|
|
Press for
Out of the Rain, the Thunder & the Lightning, 2009
“Songs like 'The Sun Goes West,' 'You Can Cry' and 'Just Let Go' evoke the very best massagingly rounded-edge power of great ’60s or early ’70s albums like the more jazzy-improv-psych late-Byrds stuff, or, more specifically, Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush or, in fact, Boston’s eponymous debut disc... Out of the Rain is a warm-sounding record full of well-constructed pop/rock songs whose raggedy melodic patches and insistent hooks sound crafted yet stumbled upon grab you; these great pop things just as often fall into a sort of daydream-coma mode in the middle or at song’s end.”
John Payne, LA Weekly
"When they sang 'Keep It Alive', dropping a beat from the original, the song became something completely different than the recorded version and had an 'edge-of-the-seat' quality leaving you wondering if it would break down. It didn't. It left me breathless."
Feed Your Head
"Their fuzz-laden psychedelic-leaning brand of power pop immediately brings you to a place where skiing in the morning, doing peyote in the desert in the afternoon, and getting drunk on the beach at night is not just reality but a way of life."
LA Record
“The Faraway Places kick things off with tunes that echo Brian Eno and '70s rock guitar, but with more laser sounds! The tambourine is happy; the percussion rich, and the psychedelic solos are futuristic.”
Suki-Rose Etter, LA.com
"Out of the Rain, the Thunder & the Lightning” is sneaky-catchy, with nods to ’70s power pop, soul and a few decades of pop left-fielders who make music that is somehow familiar but not too obvious."
Buzz Bands LA
"The Places beam with pop-radiance, harnessing harmonized choruses and verses. Wielding hard-driving guitar riffs, prog-sythn piano lines and call-and-response choral lines, "The Sun Goes West," is masterfully crafted for repeat plays."
Stark Online
“This Echo Park band plays in a retro, cool, and '70s style that's hard to replicate, sort of like indie acid rock and Big Star but with a much thicker and orchestrated sound. It's a cool mixture, but they also go post rock and go off on psychedelic instrumentals that will make you happy.”
Giant Robot
“Mark this one down: The sophomore album by Echo Park ensemble the Faraway Places is due May 12. “Out of the Rain, the Thunder & the Lightning” is sneaky-catchy, with nods to ’70s power pop, soul and a few decades of pop left-fielders who make music that is somehow familiar but not too obvious.”
Buzzbands.LA
"The energetic flair of electro-infused head-shaking rhythms of The Faraway Places are accented with jangly guitars, shuffling drums and swaying romantic light-hearted odes."
ShortandSweetNYC.com
“The Faraway Places have released a groovy psychedelic album worthy of sunny days and multiple listens.”
MusicUnderFire.com
“…the band makes good on its influences—lots of sunny harmonies, warm guitars that fall squarely into pure ’70s California power pop save for the occasional psychedelic space-out. That said, The Faraway Places sound like T. Rex meets Fleetwood Mac with a dash of Can and a skosh of Sun Ra”
TheDaysOfLore.com
Press for Unfocus on It, 2003 |
n.m.e. (uk)
9.17.03
As the real-deal Thrills, The Faraway Places have an advantage over their spiritual brethren. Sure, they also sound like a crafty Californian tourist board plan, but they actually get to live there too.
Their brief is slightly wider than the Dubliners' too, dabbling in in LA funk and country-rock alongside the bottled sunshine and Beach Boys and Byrds obsession. With added gentle psychedelia, scuzzy guitar and a sweetly-stoned surfer attitude, they serve up summery tunes by the VW camperload.
Sure, they're retro enough to make Kings of Leon look like spacemen but, with songs this catchy, you cant blame them for taking advantage while the sun shines (7 stars out of 10)
- Jim Alexander
music week (uk)
8.23.03
LA's The Faraway Places bring sprightly West Coast pop to the eclectic Bella Union stable, with guitars, keyboards, and bright vocals to the fore. Marvellous Error sounds like the theme from a Sixties TV show, while Another Life just begs to be listened to driving along with the roof down. Resolutely upbeat City on the Ocean sounds almost new wave.
bang (uk)
9.03
If The Byrds had a pound for every band they've influenced, they'd have built up a sizeable wedge, and LA's [The] Faraway Places would be adding to the coffers. Starting with the Beach Boys harmonies of "Marvelous Error", the infectious Unfocus On It makes you want to paint your car in swirly colours and drive to the beach. Although 20 minutes down the road you may see signs for Wigan.
Along the way are infectious melodies and mild funk reminiscent of a liess smug Bran Van 3000. "Refrain has The Breeders' stoned cool and "Do What You Can" is T.Rex's "Jeepster" without the chorus, but by the end we've descended into (pre-"The") Verve before closing down altogether, happy but spent, in "Come Apart". Self-produced, written, and recorded to sound like lots of other bands with far greater resources.
- Suzy West
the new york observer
"the inner ear," 2.11.04
Baby, it's cold and tense outside, but this catchy, cosmic CD will warm your frigid heart and relax your tight ass. According to the band’s Website,principals Donna Coppola (keyboards,vocals)and Chris Colthart (guitar, vocals) met in Boston while watching a Sun Ra video, and their music—first put out under the moniker the Solar Saturday, and fleshed out by an ever-changing ensemble of players—evokes the experimental, jazzy and frequently downright wacky spirit of the Arkestra’s work. Except that the Faraway Places are a helluva lot more listenable: They combine jangly and fuzzy guitars, layers of electronic and orchestral flourishes and a pop sensibility that straddles 60’s England and 70’s California, with Ms. Coppola’s matted voice sounding like a cross between Nico and Kim Deal. Unfocus on It, their debut album, manages to be both cool and warm, especially on the wistful "Summertime" with its melancholy string arrangements and back-up sighs, and the Beach Boys-meets-Bowie "City on the Ocean." Technically, this album isn’t slated for release in the States until Feb. 17, but it’s been available as an import on the Bella Union label since August. It’s worth tracking down now.
- Frank DiGiacomo
eye weekly
Though this LA-based aggregation initially got together after watching a Sun Ra video together, their self-professed fondness for The Small Faces, Can and T-Rex is what shines through on this giddy pop track ["Another Life"]. If you can hear in your head how The Doors' "Touch Me," Tommy James & The Shondells' "Crystal Blue Persuasion" and Stereolab's "Metronomic Underground" could fit together on a mix tape, then this one's for you.
logo magazine
Within the retro-rockin' confines of 2003, The Faraway Places are as relevant as skinny ties and thrift-store suits, yet one suspects they prefer to frequent the Avalon fields at Glastonbury, looking for kaftans and velvet loon pants. ‘Unfocus On It’ is record-collection rock par-excellence - though that collection doesn’t go past 1972 - but rather than dip into the overly familiar ground of The Stooges and Television, The Faraway Places marry the abandon of the Sonics and the Count Five with the hayseeds freedom of The Byrds and David Crosby. It’s rock at its most fundamental, and though they’re unlikely to displace The Thrills and The Libertines on the front pages they’re a viable alternative.
albuquerque tribune
toledo blade
knoxville news sentinel
the commercial appeal (memphis) san angelo standard-times
syndicated column, 2.04
The Faraway Places' debut is a combustible mix of alt-rock, psychedelia, funk, and jam band grooviness that is as trippy as it is poppy. Call it "trip-pop." Over and over again the young cult band out of California whose members include refugees from Papa Fritas, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, and even the Boston Philharmonic throws musical curve balls. This is a wondrous and weird work, a melange of influences that provides a little bit of everything without pandering to the lowest common denominator. Any band that can sound like Motown and Floyd on one cut deserves attention.
- Rod Lockwood
smother.net
EDITOR'S PICK: Self-proclaimed California Krautrockers (notorious California slackness with Germanic experimentalism), The Faraway Places combine art rock with experimental and even some power-pop to form their little nest egg of musical bliss. The male vocals take a while to adjust to but it's worth it when you consider how great and opposite of bland the music is. The mix is what does it though-at times it's fuzzy and other times its so coherent you want to shake it. "Unfocus On It" is set for release on Eenie Meenie Records in the middle of February '04 and you should look for it and pick it up. This is the type of experimental pop that most music aficionados miss out on. Artsy, experimental and atmospheric are the appetizers and catchy bizarreness is the main course.
the daily breeze
"Top 10 CDs you didn't hear: The best of 2003," 12.26.03
There is a definitive, though coincidental, trend in this list of having L.A. reflected back at us by outsiders. In this case, a band of Boston transplants - basically singer/keyboardist Donna Coppola and guitar- ist/songwriter Chris Colthart, who formerly called themselves Solar Saturday - recorded a brilliant collection of sunny pop in a freezing New Hamp- shire cabin. This one is unabashedly retro, slathering on the fuzz guitar and psychedelia ("Can't Get Through" and "City on the Ocean"), but al- so pulling back to reveal '60s pop strains that brush the ears as del- icately as Nick Drake ("Another Life" and "Refrain").
- Corey Levitan
while you were sleeping
feb/mar issue, 04
Chris Colthart, one third of The Faraway Places, describes his band perfectly as "California Krautrock" and instead of struggling to find a unique way to say the same thing, I'll expound upon his astute observation. The Faraway Places are ostensibly an indie-pop group, less reliant on the percussive underpinnings of German experimental rock, yet there is something delightfully optimistic about their approach to typical pop structures. Like The Apples in Stereo or Boston's Papas Fritas, The Faraway Places write blissful college melodies; and while their sound is clean, they leave just enough of the edges frayed in an artful salute to their new left coast surroundings.
NOTE: The Faraway Places released their first EP as The Solar Saturday, so that's what people are talking about in the following reviews.
yahtzeen
The worst thing about this cd is that it's too damn short. C'mon, I need more of this than just four songs ... Indie pop at it's best i'd have to say, and all with some 70's radio sound infused into each song. I love this stuff; send us more. Please."
northeast performer
More often than not, your taken by how many different bands sound so shockingly identical. And then you come across something like the Solar Saturday ... it's like a breath of fresh air in a sea of churning fog machines. Not to say they don't pen catchy tunes. They do. The resulting music is minimal. Catchy. And endearingly off-the-wall.
sponiczeen
It's nice to hear an indie pop band that takes conventions and fucks with them a bit. The Solar Saturday, on their latest self-titled EP,
do a stellar job of this. They could easily have written a handful of lazy songs that challenge the listener about as much as tying one's shoe. Instead, they
appropriate the relevant bits of 60's/70's pop and wrap them around unusually rhythmic drum beats and wonderfully textured guitar tones.
"Two Minds" displays Solar Saturday's propensity for sophisticated arrangements and their indebtedness to the Mamas & the Papas. "AMRC" throws some Gilberto beats
into the mix, with great success. And what's this? Is that Bay City Rollers bass line on "K*2"? Or maybe a Cheap Trick riff? No matter--this is addictive stuff,
and when you're addicted you don't usually care what your drug of choice is made from. Only that it satisfies the urge, and The Solar Saturday does so in
spades.
kickbright
One day I heard this really catchy song on the radio that got
stuck in my head. There was a line that went "Each day I wonder why I'm wondering why". The DJ came on and I wrote down the
name of the band: The Solar Saturday. ... A week later I'm going through promo packages sent
to me in the mail ... "City on
the Ocean" kicks in and I'm immediately hooked. It's sugary
sweet hippy sixties rockn'roll. The girly girl vocals come in
followed by cute boy vocals. It's like a combonation of Hot
Pursuit and The Apples In Stereo. I didn't realize it until the
second song ("Two Minds") came on that this was the band I
was looking for. My head turned and said "that's the song!" I play
it again. And again. And again. The next song is bossa nova with
only "bah-bahs" for vocals. The last song is groovy and it makes
me happy. Overall, this is a fun record and I couldn't recommend
it any higher.
popdetox Like a piece of your favorite candy, this EP from the Solar Saturday leaves you wanting more. The four songs aren't enough to satisfy an indiepop craving, especially with songs this catchy ... the songs are good enough to stand on their own. If anything, the bossanova sound of "amrc" suggests that the band is capable of going beyond the indiepop genre if they chose to do so. I'm curious to hear how a full length album from the band would turn out. Fans of the Apples in Stereo and Papas Fritas should enjoy this disc.
indiepages I admit I usually go into listening to promos from bands I've never heard of with a lot of prejudice ... but when I actually listened to it, I was very surprised ... This is a fun little pop band, with a sound very similar to Papas Fritas (no surprise to find out that they were assisted from Keith & Tony from PF). This four song ep is chock full of boy/girl vocals, ba ba bas, organs, and handclaps galore! When I heard "Two Minds" start out with the 12-string guitar, I nearly died, it was so beautiful!
bee's knees "Mmmmmmmmm.... yummy space age pop. Not overblown studio 16
track stuff, but simple songs that could grow into that very easily. The
songs range from pop to bossanova jazz to surf -- loads of range on a quaint 4
song ep ... can't wait to hear more."
splendidzine
Over four songs, this threesome proves to be an accomplished pop
combo. They take in sixties-inflected girlie/indie rock on
"City on the Ocean", work a slight psychedelic angle on "Two
Minds", do the international lounge-pop thing on "AMRC" and
return to their hook-laden late-sixties pop formula on "K*2".
You'll quickly find yourself tapping your feet and singing along
-- some of these choruses have real staying power!
To contact us:
thefarawayplaces@hotmail.com
1886 Preston Ave.
LA, CA
90026
323.913.3223
|
|
|
|
