Broken Circles recently announced the addition of James Bishop (Cincinnati, OH by way of St Louis, MO) to their roster. The label will release the debut EP, Bad Dream, officially on March 25, 2016. Digital/CD pre-orders are now live!
You can listen to the second single from Bad Dream right now. “Another Day” is premiering exclusively on Noisey. “Tailspin” previously premiered and can be heard now below.
James Bishop is finishing recording for his debut LP in February with release expected on Broken Circles in the Fall.
Music has a weird way of conjuring memories, projecting moments into our minds in a way that allows us to remember details that we otherwise might not. What’s weirder, though, is how music we’ve never heard possesses a similar power—albeit a perverted version, one that paints fictional pictures, casts manufactured and blurry moods equal parts daydream and distant memory. Such is the power that James Bishop’s debut EP Bad Dream has on its listener, whose songs feel instantly familiar but impossible to place.
In fact, these first four haunting songs possess an almost photographic quality—though the kinds of discolored, faded photos found abandoned at the bottom of closets. “Another Day” is a hazy spring day, but one whose pastel sky blends too seamlessly into the blooming foliage. On this opening track, Bishop whimpers above his guitar, which seems to bend and sway in the cool breeze. Though dustier, “Johnson’s Peak” features the same breeze; this song is a dune dotted with a faded mirage of palm trees and sparkling water, its drumbeat like baited breath. During a post-chorus bridge, Bishop’s guitars even shift like sand in the wind.
The other songs seem darker, almost alien—like “Butch,” the record’s second song, which feels like an ill-framed photo taken beneath an expansive, starless night sky. Guitars blur past like headlights dragging along some highway, then disappear, leaving enough space for Bishop’s languid voice to flicker and flap in the drunken dusk. “Tailspin” only starts dark, with a sparse stalks of acoustic guitar and the chick of a rattle to keep the beat behind Bishop’s eerie melody. This song is a swamp, with reeds and scraggly trees sticking from delirious black pools—but brightened by some sort of dawn during its chorus, recasting the scene with smoother chords and sweet harmonies.
Sure, Bad Dream will likely summon different scenes for each listener, but they will sense that Bishop’s music is more than just rhythm and melody. It’s also dripping with color and texture, tinted with mood, distorted then restored; implicit in these songs are characters, some sunburnt and some tipsy, and conflict, the sort that seems dire in their mundane reality. Bishop’s are the sorts of songs that listeners tend to disappear into, returning with strange tales and artifacts they don’t remember finding—and, more literally, that will conjure memories for the rest of their lives. – Dane Erbach
