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It’s with considerable pleasure we welcome Amy Allison to the fold of Urban Myth artistes.

Over the span of five records and hundreds of shows, Amy has carved herself a unique place in the pantheon of great American songwriters. Fans since we heard her classic album “No Frills Friend”, we finally met Amy over drinks with Lee Feldman and quickly decided to join forces to release her stellar new record Sheffield Streets.

Don Heffington produced the album in LA with a cast of amazing musicians (Greg Leisz, Bob Glaub, Josh Grange, hell… Van Dyke Parks plays accordion) and he and Amy just knock it out of the park.

The album is primarily new songs (check out the stunning new ballads “Everywhere You Are” and “Dream World”) though Amy revisits a few of her older tunes at Don’s behest (remaking “Everybody Ought To Know” as a Loretta-and-Lee duet with Dave Alvin, and a fantastic girl-groupy arrangement of her old band Parlor James’ “Why Must It Be?”).

We’ll leave it up to the sell sheet to do the selling, but we’re really chuffed to work with Amy and super proud of this record.

Sheffield Streets is already available for listening and download through Amy’s BandCamp mini site and will hit iTunes, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody and your favourite download service on June 17th. Our projected street date for CDs is June 23rd, although CDBaby may have copies available sooner than that.

Check it out, and please feel free to share this widget with your friends:

 

Updates: Sheffield Streets’ first review from Scotish Blog The Next Big Thing and a nice little article/preview of one of Amy’s recent gigs from Worcester Magazine.

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Dan Bryk will release a new 5-track EP Discount Store in partnership with Raleigh media collective Firefly Music.

This will be the first time UM and Firefly have formally collaborated, although Bryk sang two lines on The Tourist‘s Firefly debut CD “Not Now, Nor Ever” (a flavour the ever-guileless Tourist returned by guesting on Discount Store’s second track “Normal”).

After “hooking up”, Bryk and the Firefly music principals were impressed by their thoroughly complimentary skillz and tendencies to Mac fetishism.

The EP’s five tracks include two versions of “Discount Store”, one of which will appear on Bryk’s forthcoming long-player Pop Psychology and three new tracks that will not appear elsewhere, including a cover of the Furniture’s 1985 lost classic “I Miss You”.

Discount Store (the EP) was recorded in about eight different studios and living rooms between Toronto and the Triangle, Discount Store (the song) was mixed by Greg Wells at his Rocket Carousel Studio in LA, while everything else was mixed at Bryk’s Raleigh studio Flabby Road.

The EP features long-time collaborators (guitarist Swinghammer, vocalist Kathryn Rose, Supers/Sarah Harmer bassist Maury Lafoy) some new folks (Australian singer-songwriter Greta Gertler, English guitarist Tim Carless, Jason Collett/Feist drummer Josh Hicks) and a veritable support group of UM artists including Chris Warren, Chris Staig, Down By Avalon’s Alan Martin, and Bull City’s Jim Brantley.)

Discount Store cover and tracklisting: Continue reading →

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We had originally wanted to time this announcement for April 1st, but whatever, nevermind.

Up until this point the exclusive domain of solo singer-songwriters*, the first person construct Urban Myth Recording Collective is totally stoked to announce the addition of not one, but TWO new bands to our artist roster: Bull City and Down By Avalon.

Why TWO bands? Because they have plenty of awesome songs, and awesome songs are right there on our mission statement in between drink lots of coffee and no whites after boxing day.

Why now? Because they made awesome records and we would like to share them with you. I mean, you’re probably gonna end up sharing them on the internets, sooner or later.

Why not? Exactly. So here they are, our new babies:

Continue reading →

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The Urban Myth Recording Collective proudly welcomes Lee Feldman to the fold!

“Lee Feldman wants to take you back to those innocent days before critics applied the term “singer-songwriter” to any prefabricated pixie who tossed Babyface a few lyrics over sushi.” – Salon.com

After months of heated negotiations (well, Lee kept asking “What the hell is a pop music collective anyway?”) we are proud to announce the imminent release of I’ve Forgotten Everything, the stunning third album from the Broadminded Bard of Brooklyn (he’ll probably hate that!) Lee Feldman. Continue reading →

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Jason Camlot is a Montreal songwriter and poet.  His poetry collections include The Animal Library (DC Books, 2000), Lines Crossed Out (Delirium Press, 2005) and Attention All Typewriters (DC Books, 2005).
 
Back in the mid-1990s he released three legendary cassette albums in quick succession: O Glee (1994), Mr. Fedora (1995) and Letterbomb (1996).

Then he got a job. 

Blemish Years: 1994-1997, Camlot’s forthcoming CD release via the Urban Myth Recording Collective, is a documentary compilation of this extended annus mirabilis, featuring stunning tracks from his first two acoustic records, plus an eclectic selection of unreleased studio and home 4 track recordings from this extremely creative period of medium-grade depression and impermanent exile.
 

Continue reading →

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We are chuffed to announce that the Bicycles have signed to Toronto’s Fuzzy Logic records. Their album, half-recorded and produced in Chapel Hill, NC by Dan Bryk (with Robert Sledge at the board) and half-recorded by themselves at home is currently being mixed by Jose Contreras (By Divine Right, Meligrove Band) for release in 2006. B-B-B-B-B-Bicycles!