This digital release is available for pre-order in our Bandcamp store with original artwork by Vaughan Oliver. Released on 15 September, 2017.
Check out this review from London’s Overblown Magazine.
More strong coverage came from The Record Stache.
See Tulipomania’s other releases and http://www.tulipomania.com/ for more videos and info about about the band.
“Tulipomania’s unique take on post-punk boasts gritty guitars underpinned by a brooding rhythm section to provide a backdrop for compelling and atmospheric vocals” – Louder Than War
“Sends you in a spiral of pure nirvana” – Magnet Magazine
“Combining melancholic, swirling synths with delicate and vulnerable vocals, the track pulls at the listener with an insistent and consistent forlorn majesty that is a common feature on their most recent album This Gilded Age” – Overblown Magazine
“Tom Murray’s haunted, high-pitched vocals – resembling a panting phantom on a respirator – are still front and center, with his circuitous drum patterns and springy basslines weaving around his writhing words like spider webs. Similarly, Cheryl Gelover’s sinister, steadfast keyboard swells threaten and torment, while Mitch Smith’s gripping guitars are alternately scratchy, submerged, and shimmering” – Big Takeover Magazine
“Filled with emotional torment… a sound so ornately and distinctly different” – Indie Band Guru
“Avant Garde touches… Channels a highly effective leftfield calling that is more on a par with Talking Heads than the more obvious comparison to Portishead… Rich psychedelic gaze” – U&I Magazine
Philadelphia-based Tulipomania has announced they will release a new single, which includes three tracks. The first single from this collection is the Seahawks Remix of ‘Don’t Be So Sure’.
Seahawks is a duo made up of Jon Tye, founder of the legendary Lo Recordings (whose roster includes Grimes, Aphex Twin, Four Tet, Thurston Moore and Astronauts) and Pete Fowler, creator of Monsterism vinyl toys and perhaps most famed as illustrator of oh so many Super Furry Animals album sleeves. The duo are self-described purveyors of “psychedelic yacht rock, deck shoegaze, hazy beach pop vibrations, and marina drone”.
The original version of ‘Don’t Be So Sure’ featured on the band’s fourth album ‘This Gilded Age’ (2016), described by Byron Coley of WIRE Magazine (May 2017 edition) as “…pretty whacked – something akin to a battle of the bands between Crazy Horse and The Kronos Quartet”.
Tulipomania, whose name was inspired by the 1637 Dutch tulip market collapse, has been categorized as ‘cult synth punks’, ‘glam-leaning’, ‘postpunk’, ‘art rock’, and ‘muscular chamber pop’. Band members Tom Murray (lead vocals, bass, drums, guitar-organ) and Cheryl Gelover(synthesizer, background vocals) were joined by Mitch Smith (guitar, glockenspiel), who also contributed to the band’s eponymous first album, Richard Hartline (piano, percussion, engineering and mastering), and Howard Thompson (executive producer).
This release features intriguing new artwork by legendary artist Vaughan Oliver, whose work they have long admired. Oliver give distinct visual identities for 4AD releases by many bands, including Mojave 3, Lush, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, The Breeders, This Mortal Coil, Pale Saints, Pixies, and Throwing Muses, in addition to numerous non-4AD artists such as David Sylvian.
This release will also be accompanied by two new music videos, animated by Tulipomania themselves. The band’s meticulous, mesmerizing videos augment the group’s artistry, involving painstaking frame-by-frame stop-motion animation techniques.
Gelover and Murray first met in Art school, and found themselves collaborating on projects for their Experimental Film and Animation classes. Tulipomania essentially grew along with these experiences. They were influenced by Talk Talk, the solo work by Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene, and many early 4AD bands, including Cocteau Twins, Lush, Throwing Muses, and The Pixies.
Described as “artistic and inventive”, the music videos created by Tulipomania have been featured in film festivals worldwide, the most recent of which include the London Short Film Festival (England), Leeds International Film Festival (England), Aesthetica Short Film Festival (York, England), Encounters (Bristol, England), Zubroffka (Poland), and StopTrik (Croatia, Poland).
‘Don’t Be So Sure’ was the band’s first hand-painted animation, featuring multiple passes of brushwork shot on thousands of individual sheets of black paper, thereby allowing singing self-portraits to morph and dissolve in an atmospheric exploration of ambiguity. For the video made for the Seahawks Remix, the band re-photographed the original artwork, frame by frame, matching the new tempo and softer mood, which they felt also called for a more painterly, layered approach to the imagery.
The new three-track single will be available via Sursumcorda Recordings on September 15, 2017. It is already available for pre-order from Tulipomania’s Bandcamp page.
TRACKLIST
1. On the Outside
2. Don’t Be So Sure (Seahawks Remix)
3. Don’t Be So Sure
CREDITS
Cheryl Gelover (background vocals, synthesizer)
Mitch Smith (background vocals, guitar, glockenspiel)
Richard Hartline (piano, percussion, engineering and mastering)
Howard Thompson (executive production)
