Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson- Sneak Peek on Dazed Digital

Ready for Summer of Fear? Check out this video--a simple and stunning cut of "Ciao Manhattan" from the unreleased album, out October 20th on Saddle Creek. From dazeddigital.com, July 19 09.

Sonar 2009 Guide Features Micachu & The Shapes

Micachu & The Shapes played this year's Sonar Festival in Barcelona, Spain June 18-20th. The band was featured in the festival's official guide. For all of our hispanohablante readers, check out the article and sweet photo!

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson Signs to Saddle Creek, US Tour Dates TBA

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson Signs to Saddle Creek Records
New Album Summer of Fear Out October 20th
Four Week US Tour To Be Announced Soon

NPR: "Robinson has a style and flair all his own. His emotive, at time tormented rock rides on the clamor of discordant guitar jabs, tinny drums, and pained singing."

Pitchforkmedia: "...lives up to those impressive connections, pouring a woodsy, deceptively simple folk song through the damp, woozy atmospherics of Horn of Plenty. The proper setting could be a rowdy bar as easily as that record's quiet bedroom."

Time Out New York: "Local singer-songwriter Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, whose sidemen have included members of Grizzly Bear and TV on the Radio, plays garagey pop with winning psych-era melodies."

WOXY.com: "...with the extra layers of instrumentation and emotion, MBAR is a musician in nobody's shadow, and and deserves your attention."

Dazed and Confused: "...veering from anthems of defiance to ballads of vulnerability."

Kip Malone, TV on the Radio: "He is in my opinion without a contemporary rival when it comes to storytelling. Creating nuances, breathing character portraits inside of pop structures. Like a lot of good music his songs feel like they are filling a predetermined space, like the ether was just waiting for him to connect the dots and give voice to them."

What did you do last summer? It's a simple question, really; enough to provide the plot of a Jennifer Love Hewitt film, written by the dude from Dawson's Creek.

Simple unless you're Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson. Here's his story from a couple summers ago, its pages turned in no particular order: Bitterness. Regret. Betrayal. Bouts of self-loathing. Burning buildings and falling bodies. Breakups and new beginnings. Numerology. And endless nights at the same Brooklyn bar—lots of last calls that drop you in the arms of another, in the death grip of decisions that are wrong in retrospect yet oh-so-right...right?

"The summer of 2007 was like that episode of Seinfeld, where everyone decides to do the opposite of what they're supposed to do," explains Robinson. "So instead of going home to your girlfriend or whatever at night, you'd just stay at the bar and let someone inappropriate take you home. It was a bad joke at first, like a terrible '90s movie unfolding before our eyes. It became an awful unravelling. 2002 had it's revenge."

A movie you'll want the DVD of later; a movie by the name Summer of Fear. It's got a hell of a soundtrack, too, the culmination of years spent in eight-track studios, cypher-fueled jam sessions, and dicey club dates that often ended in fist fights and broken glass. Not to mention a revolving door of collaborators that helped Robinson work out the kinks in his skewed pop hooks and melancholic melodies, including the Grizzly Bear members (drummer Christopher Bear, multi-instrumentalist/producer Chris Taylor) who worked on Robinson's self-titled solo disc several winters ago—the winter before the fear set in. As acclaimed as Robinson's debut was when it finally received a proper pressing in 2008 (a CD-R version first infiltrated Brooklyn in late 2006), the effort was meant to be a glorified demo, a proper introduction to Robinson's solo direction after the dissolution of his longest-running band, Jackson Plastic. Summer of Fear is what happened six months later, as life alternated between darkness and light, and spare bedroom songs blossomed into speaker-popping arrangements of sweeping strings, honking horns, and chords that cut so deeply they're bound to leave a mark. A biting cross-section of Petty and Dylan, Pavement and Fleetwood Mac, delivering a eulogy to yesterday and the curtain-drawing promise of another day. Not just any day, either; a day Robinson's determined to seize on an international stage, with a battered guitar by his side and a four-alarm fire in his chest.

"Listening to it now," says Robinson, "It's like someone banging on a door really hard, until they start throwing their shoulder into it....then someone on the other side simply opens it and on the next lunge the solicitor goes hurtling across the threshold. It's well-produced, but there's a lot of frustration and rage on the record. Every song has a point of catharsis."

TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone—a close friend since the pair met en route to a Grizzly Bear show in 2005—helped bottle Robinson's bruised hymns last winter, ramping up the tension in such standout tracks as "Death by Dust," "Summer of Fear pt. 2," "The Sound," and the 11-and-a-half draining minutes of "More Than a Mess," a haunting epic that deserves its own short film. (Or more than half of Side D; Summer of Fear is spread across two LPs like one of Robinson's favorite records, Tusk.) Since they both "have a tendency toward a generally and hilariously doom stricken worldview," Malone also understood what Robinson was going for with his redemption songs. After all, he was there that summer. He saw it all go down, and now that he's heard the whole thing told through Summer of Fear's relentless and raw tone poems, he can't wait to see what Robinson comes up with next. (Robinson is desperate to record his third record—yes, already. Written last year in the midst of touring to support his unexpected self-titled debut, he describes the disc as containing,"actual songs...as opposed to vaguely melodic litanies of grievance.")

Starfucker on Tour!

Starfucker Announce Fall Tour in Support of Jupiter



“While most retro aesthetes are funny once bores, Starfucker’s party trick is a thriller.” Spin 8/10

"The kids love Josh Hodges' low-fi dance-pop steez, and they show up in droves whether he plays house parties or clubs." Willamette Week

If you haven’t already heard the phenomenal Portland, Oregon four-piece Starfucker, then you’re in for a real treat. While Josh Hodges (vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion), Ryan Biornstad (vocals, guitar, keyboards, mixing), Shawn Glassford (bass, keyboards, percussion), and Keil Corcoran (drums) have been collaborating for just two years, they have managed to sell-out shows across North America on three successful tours and win over fans for both their energetic live sets and their two critically acclaimed releases, debut Starfucker (self-released) and follow-up EP Jupiter (Badman Records). Armed with driving beats, unstoppable energy, and colorful headbands galore, the guys are sure to bring the party to venues across the country and up to Canada on a slew of highly anticipated dates this fall.

What began with Josh Hodges solo at an underground Portland show and an overflow of ideas, has quickly become one of the most vibrant young acts to come out of the Pacific Northwest’s musical hotbed. Josh began the project in 2007 with just a stripped-down drum kit, a loop pedal and a microphone and soon began collaborating with friends and fellow musicians Ryan, Shawn and Keil. Each of the guys, with their many unique talents and impressive stage presence, have helped to make Starfucker the tour de force that it is today – a tight-knit group who brilliantly meld electronics and incredible musicianship into each other-worldly and mesmerizing track.

Be sure to check out the video of the track “Medicine” for a taste of what’s heading your way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfJWkfqN97E

Upcoming dates in full:

09/04/09 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir (early & late show)
09/09/09 Boise, ID @ Neurolux
09/10/09 Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court (early show)
09/10/09 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge (late show)
09/12/09 Morrison, CO @ Monolith Festival
09/14/09 Sious Falls, SD @ Nuttys
09/16/09 Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
09/17/09 Urbana, IL @ Courtyard Café (Pygmalion Festival)
09/18/09 Pittsburg, PA @ Brillobox
09/19/09 Buffalo, NY @ Mohawk
09/21/09 Boston, MA @ Middle East Upstairs
09/22/09 Brooklyn, NY @ Bruar Falls
09/23/09 New York, NY @ Santo’s Party House
09/25/09 Haverford, PA @ Bryn Mawr College - Lunt Basement
09/26/09 Durham, NC @ Duke Coffee House
09/28/09 Nashville, TN @ The End
09/30/09 Denton, TX @ Hailey’s
10/01/09 Austin, TX @ Mohawk
10/04/09 Phoenix, AZ @ Modified Arts
10/05/09 San Diego, CA @ US San Diego - The Loft
10/06/09 Los Angeles, CA @ Echo
10/07/09 San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
10/09/09 Seattle, WA @ Vera Project
10/10/09 Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret

For more information on Starfucker, contact Gina Schulman or Laura Sadai at Press Here Publicity: gina@pressherepublicity.com/laura@pressherepublicity.com