With a charming deadpan, Portland, Oregon artist Sara Renberg tells absurdist story songs. It's smart, understated indie pop with a sense of humor. Recorded by Ephriam Nagler at K Records' Dub Narcotic Studio.
On blue cassettes with hand-typed lables, insert, and digital download code. Cover art by Martha Grover (Somnambulist, One More for the People).
Released on Antiquated Future Records. Listen on Bandcamp.
"If released a decade and a half ago, indiepop bible Chickfactor would have been all over The Tall Calm...Portland-based Sara Renberg has an observational honesty and surrealness that reminds me of early Magnetic Fields and Stephen Malkmus. Songs aren’t mere moments, they’re epiphanies." - Chiara Grassia, BMA Magazine
Deadpan and vulnerable, grounded and surreal, Sara Renberg's indie-pop songs are small worlds that envelop and surprise. Night Sands, her second full-length, is a record about the desire for and fear of intimacy; about being 32, gay, and single. The album's story-songs are funny and sad, grounded and surreal, nodding to artists like the Silver Jews, Liz Phair, Frankie Cosmos, and the Mountain Goats.
Cover art by Liana Jegers. Recorded by Adam Lee at Jackpot Studios. On smokey-tint cassettes.
Released on Antiquated Future Records. Listen on Bandcamp.
Songwriter and poet Sara Renberg begins her zine series looking at the often-maligned solo career of former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus. Focusing on his 2001 solo debut (before officially becoming Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks), she takes us on a joyous song-by-song investigation of why people hate it and how much there is to love. It's a fun read, even if you don't know the album. Along the way, there's the end of Pavement, the making of Silver Jews' American Water, and life in Portland, Oregon.
The zine is also a personal journey of a rural kid in the big city, discovering indie music, coming out, and dating girls for the first time (all to the soundtrack of this album).
32 pages, half-letter size.
Out this week! The third full-length from Pittsburgh songwriter Sara Renberg, Butch Spring is an album about being humbled by a mid-30s identity crisis, and the confusion and joy that results. These are songs about gender, queerness, and relationships that are both playful and analytical, full of both depth and absurdity.
The follow-up to her critically-adored 2018 release Night Sands, Butch Spring continues her reign of lyrically clever, emotionally resonant, scrappy indie rock songs that have earned her regular comparisons to Frankie Cosmos, Silver Jews, and The Mountain Goats. But the album also pushes her sound into new territory, with drop-tuned guitars, woodwinds, and surprise horn sections.
First printing on white cassettes with denim text and J-card art by Zoe Wodarz. Listen on Bandcamp.