Today’s the day!  ‘Telescopes’ is here and it’s available on iTunes and Spotify.

I plan to write a blog along the lines of ‘what we learned’ from making ‘Telescopes’… but for now, I’ll say that we’re very happy with the record.  We think it’s a solid, good-sounding indie rock record.  Is it a Rich Costey mix?  No.  But for being a couple kids mixing a record in their apartment (with two dogs sitting on their laps, btw), we think we did a good job.  We certainly think we have grown with each consecutive release.  

As one of the few, proud blog readers here… you have heard our thoughts through the process of making this record.  Well, there’s a whole lot more coming.  I’m hoping to refocus these posts a bit more too… hoping to make it less of a newsfeed (hey, look what we did!) and more of a reflective piece.  

So, here’s one bit…  We’ve already begun writing the next album.  I have about 15 songs sketched out that need to be demoed.  We will follow the same process that we did on ‘Telescopes’, starting with demos and fleshing out our favorite tracks.  I hope to write a total of 30 songs for the project, which we’ll sculpt into (likely) a classic 12-song record.  Who knows.  A lot will change in the coming months.  Oh, and I have the title for the record… ‘Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies’.  It will be a progression of the sound presented in ‘Telescopes’… ahhhh, but which way will we progress?  Why, you’ll just have to keep reading to find out…

‘Telescopes’ is nearly here.  It’s pretty wild to see.  We started this album back in April and now here we are.  Finally!  And we are very excited!

We will be performing our CD Release at Hotel Cafe on Friday, December 5th at 10pm.  This is an important night for us, not only because it’s a celebration of the music we will share, but also because it’s the start of a new journey for us.

To promote the upcoming show, we are going to be putting out some little online trinkets here and there.  The first of which is an acoustic version of ‘Perfect View’.  Enjoy!

There will be other shares along the way.  In the meantime, thank you all so much for supporting us and spreading the love!

-Peter

Oh!  And most important.  we got a new puppy.  Internet, meet Comet.

First off, thank you for taking the time to put aside those enticing cat videos and reading the ramblings of an alt rock songwriter.  The other night, I mentioned to Maddie, “I may stop doing the whole ‘process’ blog posts.  I don’t think anyone really reads them.”  To which she replied.  “Oh, I have people mention things from those blog posts all the time!”  Thus, here we go!  Another trip down the rabbit hole…

A lot has happened since I last wrote.  First off, our single ‘Perfect View’has been doing really well!  We’re not quite sure how it happened, but the song was featured on Soundcloud’s ‘Explore’ section… which saw us catching 500+ plays a day.  Things have slowed down now, but we are super happy to see that - in the month since ‘Perfect View’ was first released - it has received (to date) 7,891 plays and a good amount of interaction.  We realize that this isn’t much by Soundcloud standards, but it was all organic and good by our standards.

The music video for ‘Perfect View’ has also been released.  As a song, ‘Perfect View’ is a bit more straight-forward (lyrically) and concerns the cross-country move that Maddie and I made back in 2010.  Well, looking through some old files, we found footage from around the time we first arrived… this provided the majority of the ‘Perfect View’ video… a candid look at the same moment ‘Perfect View’ was written about.

Finally, we are very excited for next Monday, November 3rd!  HunnyPot is throwing a mighty bash and we’ll be playing a set.  For us, it’s a great opportunity to share some of our new tunes before ‘Telescopes’ is released.  We’ll be having a special guest join us on stage too… so, I think you’ll want to come on out.  :)

Till next time!

Peter

Wow, we honestly can’t believe it’s done.  Any we couldn’t be happier with the result.

Yesterday we completed ‘Telescopes’… debut LP and musical obsession.  I’m feeling a bit sentimental while writing this, so I’ll mention that - looking back at the last few blog posts - that I am surprised by how winding of a road this has all been.

For you nerds out there, we mixed the record in Logic Pro at our home studio, Shark Attack Studios (named affectionately after Maddie’s obsession with sharks).  I initially wanted to name our updated studio DinoStar Studios, but Maddie insisted.  Looking back, perhaps she had been watching too much shark week…

Up next, we will be diving back into music video territory… Which will exercise those other creative parts of our brains.  

Our first single from Telescopes will be coming mid-September.  And trust us.  You’ll know.  ;)

7.27.14

SET ME ON FIYAH!

We’re fueling this rocket!  Cement mixers full of blood & sweat, powered by our sleepless nights, are being dumped into the good ship ‘Telescopes’, which we are still hesitating to call an EP… because, who knows how many of these 13 songs we’ll ultimately include.  Maybe we have ourselves a full LP…

This July has been our Tracking month, where we try to get all the elements finalized and ready to mix.  This is a very rewarding process, because it’s the point where we really begin to hear our songs come together.  August is our mixing month, which will once more be done by yours truly.

We’ve been having a great time working with some of our favorite people, Kiel Feher and Yan Perchuk.  Kiel has been playing drums with us on all things Polaris Rose since our first EP, ‘The Moon & its Secrets’ and he is a good friend and a phenomenal player.  He has been gracious enough to welcome us to track drums at his home studio (which I insist should be called Frogtown Studios, but which he still hasn’t decided on).  Meanwhile, we have been tracking vocals with Yan Perchuk, who has been a pleasure to work with and always good for a laugh.  We have been recording our vocals at Vibrant Productions (Yan’s home Studio) and he has been a real joy to work with.

A handful of the songs have risen to the top and seem to have ‘single’ qualities.  We are preparing for another week of TLC on these tracks before sending them to the right people and beginning that “what are our singles” discussion.  From there, we’ll begin work on music videos.  Ultimately, we hope to have our first single released in September and our first video in October.  So this fall should be an exciting stream of releases leading up to the release of ‘Telescopes’ (November).

But while choosing our ‘singles’ is super important, we are also keeping an eye on what our potential album could be.  In this regard, ‘Telescopes’ (as we are calling this next release) has been unlike albums I’ve done before.  Over the years, I’ve written many albums to play out in a certain order, with a certain number of songs.  With Polaris Rose - however - we have been recording songs that have a certain sound but that are - to a certain extent - unrelated.  The themes behind the lyrics are what unite these songs.  I can tell you that - for us - there is a particular message and idea behind the songs of ‘Telescopes’, but that’ll be something for each listener to discern (or not).

In other news, our puppy Meatloaf got a little sick… a dehydrated mini-daschund is a sad little thing.  But, after a night in the animal hospital, he is back home and has returned to his chipper little self. 

Oh, and Maddie and I are temporarily obsessed with the app French Girls.  You upload a selfie and someone draws you… You get to draw other people, which is our favorite part.  :)

Cheers!

Peter

6.29.14

Wow, didn’t realize it’s been a whole month… well, needless to say lots of stuff happened.

First off, THANK YOU to everyone who made it out to our set at Harvard & Stone.  We had a great time and all the bands (thatwasthen and The Janks) were killer!  Here are some pics from the night…

<photo by Josh Blumenkratz>

<photo by Ben Irwin (pinpointmusic.com)>

<photo by Micah Lewis>

Also, THANK YOU AGAIN for voting us Artist of the Month on the LA Deli.  This is a rather striking feather to have in our cap.  We are being featured now at the top of their website (you can see a screenshot below) and will be able to get two of our songs mastered for free (not too shabby).  Thank you all, we obviously couldn’t do it without each and every one of you.  

Finally, we are happy to announce that we are in full swing!  Our next EP is due out this Fall and we are furiously sculpting 13 songs that we will eventually narrow down. We are super excited about the direction of the band and are very excited to share with all of you.  ;)  We’ll be writing more on the EP in the upcoming month as we go.  :)