Nanaimo record label NoiseAgonyMayhem is welcoming the summer with a new release that label boss Dave Read calls “just the perfect thing to sit and watch the day go by.”
On June 11, NoiseAgonyMayhem, in partnership with U.K. label Cardinal Fuzz, is releasing Out of Line, the fourth full-length vocal album by Toronto psychedelic artist Roan Bateman, who goes by Dark Bird. The record will be available in vinyl, cassette and digital formats.
It’s the first time Read has released an album by Bateman, whom he met through Ontario rock group Hawkeyes, friends of Read’s band Moths and Locusts.
“Roan has not only guested with them on synthesizers, but he’s also designed cover art for them…” Read said. “So the Hawkeyes guys said, ‘Maybe you want to put this record out’ and we listened to it and we thought, ‘It’s a great record, let’s do it.’”
Read said the album has the “woozy, psychedelic feel that we like so much” and when he first listened to it in the middle of last winter, it had him thinking about the summer.
“I just thought, ‘Man, if this is making me feel summery right now, it’s going to be amazing if we can release it in June,’” he said. “And it’s just a lovely record. It’s got that classic psychedelic sound like Syd Barrett-style or like Twink, our old friend, so it just seemed like a perfect fit.”
Bateman had intended to put together a full band to make the record, noted a press release, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic he was forced to largely record Out of Line solo and at home. Read said working with Bateman was “excellent.”
“He’s also a graphic designer so he sent us the audio and had the whole package designed also, so that was pretty easy,” Read said. “From our perspective it’s just down to basically promoting and marketing the record from here.”
Out of Line is the 74th release from NoiseAgonyMayhem – “Yeah, getting up there for sure,” Read said – and there are another six or seven records in the works right now.
“I basically took this opportunity to take the skills that we honed putting out Moths and Locusts records and getting increasingly more successful doing that, just decided to apply it to someone else’s record and do the same things and see what happens,” Read said. “So far, so good.”
Out of Line will be available online and at Fascinating Rhythm, 51 Commercial St., in Nanaimo.
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