Secretly Canadian is extremely proud to announce the addition of Bodies of Water to its roster! This fall, the Los Angeles-based band toured with the Go! Team and Dead Ocean’s Phosphorescent, playing songs from their critically acclaimed album “Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink”. Released on their own Thousand Tongues label, the “sparkling and expansive” (Spin) album has only been available at live shows, through digital retailers and on the band’s website to date. With some distribution help from Secretly Canadian, the physical album will be officially released in stores December 4th in all good record shops in the States, and in the rest of the world on January 22. The band’s first release for Secretly Canadian will happen in the Spring of 2008.
“Sooner or later, every song on Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink gains momentum, takes off, and soars. Sometimes they come back to earth; other times, they burst into bright lights. This glorious grandiosity is their aim, and the band hits the mark more often than not. These California dreamers are definitely on the right track.” – Popmatters
MP3 for “I Guess I’ll Forget The Sound, I Guess, I Guess”:
Bodies of Water started in David Metcalf and Meredith Arthur’s closet. They were newly married and lived in a very small house. The closet was the only place to put the computer that they used for recording. They eventually formed a musical group to play David’s songs. Meredith figured out the piano, and their friends Kyle Gladden and Jessie Conklin learned to play the bass and drums, respectively. In the ensuing years, the four have learned to deftly spin those threads which inevitably weave their way through every Bodies of Water song: ebullient group singing, melodic invention, thundering polyrhythms, and sublime dramatic tension. ‘”Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink” is their first full-length record, and the first release from the band’s own Thousand Tongues label. The songs stray from verse-chorus structure but are engaging and memorably crafted, drawing on an admixture of traditions; the transcendent intensity of gospel, brutish gusto of punk rocking, earnest idiosyncrasy of American folk, sonic inclusiveness of tropicalia, planned jamming of prog, and the sincere bombast of musical theatre. These songs can be likened to a sort of emotional topiary; an unruly living mess lent its shape by the psychic framework around which it grows.
The language of these songs obliquely references what is the overarching concern of the record; the irreconcilable tension between the physical and metaphysical worlds and the human creature that stands precariously astride the two, being pulled by forces indistinguishable from desire and pushed by compulsions masquerading as emotions. Since its inception Bodies of Water has added an auxiliary corps of musicians and when playing in L.A. their ranks can swell to as many as 11; hitting, blaring, strumming and bowing away. The four core members’ vocal synchronicity remains the group’s hallmark. Their calls, responses, shouts and harmonies ride above and around a retaining wall of sound in a fleeting burst of neo-tent revival immediacy.
Bodies of Water isn’t providing a soundtrack for catharsis, surrounding the listener with “good feelings” or “bad feelings.” They only hope to give encouragement in the lone struggle against adversity, to proffer up a thing to be internalized (and evolve therein) or die. Comfort engenders complacency and neglect, while dissatisfaction/ingratitude begets cruelty and self-absorption.
What critics have been saying about Bodies of Water and “Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink”:
“A thighmasteringly amazing debut” – The Village Voice
“Bodies of Water has created some of the most bold and thought-provoking music in the indie rock world.”
– Amplifier
“Contrasting sections nestle against one another, waterfalling harmonies echo such classic SoCal harmonizers as the Beach Boys and the Association, the godspell horns work their magic, and the ears of your ears awake. Can I get an amen?” – Paperthinwalls
“If the B-52’s all took turns singing separately, came from California and played glorious gospel-folk-psychedelia-pop instead of space-rock-party music, they probably wouldn’t sound half as magnificent as Bodies of Water ” – Chart