Adam & the Amethysts

Bio:

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Adam & the Amethysts - Flickering Flashlight

Sometimes the most startling new music is the stuff that sounds somehow familiar. With FLICKERING FLASHLIGHT, Montreal's ADAM & THE AMETHYSTS have lit up a box of homemade fireworks, firing psychedelic folk and pinwheeling pop, crowing for the love of all the old songs and all the young ones, too: the Beach Boys and Kurt Vile, Os Mutantes and Woods, George Harrison and Chad VanGaalen. ADAM & THE AMETHYSTS are a band of scrappy kids and Adam Waito, their leader, is possibly the scrappiest. Born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, he moved from the small town to the big city in 2003. That's the migration that still haunts his songs, but other changes stir there too: growing up, crashing down, losing friends, finding love, forgetting. While indie-rock chases chillwave, Adam is making a sibling hypnogogic pop: the whirrs of old VCRs, the gloss of old Polaroids, Sun Araw and Real Estate guesting on Paul McCartney's Ram.

FLICKERING FLASHLIGHT is also the highest-fi lo-fi record you'll hear this year. Much as it evokes Van Dyke Parks' ensembles and Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, this bold blushing sound was recorded in a single tiny room at the front of Adam's apartment; an office stuffed with guitars, amps, patch cords, a giant vintage map of Lake Superior. No, it wasn't soundproofed; yes, you can "definitely hear some garbage truck." There are distant creaks, closing doors, moth-wings. "When you listen to the record, it's kind of like sitting in my house and listening to my house, with music playing over it," Adam says. "I was trying to achieve sounds that on the one hand transcend the circumstances, grander and more interesting, but on the other hand remain true to what's going on: which is a guy making music in a 5' x 8' room, overlooking the street.

For FLICKERING FLASHLIGHT, the Amethysts include musicians drawn from across Montreal's indie, weird-punk, folk and pop scenes, including members of Miracle Fortress, Sunset Rubdown, Mixylodian, Code Pie, Fuji Hakayito and North, My Love. Rebecca Lessard plays cello and sings back-up vocals. Scott Gailey plays bass. But listen for other things, too: campfire samples, beer bottles, analog synths, electric hand mixers. And a love for the Microphones, Carole King, the United States of America, Eric's Trip - not to mention Edgar Allan Poe, Jesus Christ Superstar and Judee Sill's "crazy cosmic thing." "It's so easy to / fall into a rut," Adam sings on "Canadian Tired". Later, he changes the line: "It's so easy to / fall in love." FLICKERING FLASHLIGHT is about making that change, carping the diem. But it's also about the yesterdays, teenaged and rosy. There's a beauty to remembering, Adam says, "to remem- bering fondly, even kidding yourself in some sense."

Objects in the rear-view mirror may be closer than they appear.

Track Listing
1. Tall Tall Building
2. Prophecy
3. The Country
4. I'm a Medium
5. Flickering Flashlight
6. Primrose & Pinecones
7. Gitche Gumee Yeah Yeah 8. Adam Called Me Over Christmas
9. Standing on a Strand
10. Canadian Tired
11. Dreaming
12. Untitled

Release date

October 4th, 2011

Record Label:

Kelp Records

Adam & the Amethysts - Amethyst Amulet

Amethyst Amulet on iTunes.

The pop hit of the summer!
-TORONTO STAR

While evincing the intimacy of an apartment recording, it is also brimming with overlapping instruments, tempo changes and ambitious arrangements. The result resembles the precarious balance between innocence and sophistication that Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks have been known to strike.
-TORONTO STAR

I’ve fallen in love.
-NATIONAL POST

Montreal's newest shimmering gem.
-SAID THE GRAMOPHONE

They meander quietly through ethereal psychedelic moments and a Neil Youngish understanding of the lyrical details that fill a songs with endearing personality. At 13 songs, Amulet could go on a while longer and still remain a beautiful piece of contemporary Canadiana.
-NOW MAGAZINE

Track Listing:
1.Stupid Ocean
2.The Return
3.Aurora Bora Laskin (interlude)
4.Sweet Lady
5.The Part of Me that's Evergreen
6.Amethyst Amulet
7.Bumble Bee
8.She's My Friend (She Kissed Me in the Dark)
9.He Passed Away (The Darkness in His Head)
10.Sonic Youth Centre
11.Green Mantle
12.Waverly, Vickers, Trowbridge, Centennial
13.The Ocean to me

Members:

The Amethysts Band:
Adam Waito: Guitar, Keys, Vox, etc.
Keiko Devaux: Keys
Rory Seydel: Bass
Rebecca Lessard: Cello
And Occasionally or at Some Time in the Past:
Katherine Peacock: Keys, Vox, etc.
Nathan Ward: Drums, Percussion, etc.
Jessie Stein: Guitar, Vox, etc.
Craig Pedersen: Trumpets
Pietro Amato: French Horn
Jessica Kelly: Viola, Violin
and you!

Influences:

Northwestern Ontario, Judy Henske and Jerry Yester - Farewell Aldebaran, Jesus Christ Superstar, the Zombies, United States of America/Joseph Byrd, the Kinks, Tropicalia, Neil Young, hippie folk, Prince, Canadiana

Sounds Like:

Telefauna, Miracle Fortress, spring reverb, meager circumstances, Rod Stewart

Record Label:

Pome/You've Changed Records