to realize almost al...


April 5, 2012

Doveman's Burgundy Stain Session returns to NYC

What the hell is going on in that picture? We were wondering too. But St. Vincent's Twitter feed cleared everything up. Apparently it's St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) literally walking all over Doveman.

What the hell indeed!?! Is this Annie's way of lording it over her equally pseudonymous but slightly less unit-shifting friend Doveman (aka Thomas Bartlett). Well...no. We actually think she was giving him an EXTREME massage. That said, when Doveman's friends walk all over him, shouldn't he get a shot at turning the tables? Hells YES!

Starting next week, Doveman (aka Thomas Bartlett) will once again turn (Le) Poisson Rouge into an intimate salon with the r...


March 27, 2012

Jherek Bischoff to release Composed record on Brassland

You've started to hear the name Jherek Bischoff around these parts (and by these parts, we mean the Brassland site), but allow us to take a moment to refresh your collective memories. The songwriter, producer, performer and composer has been called a “pop polymath” (The New York Times), a “Seattle phenom” (The New Yorker), and “the missing link between the sombre undertones of Ennio Morricone and the unpredictability of John Cale" (NME). We're trying not to get too braggy over here, but we are proud to be releasing this music and excited to finally announce the June 5th release date of his new album, Composed!

You can download a track from the first "single" right now:
"...


March 9, 2012

Tickets for Dessner-curated Crossing Brooklyn Ferry festival on sale!

That's right, we have more music festival news! Tickets are now on sale for the Crossing Brooklyn Ferry music festival, which will take place in just two months. The festival is being curated by Bryce and Aaron Dessner (not "The National," though yes, they do also happen to be in the band. Hey, they're people too!). It will be held from May 3 to 5 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

We also now have the full lineup now which sadly does not include To Be Confirmed. (We are still hoping to sign those guys.) It does, however, feature St. Vincent, Beirut, and The Walkmen. There will also be performances by The Antlers, Sharon Van Etten, Atlas Sound, My Brightest Diamond, yMusic an...


February 21, 2012

Jherek Bischoff Opens Ecstatic Music Festival

We're super proud of Jherek Bischoff, one of the new additions to our Brassland family! Jherek ringled the opening event of the Ecstatic Music Festival held earlier this at Merkin Concert Hall in NYC. Humble as he is, Jherek only took up a small portion of the stage, giving over the rest to the Wordless Music Orchestra and a string of marquee guest vocalists who kind of made our heads spin. Featured on the microphone throughout the night were David Byrne, Craig Wedren (Shudder to Think), Zac Pennington (aka Parenthetical Girls), Carla Bozulich (many cool bands!), Charlie Looker, singer/songwriter Mirah Zeitlyn, Jherek's former Dead Science teammate Sam Mickens, and a duo of People Ge...


January 23, 2012

Curate-a-Thon for The National

The National have found a way to cure the post-tour blues, now that they're keeping busy with curatorial activities throughout the year. The band was recently invited headline the All Tomorrow's Parties festival this December, and as part of that they get to pick the whole line-up. The festival is held in Minehead, UK which is, uh, right near Bristol, which is in...uh...yeah? (Ok, we had to Google Map that.) Anyway, a preliminary line-up has been announced, including (but not limited to): Kronos Quartet, The Antlers, Owen Pallett, Boris, Tim Hecker, Sharon Van Etten, My Brightest Diamond, Wye Oak, Lower Dens, Megafaun, Suuns, Dark Dark Dark, and our very own Buke and Gase! The rest o...


January 6, 2012

Our artists resolve to mix things up in 2012

The theme for the new year at Brassland might be "collaboration," with several of our artists teaming up for various "special projects" and some more classical pursuits.

Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman) has begun working with a new band called The Gloaming, an Irish/Celtic-oriented group which also features Iarla Ó Lionaird, Dennis Cahill, and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh. They will play in globalFEST 2012 this weekend, a sold-out festival featuring twelve artists held at New York's Webster Hall. A few days later Buke and Gase will enjoy a change of pace, performing in the New York Guitar Festival on January 12th alongside Sonic Youth's Lee Renaldo and guitar goddess Kaki King. All t...


December 30, 2011

Brassland Wraps Up Anniversary Year

Well, it's almost 2012, which means our ten-year anniversary festivities are almost over. We want to take a couple minutes to thank all of our long-time fans, along with the new followers we gained over the past couple months, for joining us for an internet party of sorts. The Song-a-Day Giveaway of music downloads lasted throughout November, with a distribution of freebies running the gamut of Brassland material. It included everything from early demo tracks by The National to songs by three new bands recently signed to the label.

We even got some nice press about the November celebration, with articles in Spin, the Guardian, BrooklynVegan (here and here), Pitchfork, Exclaim, S...


December 20, 2011

The National ends tour with Beacon shows

The National's tour bus has finally rolled to a stop, with the band concluding their High Violet tour with a series of performances at the Beacon Theater in New York City last week. Their six-show grand finale featured The War on Drugs, So Percussion, Wye Oak, Sharon Van Etten, My Brightest Diamond, and This is the Kit as openers, with various other musical friends like Richard Reed Parry from Arcade Fire and Trey Anastasio from Phish joining the band throughout the week. Nico Muhly and Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman) were both part of the on-stage party on Saturday.

The band sure has come a long way since we started out with them...and, in the spirit of feeling like proud parents...


December 2, 2011

Big ass announcement(s) from Buke and...Gase?

Your phonetic struggles are over! We know it's been hard on everyone trying to figure out the pronunciation of Buke and Gass. Is it bass like the fish, or bass the unusually funky instrument? Well, now there's no more subtly trailing off as you tell your friend about this great new band you love so much. ("Oh, you should really check out that band Buke and Guh-aa.....yeah, that one.") The band has decided to officially change their name to (insert drum roll here) Buke and Gase. Aron and Arone wrote their own explanation:

A limerick announcement addressing the mis-pronunciation of our name:

If there was one thing to replace
It would be the last S in Gass,
The...


November 9, 2011

New Nico Muhly opera premieres in November

In recent days, the topic of Mormonism has mostly been discussed in relation to comedic Broadway shows and presidential candidates. But this November, Mormons will also be represented in a new opera by Nico Muhly! Get tickets here for the New York run. Tonight is opening night though the opera will also be performed in Philadelphia next summer.

Dark Sisters was written with the playwright Stephen Karam and commissioned-slash-produced by the Gotham Chamber Opera, the Music-Theatre Group, and the Opera Company of Philadelphia. It tells the (fictional) story of a polygamist family targeted in a government raid to remove their children, and a wife trying to escape the household. You can...


November 1, 2011

Celebrate our anniversary with "Song-a-Day" Giveaway!

We're having an internet party all month with a Song-a-Day Giveaway on this site and on our Facebook page.

Check out the announcement on Pitchfork & learn how to acquire songs like this early, unreleased demo by The National. It's a song that's never otherwise been recorded or commercially released.



We're not certain of the exact date Brassland was born (that's how it goes with origin myths), but we know it was sometime in the fall of 2001 that Alec Hanley Bemis and the twins Bryce & Aaron Dessner put out the first pair of records by The National & Clogs. Instead of popping open some champagne corks in private (well, we might do that too)...


October 28, 2011

Doveman reissues his Footloose soundtrack

If you're anything like us, you were probably at the local megaplex opening night to experience the shining beacon of artistic creativity that is the remake of the movie Footloose. Who isn't a fan of edgy, hip-hop interpretations of the classic stories like this one: boy vs. authority, love & dancing in small town America...

Ok, so we can't even pretend that we've seen the new version of this movie and, let's be honest, we probably never will. However, we do have some relevant news: In conjunction with the release of the film, we've reissued Doveman's interpretation of the original soundtrack! Here is his friend Gabriel Greenberg writing about Doveman'...


October 13, 2011

Buke and Gass prep international tour (including Canada)

In the next few months Buke and Gass will set off on a number journeys outside of America, including a number of gigs with an avant-garde flavor.

In October, before crossing the Atlantic, they will kick off this run of international dates with a visit to X Avant New Music Festival in Toronto. (Canada counts as international, right? Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are both foreigners.) They'll be playing right after Lori Freedman's solo improvisations for woodwinds. We told you, it's avant-garde!

On the European dates, Buke and Gass will do a few shows around Austria and France, before hitting up the Week-End Festival in Deutschland. The Week-End organizers have exc...


September 16, 2011

The National look to future projects

Now that they've been touring for over a year and a half, The National is winding down with a few last shows before they enjoy a break. Now, don't jump to any conclusions. Just because the band is going to take a breather doesn't mean they aren't thinking about new music. In fact, Bryce and Aaron Dessner recently sat down for an interview with NME to discuss ideas for the next record.

In that interview, the twins also discussed the film Summer Lovin' Torture Party, by Matt Berninger's brother Tom (thus completing the triad of pairs of brothers working together). Tom's documentary follows The National during their High Violet tour, and had a couple prelimi...


August 18, 2011

Catching Up With Buke & Gass

It seems like Buke & Gass have been going non-stop since we released Riposte last year. But now, with the end of summer (kind of) in sight, it's time to check in with what's been going on with them, and what's coming up fast.

First up, and something we're pretty excited about, is some news that came our way from Spin. Reggie Watts, in an interview with Spin, called Buke & Gass one of his favorite things!

Hold up a minute. That's a pretty big title. I mean, when you open up the floor to include just about everything, and you're still someone's favorite thing? Huge. Said Watts, "I was on NPR's Radiolab and they were one of the bands that were o...


August 8, 2011

The National Headlines Latitude Festival, Showcase Brassland Catalog

As our friends across the pond are well aware, The National headlined a night at last month's 2011 Latitude Festival. Not only did they thoroughly rock the house (err, arena), but they went all out. For us. Halfway through the set, they knocked out "Available" off of


July 28, 2011

Aaron and Bryce Perform The Long Count at Holland Festival

The National's European fans are certainly getting the royal treatment. While on tour in the UK recently, the band performed tunes from their earlier albums at the Latitude Festival. But that's not all. At the Holland Festival on June 2, the Aaron and Bryce Dessner decided to perform "Tests," from their 70-minute composition The Long Count.

Feeling bummed because you missed out on the good times in Europe? Fret not, for we present you with a video of the "Tests" performance, featuring vocals by Matt Berninger:

For those of you in Europe, why are you sitting there watching a video? Go check out the list of The National's upcoming tour dates and experie...


June 27, 2011

Buke & Gass J-j-jam with Reggie Watts & Glenn Kotche from Wilco

A few weeks ago the very awesome radio program Radiolab presented a fun concert at New York University including a performance by our friends & your favorite new band, Buke & Gass. If you want to cut to the chase and hear the podcast, go here.

Now, the fact that the band appeared on this extremely popular NPR podcast is, weirdly enough, no big deal. They've already appeared on the show twice in the past. This time, however, host Jad "complicated last name" Abumrad also invited along drummer Glenn Kotche of Wilco, and the one-and-only Reggie Watts.

Since we've already started paraphrasing their description of the event we'll let them take it from here: "Their per...


June 20, 2011

The National featured in Marshall Curry's new doc

Oscar-nominated director Marshall Curry's new documentary, "If a Tree Falls" premieres in New York this week. It will have one-week screenings in theaters across the country throughout the summer. The film is about the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and their agressive defense of the environment. Why are we so excited, you ask? Well, first of all, we like woodland creatures and forests and stuff. But that's not the reason. We'll let the trailer speak for itself. (Hint: keeping one ear tuned to the background music at the 1:00 minute mark.):

Why yes, that IS the title track of the National's Cherry Tree EP playing in the trailer! And yes, we have lost some wei...


June 15, 2011

Hello Guardian readers & a jolly good day to "England"

Let's cut to the chase: here's some FREE MUSIC. That's what you want, right? Well, click away to enjoy a compilation representing 10-years of good music making (via Bandcamp).

Brassland Sampler for 2011 (FREE!) by Brassland

And while you're here consider friending/fanning/following us on Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud if you're into that kind of thing.

To cut to the chase for a second time: If you're reading this today there's a good chance you came to us via this most excellent profile about the label's 10th anniversary in London's Guardian newspaper. It's been a big-in-England kind of year for the label & our artists. High Violet, The National's third record...


May 23, 2011

Buke & Gass head to Europe, open for Lou Reed & show us their hands

Folks across the pond, your chance is...not now, but in the very near future! After taking part in The Netherland's Cross-Linx Festival alongside The National earlier this year, Buke and Gass are making a grand return to the European continent. This time, they're embarking on a quick headlining tour that takes them to six countries, before opening for Mr. Lou Reed for a couple shows, in London and Paris respectively. Yes, THE Lou Reed. (And no The Lou Reed is not a new band from Brooklyn, we mean the guy named Lou Reed.)

These two shows are going to be something special, so needless to say, if you're planning on going, we suggest you buy your tickets at the speed of ligh...


May 16, 2011

Doveman and Buke & Gass selected to play Celebrate Brooklyn

Summer's creeping closer. The heat! The humdity! The popsicles and sunblock! Oh yeah, also: free outdoor shows in New York City. Two of Brassland's finest are getting in on the action. Specifically at Celebrate Brooklyn, which is where we are from and well worth celebrating.

On June 17, Doveman will join Junip and The Books. On August 5, Buke & Gass will share the stage with Delicate Steve and Ra Ra Riot. And don't forget the free part! Let Brooklyn Vegan's be your information source - dates, times, lineups, and delightful summaries galore.

And to help you bide your time and count down the days to these park outings, here's a couple pieces of ear candy t...