HOLOPAW - Oh, Glory. Oh, Wilderness. (CD)
What has Holopaw been doing in this vast gulf between releases aside from making babies (Jeff Hays) and making artwork (John Orth)? After a brief tour supporting our second Sub Pop release, Holopaw splintered. Michael Johnson ,Ryan Gensemer and Tobi Echeveria moved to Philadelphia leaving the Holopaw stripped to it's core members, John and Jeff. After a stunned hiatus we got together to write, imagining ourselves as a self contained acoustic duo hearkening back to the early days. The new songs came quickly: "The Cherry Glow", "Little Stallion", "The Art Teacher". After demoing the first practice Jeff stated, "We need a band." The new material seemed to demand more than hushed, acoustic arrangements.
New members were slowly added, Patrick Quinney (guitar), Jody Bilinski (drums), Krista Molinaro (cello), Jeff Mcmullen (bass) and ,most recently, multi-instrumentalist, Matt Radick. Over the next year we wrote the songs that would become the album, Oh, Glory. Oh, Wilderness. Over several months and trips to New York, we recorded the songs with Jermey Scott (vivian girls, these are powers) at Civil Defense studios in Brooklyn, USA. We embellished the songs with horns (Jeremy Scott and Peter Evans), violin (Jena Kim), piano and calvinet (Mark Griffey), clarinet (Pete Woods), and the amazing vocals of Erin Tobey. We are really proud of this record. It has more swagger, bounce and growl than previous efforts but maintains the sweetness and dense lyrical mystery that has come to define Holopaw.
After the record was complete we briefly considered a self-release and then entertained a long conversation with our friend Isaac at Glacial Pace about signing to his label. The timing didn't work out right for either of us so we decided to join the Bakery Outlet family. We are excited for you to hear this record. Hopefully it was worth the wait. While we have been waiting for release, we have written an album's worth of new material so there is plenty more Holopaw to come.