Austin Sound

The physical release of Sunset’s new album, Loveshines But The Moon Is Shining Too, comes out tomorrow as 2LP opus, and Bill Baird and company have offered up the lead track for download to celebrate. This follows on the heels of the previous two tracks released back in July, but seeing as how this will be Sunset’s 5th album in three years, which more than most bands put out in their entire career, the band seems to have plenty of tunes to share. The music in Bill Baird’s head must out, one way or another. The good news is that Sunset keeps getting better and better. The band just returned from a little west coast jaunt, but doesn’t currently have any homecoming dates line up that we can find. Download “Heavy Light” below, and order the album from the fine folks at Autobus Records here.

Sunset is gearing for the release of their next album, called Loveshines But The Moon Is Shining Too. Set for digital release on September 7 and as a 2LP/CD on October 12th via Autobus Records, the bits that we’ve been hearing are pretty fantastic. Case in point is the beautiful “Late Night Dawning”, which features vocal contributions from Crystal Fulbright and Red Hunter. “Excuse me while I go insane, or whatever they call it now.” We call it being Bill Baird! Zing! Also contributed for your consideration is “Loveshines II”, with mp3 below and the video available here. This was released as 7-inch last year (TWSS). Baird and Co. are currently out on the road, having mis-adventures and raiding open mics alongside sister project Sleep Good. Tracklist and cover art Loveshines But The Moon Is Shining Too is available here, should you be so inclined to take a gander.

We love Kickstarter. Seriously. It’s such a simple idea that it’s brilliant. Easy to use, easy to chip in and support the bands you love, and great for bands to raise money up front for projects rather than going in the hole and hoping to recoup their losses. After all, it’s much easier to get your fans excited about paying for an album as your making it than after it’s release and they can download it for free. Maybe? Either way, Kickstarter is awesome and it works. Just look at Shearwater’s crazy dossier thing! Now Bill Baird and Sunset are getting in on the action, because if it’s one thing Bill Baird does well, it’s DIY. He’s recorded his next album already, because it’s been all of like four months or something since his last, and he needs his fans to help him raise some funds to get it out. Called Love Shines But the Moon is Shining Too, the band is hoping to put it out in double vinyl, and Baird has some cool offers for you if want to front him some cash. Of course, that’s what the guy on the street corner told us, too, but Baird seems sincere in his video plea - which is hilarious, and you should watch right now. Also, while you’re there, go ahead and throw him some money! Help Kickstart Sunset here.

2008 was a marathon year for Bill Baird and Sunset: Pink Clouds, Bright Blue Dream, and The Glowing City. These three full-length albums, each distinct iterations of Sunset’s characteristic sound, accounted for hours upon hours of music that no doubt took many more hours still to write and record. After a year of formalizing his band and establishing his new east side studio, Baby Blue, 2010 brings yet another new release in the Sunset catalog, Gold Dissolves To Gray. Tempting as it is to throw it up on the shelf with the earlier releases, much of the album serves as a re-imagining of Sunset’s sound as stripped down, comical at times, and all-together a more coherent album.

In case you didn’t know, Bill Baird fancies himself a filmmaker. We’re fine with that, but when we try to play his DVDs on our new-fangled hi-def tv, the thing starts smoking. Bill Baird wants nothing to do with your technical advancements, and we hereby dub his style “8mm-sploitation.” It’s like the The Wonder Years, except starring Bill Baird and with surprisingly less self-conscious narration. On the latest episode, Baird visits a farm in North Carolina and has dubious run-ins with goats and hillbillies. [Insert mandatory Deliverance reference here]. Tonight, however, Baird will actually be merging his musical and film worlds at 501 Studios here in town as he scores some classic silent films. You can RSVP for that free event here. And what else is going on in Baird-land? A new album, due out in a couple of weeks as an LP and CD combo from Autobus Records. Called Gold Dissolves to Gray (Holy shit! Bill Baird is Ponyboy!), the album features the song “Rivers to Babylon” below, and 13 other soon to be Sunset classics. Oh, and it’s also limited to 500 copies, because that’s the way Baird rolls, too. Tracklist and video below:

There seems to be a general contention these days between the single and EP. We love that the single is making a comeback, especially in 7″ form as we get from Sunset and the Black below, but we have to continue to take issue with the idea of a three song EP. We’ll let our hangups over the issue of EP vs single slide with Leatherbag and Corto Maltese, though, as both are excellent and welcome offerings that compact their distinctive sounds into great releases. Leatherbag’s Everything I Once Knew encapsulates the range of styles that he has progressed through over the years, while the Corto Maltese’ Answer, Answer proves appropriately more polished than their much acclaimed demo while still retaining their unbridled edge. Okkervil River offers up a new song, “Millionaire,” on their single to The Stand Ins’s, “Pop Lie,” along with an alternate take on the song, and the recent 7″ vinyl releases from Sunset (Loveshines II) and the Black (Little Hits) are must have local singles.

We wouldn’t ever expect Bill Baird to take a moments rest, even after releasing two great albums this year with Sunset’s Bright Blue Dream and The Glowing City, and we’re excited to hear that his next endeavor will be an album of covers coming out next January. With a nod to Whitman, Baird is dubbing the LP Songs the Sound of Myself, As Written By Others, and it’s a rather fantastic and eclectic offering. Not only does he cover some of his eccentric influences (Robert Wyatt, Bill Fay), but also some songs by his local friends like Mark David Ashworth, Sam Sanford, and Jared Van Fleet from Sparrow House. The album will be limited to 100 handmade copies released on the small NYC label Tired Trails and packaged with poems, photos and other Baird artworks, but the songs will also be available as a digital download. Check out the full tracklist for the album below!

Austin’s shaggy-haired savant Bill Baird loves to unload his lo-fi video visions upon the world as much as he does his music, and to accompany the release of this spring’s Bright Blue Dream, which preceded the recent Glowing City, he has been preparing an entire video set. He hasn’t quite finished them, though according to a recent blog post, thinks that is for the better: “Ironically, all the delay has been good… the videos didn’t affect initial reactions to the album. Funny, off-the-cuff
videos for dark songs might’ve caused some serious cognitive dissonance. This time lapse allows
the videos to be seen as not extending directly from the songs, but more a way to blow off some
creative steam, have fun, and experiment in a new medium.”

The Glowing City, the new album from Bill Baird’s Sunset, is an ambitious sprawling tribute to psychedelic, prog, folk, and post-rock. Attributed to seven musicians plus another eighteen (twenty-one or more if you count Townes the Dog, the guy who recorded street traffic, and whomever played in the Tejano band on the radio next door to the studio), The Glowing City is filled with lush instrumentation and voices that appear from unlit corners. There’s a sense that maybe complete chaos is right around the bend when all these folks are allowed to get together.

At eighteen tracks and almost 80 minutes long, The Glowing City is a difficult album to digest in one or two listens. Like the best parts of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother and/or Obscured By Clouds with a dash of Sgt Pepper, Bowie, and Love, this album yields new gifts every listen as the nuances and influences are picked up and peeled away.

To get the “inside scoop,” as we professional reporters say, on the new Sunset album The Glowing City (which is due July 15th on Autobus Records) I emailed Bill Baird asking him if he wouldn’t mind talking about it with me. He agreed, and suggested we do the interview on Google Chat. Unsure of which emoticons most accurately reflected the professional aura of seriousness I maintain when conducting all my interviews, I was at first hesitant, but reluctantly assented. So late one night, after we had each returned home from work (and made a stop by the refrigerator), Bill Baird and I met in “cyberspace” to talk about the two latest Sunset albums, Baird’s lyrical influences, thunderstorms and more. What resulted was, naturally, something of a disaster.