Thursday, February 09, 2006

Bishop Allen ... And Not A Moment Too Soon

Bishop Allen - Corazon
by the school on the street
you were dropped off with a sign "this piano is free"
it didn't look free to me


Bishop Allen is back with the first of their new EPs, January - 4 songs tracking in around 20 minutes and available for just $5 flat via the bands website. one of the major selling points of the new EP is the addition of a piano to the mix, which they wrote into a song that you just downloaded.

while we wait on the followup to charm school, allegedly titled Clementines and allegedly complete except for a production and distribution deal, the pups of bishop allen have cooked up a crazy plan to release an EP every month until the album comes out. a couple lo-fi mp3's were posted over at you aint no picasso, but the official site has been kind enough to release a higher fidelity track.

the details as posted on the band official fan board (on jan 25):
The first EP is done. It will be for sale Jan 31st on the website, and soon after on iTunes. The songs are:

1. Corazon
2. The Bullet and Big D
3. The Rabbit
4. Making Friends

We started work on the February EP today. That one will be ready February 28th.

These are all new songs. Nothing from Clementines. We played two of the January EP songs at the Bowery Ballroom, but other than that, they haven't lived out in the world anywhere. Except for Making Friends, which is different now than when we played it a few times long ago.


it's a little late in the day, so i'm going to just grab something i wrote about them back in july ... Bishop Allen is a band that seems to have come together strictly to reinvent several of life's coming-of-age moments - the first job, graduation, the first lost love - and cast them in a different light. it sounds something like a School House Rock for early adulthood. Where even the saddest defeats are voiced in the sweetest of melancholy - with none of the resignation that comes later in life.

this song sounds like the band has started to face the challenge of writing about the challenges that face us later in life.