Winterpills 'The Light Divides' album

When Winterpills released their debut album in the fall of 2005, fans and critics alike scrambled to define what made it one of most significant musical discoveries of the year.

Critics met the album with descriptions like "Heavy with moments of sheer beauty", "exquisite vocals", "deeply moving…heartrending", and "as textured as the best indie rock around." Fans put the album in the Top 100 on iTunes and Amazon.com and made Winterpills a most requested band on radio stations across the country. A feature on NPR's Weekend Edition followed along with performances on syndicated radio shows World Café, Mountain Stage and others.

The Light Divides is a breakthrough bittersweet collection of songs that resoundingly delivers on the promise of the band's debut. While the last album was recorded in singer/keyboardist Flora Reed's home, The Light Divides is a true studio effort that opens up the band's sound into an even more expansive palette, with richer colors and vibrant hues. "Our original idea for the first album was to casually record some demos at my house, but before we knew it we were making a full-length record," says Reed. "We were able to go a lot further with this one. You'll find some unexpected arrangements and more backwards guitar than you might expect to hear from us. There's a lot you won't catch on initial listens that hopefully, will tap you on the shoulder later."

"These songs were ghosts when they first arrived. They became flesh and blood in the studio, and then became ghosts again, only even more translucent," Price mused when asked about the album's title. "I was thinking how, in the dark, we're all one unrevealed event, a miasma. It's only when we are hit with light that we are separate. In a way, perhaps this collection of songs is my way of cursing the light and, for better or for worse, avoiding lighting any candles."

Novelist and music writer Jonathan Lethem says, "The Light Divides ups the ante on the Winterpills' shimmering, resonant, heartbroken pop glory. These songs, as musically sophisticated and delicate as any of songwriter Philip Price's career, and given otherwordly treatment by band members Flora Reed, Dave Hower, and Dennis Crommett, nevertheless feel essential, even familiar, like old friends. The hooks and harmonies have been burnished so that they glow from within -- it's as if Winterpills has brought to light the songs you were already humming to yourself, but didn't know it.

"Here's "Lay Your Heartbreak", where a Neil Young melody tumbles down a Beatle rabbit-hole; "Broken Arm", which might be Smokey Robinson lyricism negotiating with the shade of Elliott Smith; "July", heartily embracing Matthew Sweet and The Byrds; "I Bear Witness", a ramble along the dark road paved by Red House Painters; "June Eyes" channeling Joni Mitchell through acoustic Led Zeppelin, and the gorgeous twin climaxes of the album, "You Don't Live Long Enough" and "A Folded Cloth" -- magisterial pop dramas that convince the listener that Winterpills is ultimately having a conversation with the whole history of rock and pop, and further, that it's one of the great conversations going on at the moment. Tune in."

Biography

Winterpills is a band that plays the songs of acclaimed and diverse songwriter-singer Philip (power-pop: The Maggies; alt-country: Gay Potatoes; lo-fi teenage-bedroom-balladeering: Feet Wet; avant-punk-pop: Memorial Garage). Winterpills formed late in 2003 after Philip and Dennis Crommett (Spanish for Hitchhiking) had played numerous acoustical shows together and a certain Paul-and-Art comraderie evolved. Shortly after that, Dave Hower (Spanish for Hitchhiking, the Fucking Sparklies, the Neilds) also joined. Then in mid-winter 2004, dark weeks of late-night living room sessions playing cover songs with singer-songwriter Flora Reed yeilded the idea of her joining the band.

The idea has been to take the simple, stark arrangements of Philip's newer quieter & softer songs, and gently expand upon them. The chords, melodies and words should be touched as lightly as possible. No grandstanding, less rigid arrangements.

Philip -- either solo, with Flora Reed and also with the full band -- plays frequently in and around their musically diverse and beautiful hometown, Northampton, MA, (home to members of Sonic Youth, Fountains of Wayne, Dinosaur Jr., Ware River Club, Spouse, Pernice Brothers, as well as singer-songwriters like Lloyd Cole, Thane Thomsen, Henning Ohlenbush), as well as regionally (Boston, NYC, Portland, ME).

some stats:

• featured artist on WXPN's "World Cafe Next"

• featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Dec. 18, 2005

• Charted at #39 on CMJ for 2005

• a “Most Requested” band on XM Radio’s The Loft

• Performances on syndicated radio shows “World Cafe” and “Mountain Stage”

• Top 100 on iTunes and Amazon

• WFUV, WXPN, WYEP, WDET, WFPK, WRSI, WERU, WUMB, WHRV, WUKY, WBJB, WNCW, WYSO, KCRW,KXCI, KUT, KNBA, KRCL, KCMP, KEXP, KUNC, XM, Maine Public Radio, World Café, Acoustic Café and many more.

They've payed with such notable artists as Erin Mckeown, The Mountain Goats, The Malarkies, Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter, Martha Wainwright, Chocolate Genius, Matthew Hebert (Ware River Club), Donna the Buffalo, many others.

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Winterpills - The Light Divides