Color Temperature at Reggie's, June 16, 2022, Wilmington NC; photographs by Tanner Lackey

Fort Lowell Records is excited to announce that Color Temperature will be the 'Indie Rock' artist featured on our next edition of This Water is Life, Vol. II.  They have a very special project lined up for the release that we can't wait to tell you about.  For now, check out Color Temperature's latest album me talk pretty, self-released June 17, 2022.  Enjoy!

WL//WH Track Of The Day: DESARIO “Things We Left Behind”

[Repost from White Light // White Heat; by Febrizio Luzzo, June 25, 2022]

Formed in early 2004, Californian 4-piece based in Sacramento, Desario return with their fourth album, “Things We Left Behind”, after a five-year hiatus from“III” in 2017 on Test Pattern Records, joining the roster of Wilmington, NC‘s independent label Fort Lowell Records, to ‘churn out another tight set of Indie Rock tunes that mines darker-tinged Shoegaze rooted in British Post-punk and New Wave’.

After the heady, fizzy and crystalline jangly meanderings of the first preview “Strange Shapes”, it’s time for the somberly meditative and immersive shoegazing title track, “Things We Left Behind”, to be unveiled.

The song, lyric-wise, sheds regret and sorrow from the unfulfilled aims shared by a heartbroken couple.

Ticking cymbal lilts trigger radiant skyward resonances, reverberating over a vaporous warm carpet of dilated blissed-out dizzy haze of droning fuzz-laden guitar layers, weighed down by subtly latent tension and distress, to swell, punctuated by smooth yet steady rhythmic pulsations, in a sparkling wistful release, echoing airy, nostalgic vocals weaving achingly pensive melancholy through an excruciating tapestry of disenchanted dreams.

Desario‘s fourth full-length album, “Things We Left Behind”, is due to be released, on 12inch Vinyl + Digital formats, on July 15, 2022, via DIY label Fort Lowell Records. The CD version is available on pre-order from Sunday Records.

Keep up with Desario:

• Facebook
• Bandcamp
• Twitter
• Soundcloud
• Instagram
• YouTube

The Friday Five

[Repost from Aarik Danielsen; June 24, 2022]

KITIMOTO, “Vintage Smell” / An abundance of guitars—some ragged, some refined—plus crater-deep grooves and subtly artful flourishes. There’s just so much to like from this Arizona band’s (featuring my friend, the musical raconteur Jason Woodbury) new album. This is everything you want from rock and roll, that in-the-bones feeling, with so many other sweet touches.

OUT NOW: KITIMOTO 'Vintage Smell' [Debut LP]

For fans of Built to Spill, Fontaines D.C., Love as Laughter, Parquet Courts, Pavement, The Pixies, Sebadoh, Spoon, Superchunk, Tapes 'N Tapes, Velvet Underground

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

KITIMOTO: Vintage Smell

[Repost from Here Comes the Flood; by Hans Werksman, June 16, 2022]

Rambling garage rockers KITIMOTO hail from Phoenix, AZ. They are on a quest to cram the best of lo-fi, feedback driven music that was released since the late '60s into the songs of their debut album Vintage Smell. Fronted by band leader Jon Douglas the band rummages through the discography of the Velvet Underground, Television, Big Star, the Pixies, the Wedding Present, early R.E.M., and the Replacements. The result? A 21st century desert rock that paints a picture of sun-beaten small towns, wherein the inhabitants are trying to cope. It helps if the listener has a more than superficial knowledge of cult bands, but the uninitiated can enjoy it as-is: a collection of texture driven yet melodic songs.

Vintage Smell caters to a niche audience, but lucky for them that is where the people hang out who are still willing to fork over the cash to listen to music. This a band that can write a song about flying mammal (Bats!) without naming in the lyrics and pay tribute to old school tech (Semaphore). Sounds Like Something sums it up nicely: "Yes, it sounds just like something. Don't mean nothing at all". If that is actually true is up for debate and food for thought for hair-splitting English language professors.

KITIMOTO:

Jon Douglas: guitar, vocals

Zane Gillum: bass

Cavan Noone: drums

Jason P. Woodbury: guitar

Vintage Smell is released via Fort Lowell Records (vinyl - 100 copies, digital). Release date: June 24th.

Tracks:

1. Bats!
2. Mexico
3. Sounds Like Something
4. Get out Alive
5. Seventy
6. Waltz on Air
7. Semaphore
8. How Do You Keep
9. Time Saved
10. Lapid

» KITIMOTO on Facebook

Kitimoto unleashes their Vintage Smell

[Repost from Scene Point Blank; by Loren Green, June 18, 2022]

Fort Lowell Records will soon release the debut album from Kitimoto, Vintage Smell. The band formed in Phoenix, AZ and played fuzzed-out, '90s influenced slacker rock. 

The album will release next Friday, June 24, though a single is available for preview now, "Time Saved" (below).

Lauds at Reggie's, June 16, 2022, Wilmington NC; photographs by Tanner Lackey

"There is nothing but hits on this upcoming record!"

[Repost from Blood Makes Noise; June 16, 2022]

BAND:  KITIMOTO

BloodMakesNoise Rating: 10/10

Genre: Jangle Indie Rock, Garage Rock

What the band says they sound like: Built to Spill, Parquet Courts. and The Velvet Underground

What we think they sound like:  You know when someone says "This is right up your alley", well this is right up my alley. It's bits of Pavement, Built To Spill but with a great 60's feel to some of it. The vocal delivery really helps this stand up over a lot of other stuff in this genre. It's part Stephen Malkmus, part Lou Reed and that's a great thing. At times this record reminds me a little of Vampire Weekend too. There is nothing but hits on this upcoming record!

Songs to add to your playlist: Bats!, Mexico, Time Saved, Seventy, Semaphore

OUT NOW: Desario "Things We Left Behind" [Digital Single]

The first single -- "Things We Left Behind" -- from Sacramento, California dreamy jangle pop rockers' -- Desario's -- fourth studio album -- Signal and Noise [out July 15th]-- is available now on all music platforms.  For fans of Arctic Monkeys, Catherine Wheel, Citified, Doves, Echo & The Bunnymen, Interpol, Jesus & Mary Chain, Lauds, Lush, New Order, The Ocean Blue, Ride, Tracy Shedd, The Smiths, Summer Set.

CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER FULL ALBUM    

The latest from KITIMOTO sounds like all of your favorite classic indie rock artists!

[Repost from If It's Too Loud...; by Ken Sears, June 14, 2022]

When a press release compares an artists to legendary indie rock icons like Pavement, Built to Spill, Spoon, Sebadoh, etc., I'm going to be very skeptical. I've pretty much already decided I don't like any artist with such lofty comparisons. But then I hear a band like Kitimoto and all of those comparisons are dead on. The Phoenix band's latest single, "Time Saved," sounds like vintage 90's indie rock. You're going to swear you've heard this before. It could have been on some much beloved compilation or soundtrack, or maybe you heard it on your college radio station but never figured out who it was. "Time Saved" sounds so much like my college years that it's making me nostalgic despite being over twenty years too late for that.

You can listen to "Time Saved" below. Vintage Smell is due out June 24 on Fort Lowell Records. The album can be pre-ordered through Bandcamp. For more on Kitimoto, check out the band on Facebook and Instagram.

only the good shit

[Repost from Aquarium Drunkard; Instagram Account, June 13, 2022]

Archie Bell and Drells once quipped, "we don't only sing, but we dance just as good as we walk.” A similar sentiment could be said of AD editor, and Transmissions host, Jason P. Woodbury per his forthcoming debut LP, "Something Happening/Always Happening", out this fall via Fort Lowell Records.

It’s a collection of songs you might hear on the radio after a cosmic camping trip, familiar but far off. Songs for stepping out of the spaceship to crack a cold one on a blurry summer day, taking a moment to enjoy the smell of freshly cut grass.

Pre-order available now ...

HeyDay Guitars presents:

Mark Burgess of The Chameleons UK + Lauds (Wilmington NC) at Monstercade in Winston-Salem NC on Tuesday, July 12th live in concert. Both artists will deliver an acoustic performance. This is an event not to miss! 🖤

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW

JPW, Live Concert Photographs by Nadya Sanchez of Pajarita Creative from the Linger Longer Lounge, Phoenix AZ; May 28, 2022

La Cerca West Coast Tour Dates

• Saturday, June 4 at Hotel Congress in Tucson, Arizona
• Sunday, June 5 at Permanent Records Roadhouse in Los Angeles, California
• Thursday, June 9 at Lucky Dime in Everett, Washington
• Friday, June 10 at Kenton Club in Portland, Oregon
• Saturday, June 11 at Cryptatropa in Olympia, Washington

Song Premiere: "Strange Shapes" by Desario

[Repost from The Big Takeover Magazine; May 17, 2022]

Sacramento, California’s Desario premieres “Strange Shapes” with The Big Takeover, including a remix by Peter Holmström of The Dandy Warhols.

Big Takeover is excited to host the premiere of “Strange Shapes”, the new single from Sacramento-based Desario, who return with their fourth album Signal and Noise on July 15, their first LP since III on Test Pattern Records in 2017. Signal and Noise finds the four-piece jumping to Fort Lowell Records, an independent label out of Wilmington, NC, and churning out another tight set of indie rock tunes that mines a darker-tinged shoegaze rooted in British post-punk and new wave.

Signal and Noise starts off like a lighthouse sending out a solitary beam of light, piercing the night sky and stretching deep toward a dark horizon. That ray in “Lonely Lights” seems to move slowly at the most distant point in its rotation, guitars whirring to life, and appears to pick up speed as it rounds the bend and approaches with the rhythm section kicking in. But the record hits its stride on lead single “Strange Shapes.” The marriage of a dream poppy, jangled guitar with a melodic bass line and that tick-a-tick 16-beat centered on the cymbals is great on its own. And then the fuzzy guitars join the fray on the chorus.

But Desario have other tricks up their sleeves on this one as well. They slow things down on “Things We Left Behind,” a brooding song that echoes something like MBV’s “Sometimes” but with an airy, ethereal vocal line placed more up front in the mix. “Wired Wrong” pushes things in a poppier if not peppier direction. It’s a simple enough pop song where the bass part grabs you before giving way to the repeated mantra-like “everything went wrong when you went away” chorus.

Look, if you eagerly line up under the banner that reads shoegaze for your music, then you hope they are playing Signal and Noise when you get there. The five year wait for new Desario is over and it is an album that should tide listeners over. There are enough layers to like about this one.

Desario · Strange Shapes

Desario · Strange Shapes (Pete International Airport Remix)

Concert Photography by Andrew Berg - Hotel Congress, May 21, 2022, Tucson AZ

Tracy Shedd

Tracy Shedd

Tracy Shedd

Tracy Shedd

Soda Sun

Soda Sun

Soda Sun

Soda Sun

Gabriel Naïm Amor

Gabriel Naïm Amor

La Cerca

La Cerca

La Cerca

La Cerca

KITIMOTO

Song Premiere: "Bats!" by KITIMOTO

[Repost from The Big Takeover Magazine; May 8, 2022]

Phoenix, Arizona’s KITIMOTO premieres their charging punk single “Bats!” with The Big Takeover, imploring listeners to “pray to the sand.”

Though Vintage Smell is the debut album by the Phoenix based indie rock quartet KITIMOTO, the record is the result of decades of slow growth and metamorphosis. It’s akin to the kind of steady evolution band leader Jon Douglas (A Technicolor Yawn) charts in his work as a biologist: KITIMOTO may technically be a new group, but in reality it’s the latest in a long series of projects its members have tinkered with since first meeting in the Arizona DIY art-punk scene more than 15 years ago.

Backed by bassist Zane Gillum, drummer Cavan Noone, and guitarist Jason P. Woodbury, KITIMOTO finds Douglas reaching deep into his songbook, gathering up compositions he’s woodshedded since the early 2000s in the Chicago rock scene, and pairing them with newly written works. The resulting record is one that collapses time, drawing on ‘60s counterculture, classic ‘70s singer/songwriter work, ’80s alterna-pop, ‘90s indie rock, and a wealth of naturalistic and vividly comic imagery drawn from various moments in Douglas’ own autobiography.

Recorded live to two-inch tape in late 2020 and early 2021 at Oracle Recording at Rancho Linda Vista by producer Austin Z. Owen (Los Puchos, Slow Moses), Vintage Smell was mastered by Brian J. Sulpizio, known for his work with Ryley Walker and Health & Beauty—of which Douglas was once a member. Located in the remote desert town of Oracle, the studio sits at the heart of a ranch established in 1910, which eventually became home to an intentional community founded in 1968 by artist Charles Littler. In its original dude ranch incarnation, it hosted stars like George Sanders, Gary Cooper, and Rita Hayworth, and was the place Andy Warhol chose to shoot his X-rated western, Lonesome Cowboys, which baffled the locals.

On songs like “Mexico” and “How Do You Keep,” dueling guitars lock into heated conversation Television-style, veering into “indie jam” territory, while “Time Saved” finds the foursome chugging on Blue Album-style crunch rock. Elsewhere, Douglas indulges his soft side with the country soul ballad “Get Out Alive” and the vivid psychedelic pop of “Semaphore,” which leans into samba rhythms and Mellotron swirls.

Though hardly a “desert rock” album in the traditional sense, the remote space of Rancho Linda Vista proved the perfect place to capture these songs, which range from the charging punk of “Bats!”, which implores the listener to “pray to the sand,” to the future facing “Seventy,” its fuzzy guitars nodding to the band’s combined love for Pavement and oversized riffs.

Throughout it all, Douglas facilitates between low key cool and singing these songs like his life depends on them, folding his oblique wordplay into hooky melodies over intricate rhythms and easy grooves alike. It’s a testament to the gradual pace of evolution. Douglas and KITIMOTO may have only spent a few weekends in the desert recording, but these songs carry the weight of years spent shaping and refining.

Fort Lowell Records · KITIMOTO - "Bats!"

'Luz de Vida' concert benefitting survivors of homicide victims Saturday, May 21

[Repost from KGUN 9 On Your Side; by Caleb J. Fernández, May 20, 2022]

For Lowell Records, iHeartRadio, Zia Records hosting event

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Fort Lowell Records is throwing on a concert, celebrating the official album release of Luz de Vida II.

All proceeds will directly benefit Homicide Survivors, Inc. (HSI).

"Losing someone you love is devastating and unimaginable. Having the team from HSI by your side to help process, grieve, navigate and supporting victims and survivors lets us know that we never have to walk alone," Monique Vallery, a homicide survivor, expressed.

Vallery credits the nonprofit for helping her heal.

"HSI gave my family a voice for our loved one when we didn’t have the strength to speak and they have continued to give us hope that in time we will be able to start to heal," she shared.

This concert features the following artists:

• La Cerca
• Soda Sun
• Tracy Shedd
• Young Mothers
• Kitimoto and JPW
• Gabriel Naïm Amor
  

The concert is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Hotel Congress Plaza. Tickets are $10 in advance, and $12 the day of.

"We were fortunate when my brother and two co-workers were murdered in 1999. Their employer generously paid for all three funerals," Kathy Weir, a homicide survivor, told KGUN 9.

She says fundraisers like this concert are crucial to families dealing with homicide trauma.

"Not everyone is the recipient of this level of compassion and generosity," Weir said. "These fundraisers are essential to assist the families to deal with circumstances that are often beyond their means."

iHeartRadio and Zia Records are also working together to make this concert happen.

A Light in Dark Times

[Repost from Tucson Sentinel; Julie Jennings Patterson, May 21, 2022]

More than a decade has passed since what's been dubbed the "Tucson Shooting" — the Jan. 8, 2011, mass shooting targeting U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in which 6 people were killed and Giffords and dozen of her constituents were injured. In the time since, such incidents have sadly not become more rare and the survivors of violence and homicide grow in number daily, here and across the country. And while music alone is not a lasting solutions to systemic problems, it's pretty damned good at helping us process feelings of rage and loss and helplessness and despair and overwhelm and the sorts of things survivors feel in at least some small way every average minute of every average day of the rest of their lives. If music can raise some money in the process, so much the better. That was the idea behind the first Luz de Vida compilation, organized in the wake of the Giffords tragedy and it's what fuels Luz de Vida II, a follow up compilation released by Fort Lowell Records late last year and formally celebrating its vinyl release this Saturday at a live show on the Hotel Congress Plaza. The event features a number of Fort Lowell Records recording artists including La Cerca, Naim AMor, Soda Sun, Tracy Shedd, Kitimoto, Young Mothers and JPW and benefits local nonprofit Homicide Survivors, Inc.