Label: Rick Pierik, Nine Mile Records, www.ninemilerecords.com
Publicity: (Canada) Killbeat Music Promotions, www.killbeatmusic.com (USA) Team Clermont, www.teamclermont.com
Bookings: Rob Perron, File Under Music, www.fileundermusic.com
Sounds Like
"Parlour Steps’ front-man, Caleb Stull’s voice is as amazing as it is unique. And it is only icing on the cake that is The Hidden Names. The album is absolutely the catchiest album of the year. This pop/rock collection is so upbeat you’d have to be dead to not dance along.
Packed with hooky guitar melodies and mixed with perfectly placed piano accompaniment, The Hidden Names highlights Parlour Steps’ ability to be a powerful force on the music scene. Every song progresses and flows so naturally it’s impossible not to get completely drawn in and fall in love over and over again. Parlour Steps have constructed a bouncy, hooky, brilliant masterpiece full of unique songs packed with mind-blowing harmonies, unforgettable melodies, relentless percussion and smart lyrics."
- Alex Aaron, The Silver Tongue, November 2009
" These words are so true, so simple, so real and so well placed within chords,. The movements and progressions are so precise. And such is the standard with Parlour Steps. Gorgeous music wound around conscious and smart lyrical wordplay that melds together to form a perfect, almost otherworldly art form."
- Nathaniel Bryce, Discorder October 2009
" Packed with richly layered indie-pop, good lyrics and coy melodies, its charm has completely won me over. The male/female vocals blend perfectly and I simply cannot resist the combination of rhythmic guitars and a sophisticated plonking piano. But there’s more in there, much more."
- Cecilia, I Am Crime, October 2009
" While this album isn’t lacking brains, it’s driven far more by the heart than the head. With swelling anthems like “Ring That Bell,” Parlour Steps is The New Pornographers (if they hadn’t become so boring) or Minus the Bear (if they hadn’t become so oblique) and The Hidden Names easily outshines both those band’s latest efforts."
- Jason Lewis, Ffwd Weekly, October 2009
" The Hidden Names impresses in some way at nearly every turn. Very enjoyable and highly recommended."
- Chris Nowling, Chewing Gum for The Ears, October 2009
" These are songs easy to enjoy, ones occasionally reminiscent of early The New Pornographers but obviously not overly similar. Parlour Steps have the ability to pump out agile, cohesive songs that are each unique in their own right but contain similarities in the pressing rush of percussion and honest, clever lyrics. And in The Hidden Names they do just that."
- Fense, FensePost, October 2009
" Another Vancouver collective that makes intricate, infectious, affected pop. Another Vancouver collective that does it really damned well.
Maybe it's the water. Maybe it's the impending Winter Olympics. Or maybe it's just a trick of geography. I'm not too worried. When the stuff is good, it's good. And in the case of Parlour Steps, it's great.
The sound is more acoustic and intimate than most bands who try this sound. I think that's an ambitious take; it certainly requires much more nuanced performances. You can hide a fair amount behind a solid electric guitar riff. Vibes don't shield nearly so much. But this restrained approach allows the songs to bloom superlatively."
- Aid and Abet.com, October 2009
PARLOUR STEPS ZIP COMPILATION, full of three previous albums, rarities, b-sides, live recordings, acoustic tracks, and politically compromising videos can be purchased on our website. OWN A PIECE of PARLOUR STEPS HISTORY!
http://www.parloursteps.com/?p=music|zip_package
The October 2009 release of The Hidden Names by Nine Mile Records act Parlour Steps should finally put a spotlight on one of Canada’s most intriguing bands.
“If there is an overall theme to be distilled it would be of the never-ending search for meaning and connection in today’s world,” Caleb Stull, the band’s founder, chief songwriter, singer and guitarist says of the album.
The keen intelligence, the ambitious ideas, the pride in tackling heady, cerebral concepts that has characterized the band from Vancouver, British Columbia, from the get-go remain intact. But a newfound musical confidence gives a carefree flow to the band’s music, with a vivacious presence and palpable warmth.
Lauded by the Canadian press, Parlour Steps has at various times evoked comparisons to the brainy pop of XTC, the drama of Arcade Fire, the lyrical focus of Sufjan Stevens and the snappy rhythmic grip of the Pixies. But it is Caleb Stull’s relentless curiosity and daring songwriting that separates the quartet from the indie-rock pack.
The opening track, the buoyant “As the World Turned Out,” for example, attempts to explore “our laughable, small- lensed grip on ourselves,” while “Miraculous,” says Stull, “riffs on our nihilistic self-absorption, so woefully out of place in such a massive universe as ours.”
Stull calls “Soft Lies,” “a simple love song about getting mired in too much self-awareness,” while the closing tune “Mad Mad Day” he describes as detailing “our common alienation of ‘others,’ and our general suspicions that people different from us couldn’t possibly want and need the same things out of life. The end line, repeated over and over, is really a call to arms, to never let others decide your values for you, to never let ignorance and pride lead the way.”
The Hidden Names is the lovely and logical successor to Ambiguoso, 2008’s previous full-length for Nine Mile Records and the first Parlour Steps album, (after three previous albums, including 2005’s acclaimed The Great Perhaps) to get a full United States release.
“The confidence on The Hidden Names comes from the rather successful experiments in pop simplicity of our work on Ambiguoso,” says Stull, who also produces the band’s work. “The emotion is closer to the surface. We feel less and less concerned with coming off as cool and calculated and have decided, instead, to just write simpler pop tunes.”
The Hidden Names also benefits from a winning chemistry in and out of the studio, on stage and off. It is the first album to feature Alison Maira on keyboards. Joining singer/guitarist Stull, bassist/vocalist Julie Bavalis, guitarist Rees Haynes, and drummer Robert Linton, Parlour Steps now has the ripest, fullest musicality and emotional balance it has ever had.
“Alison is an excellent player,” Stull says. “Introducing her and her keyboard work has lent us a lyricism, a beauty we didn’t have before.”
What makes The Hidden Names stand out is that the five-piece band contributes with single-minded energy to what Stull calls “the greater good of the song.” The greater good of the song: If there is any commandment that defines Parlour Steps, it is yielding to the greater good of the song. That is something the world discovered in 2005, when “Thieves of Memory” won second place in the rock category in International Songwriter’s Competition, an annual event which that year drew some 15,000 entries.
But that was then, and Parlour Steps are not ones to rest on past achievements. In those days, the band got much mileage out of Stull’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek coinage of the phrase “thought rock” to describe the band’s music. Though Caleb is certainly unapologetic about the accuracy or usefulness of the phrase in gaining some attention for Parlour Steps, he is quite content to let fade away what he acknowledges may have been a “rather pretentious sounding conceit.”
“While I would love to pretend the lyrics evoked some sort of cerebral itch in our listeners, all the while our music was becoming more intuitive and visceral and ultimately less cerebral,” Stull says. “To paraphrase Zadie Smith, we have tried to bolster a rhythm that does not exclude thinking.” Listen to “The Hidden Names” and you’ll snap your fingers, shake your body, twitch your leg, and soon enough, most tracks will have you dancing – without even thinking about it.
--Wayne Robins (Music Critic & former Senior Review Editor, Billboard Magazine)
A complete electronic press kit, including MP3’s, full biographies, press clippings, and the band’s latest news can be found on their website:
Also I wanted to keep you in the loop with what is happening with me and my music, and to tell you that you can get tons of exclusive, limited edition Colin Rink merchandise, but only for a limited time, and the clock is ticking! We're talking about videoss, photos, bonus mp3's, set lists, and so much more.
Real entertainment commentary with urban flare! The Protege Podcast http://protegepodcast.podOmatic.com RSS Feed http://protegepodcast.podOmatic.com/rss2.xml
Just a reminder to listen to NEW PARLOUR STEPS on THIS GREAT WHITE NORTH. It's an ALL CANADIAN music show FRIDAYS 4:30-6pm CST on 91.7 KOOP FM in Austin, Texas. You can listen online at www.KOOP.org.
Guys! First off hope all is well. Secondly, the songs are absolutely amazing. Great Work! Hope to see you all soon to play some pool at Jack's on the South Side. Any plans of making it back to the burgh soon?
It was my pleasure to add "Little Pieces" to my radio playlist (playing independent music commercial-free 24x7) and introduced it on my weekly podcast. The direct link to the show is: http://indiemusicsampler.com/2009/09/18/ims-150/
Blessings, Paul the music lover Indie Music Sampler http://indiemusicsampler.com/
Thanks a lot for the add. EletriKa is completely different from every Metal you already know. The Brazilian influences and the Portuguese singularize its style in a New Kind of Metal. If you really like Metal you must check EletriKa out!
ONLINE LIVE NOW WITH MY CO HOST YOUNG BLACK!! LATE NIGHT HYPE!!! SEND YOUR MUSIC TO YASHEKA_HOLMES@YAHOO.COM AND I WILL PLAY IT!! http://grownandsexycorner.listen2myradio.com/ CLICK THE LINK TO CHILL WITH ME!! LADY BLUE ON LATE NIGHTS~~
First of all, I'm not even admitting to knowing this monkey that you are referring to. And secondly, he is a huge liar! Don't believe a word he says! Damn that monkey has a big mouth ... or so I might say if I knew what you were talking about, which I don't. See you in the Big Smoke!
I can't believe that y'all are playing Toronto the night before I get there! Any chance you're staying in town for a day or two after the Cameron House show?
NxEW.ca is a new Canadian music group blog. We have 75 + writers across Canada (and a few in the U.S.). We welcome anyone who wants to write about Canadian music - including musicians, promoters, managers, etc. (We're not the CBC and we exist to promote Canadian music, so conflict of interest is not an issue). If you'd like to chip in on the blog or want to submit stuff for consideration for the podcast get in touch at northbyeastwest at gmail.com
In addition to the artists being played on the podcast, current writers for nxew.ca include fans of music plus journalism students, university radio hosts, and members of Library Voices, Hooded Fang (Tonka & Puma/Daps Duo), Olenka and the Autumn Lovers, Woodhands, the Rural Alberta Advantage, and the Lonely Hunters.
Just wanted to touch base with you to see how things are going. In mid May 440MUSIC.COM will launch a new radio station dedicated to Hard Rock and Metal Bands. Yes all the bands will be Indie Bands and then in June we'll launch a 3rd station, at this time we're still waiting for the results from our friends and fans voting on the format.
Upload your songs now so we can include your music on our Internet Radio Stations.
TBones 440MUSIC.COM Internet Radio Beyond The Reach Of Satellite
Online Now!
![£leŦriKa {[|(NEW+TUNE=v3.1)|]} [╬BrazilianM£ŦAL]](http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/65/s_cadcd4a383f748d499e192d847812ca1.jpg)
