today! emusic selects!

Today, we welcome two more excellent bands to the eMusic Selects roster: Strand of Oaks and Family Band. What’s striking this time is how similar in mood and tone the two records are — both are stark, imposing, a little unsettling and truly visionary. We couldn’t be more proud to be working with them.

It’s no surprise that all of the music on Family Band‘s Miller Path was written in a cabin in upstate New York. The music is spare, minor-key and wintry, evoking the best of early Cat Power, Beach House and even Lightning Dust. Kim Krans’s voice is haunting, gliding ghostlike over delicate, finger-picked guitar, singing sad lullabies and warning of bad things to come. The song “Fantasy” breaks my heart every time I hear it — and it’s free today, so you can listen for yourself! This is truly a potent, staggering debut, one that I haven’t been able to stop listening to since I first heard it. The record digs deep: early on, Krans sings the ominous, powerful line, “It’s hatred that makes the horse run strong,” and the rest of the record seems given over to exploring that idea. In their revealing interview with Jayson, they explain the origin stories for many of these songs — and the backstory for “Hatred” is particularly chilling. We’re thrilled to have Family Band as part of the Selects program.

Family Band, Miller Path (Free track: “Fantasy”)
Jayson talks to Family Band about the record.

Some of you may remember Strand of Oaks. Essentially the project of one man — Tim Showalter — their debut, Leave Ruin was an in-house favorite. If I can be so bold to make this claim: Tim’s follow-up for Selects, Pope Killdragon, is even better. He’s moved further afield from the folky leanings of his first outing into darker, stranger territory. Vintage synths color the songs in place of banjo and strings, and his voice has taken on new shades of longing and regret. When he sings “This year I’m gonna work on stability” in “Sterling,” he sounds like a man trying to convince himself as much as others. The record is a loose concept, its lyrics referencing both each other and earlier Strand of Oaks songs. He even manages, in “Daniel’s Blues,” to turn Dan Aykroyd into a genuinely tragic figure. A bold, striking, singular work, Pope Killdragon is the sound of a songwriter fully coming into his own.

Strand of Oaks, Pope Killdragon (Free Track: “Bonfire”)
I talk to Tim about the record.

Let us know what you think of them!