Our music comes from Pakatakan Mountain in the Catskills.
Our second album, Songs for the New, is due out October 4, 2011.
We are Steve Koester, Jason Mills, Don Piper, Jude Webre and Ben Wildenhaus.
Magnet Magazine was kind enough to ask us to create a mix tape for them. We had a good time rounding up all the influences that went into Songs for the New -- from The Band to Nina Simone to XTC to Richard & Linda Thompson to Bill Withers to Judee Sill and beyond.
In celebration of the release of "Songs for the New", our second album, just released on Riot Bear Recording Co., we're playing a couple of CD release shows in early November.
To kick off CMJ and to celebrate the release of Songs for the New and the launch of Riot Bear Recording Co., we'll be playing a little party upstairs at the Living Room NYC. Can't give too much away, but a large white piano is involved.
We are very pleased to announce that our new album is out this week. We're incredibly excited for you to hear it.
"Songs for the New" is the album we've been dreaming of making for quite some time. Written & conceptualized in the Catskills, it's our little mountain magnum opus. Don't want to speak too much more to its content, but -- recorded over the course of year at Don & Jason's studios, mixed by the incomparable Joel Hamilton at Studio G, and mastered by Adam Ayan at Gateway -- we will say that it sounds very very nice. For more on the making of the album, this is a good place to start: interview with Rumpus.
The album is available in CD, Digital, and dual LP formats. Each features an uncoated stock sleeve and lyric booklet designed by Ian O’Phelan. They look rad and feel good to hold.
Thanks to Chris Charmichael for the beautiful strings & Jonathan Powell for the horn arrangements. Thanks to Josh Roy Brown & Tom Siler for their cameos. And a special shout-out to James Anthony, head honcho at Riot Bear.
Band photo by Charlie Gross http://www.charliegrossphoto.com/
Janet Steen talks to Steve Koester about the making of Two Dark Birds' "Songs for the New" in a wide-ranging and extensive interview. Other topics covered: trees, NYC social paranoia, Karen Dalton, and the "Catskills Sound".
Song for Clementine is the first single from our new album "Songs for the New" due out 10.4.11 on the Riot Bear Recording Co.
UPDATE 08.15.11: Truck America has been cancelled for 2011. Bummer.
We are quite stoked to once again be a part of the Truck America Festival, September 9 - 11 in Big Indian, NY. The festival is held at Full Moon Resort (just a stone's throw from our Pakatakan Mountain hideaway) in the Catskills and features some astounding talent this year -- The Hold Steady, Wye Oak, Ra Ra Riot, Okkervil River, Oxygen Ponies, Dreaming Spires, The Felice Brothers and a ton more.
Dallas Orbiter, a very fine psych-rock band from the Twin Cities, just released a cover of the song "23" as the b-side to their June single "(We Got) Supercars."
We'll be playing a benefit in Phoenicia on Friday July 15 at the Shandaken Theater. We'll be playing two sets. Doors are at 7pm, first set should start around 7:30pm.
music, and science.
Here's a clip from the WNRN session at Campout East. "Pie Eyed" live from Ian's Cabin. . .
