Friday, February 26, 2010

TVD's Ten Weeks of Record Store Day Vinyl Giveaways - Week 3 | Sub Pop Week, Day 5


So, Monday it was The Album Leaf, Tuesday we had Beach House, Wednesday was AFCGT, and yesterday we had Retribution Gospel Choir. Closing out our week of Sub Pop/Record Store Day Vinyl Giveaways is the new one from The Ruby Suns, 'Fight Softly.'

That's a darn fine giveaway week, I'm thinking.

The prime mover of The Ruby Suns, Ryan McPhun has literally traveled around the world to arrive at Fight Softly, the band’s 2nd album for Sub Pop, and 3rd overall. McPhun possesses (or is possessed by…) a voracious musical mind and this new album is the kind of head-spinning combination of big-picture vision and sumptuous detail that only comes from an artist with an urgent need to express all the stuff he’s seen. And you can dance to it!

Fight Softly veers from the path set by its predecessor, the 2008 release Sea Lion. Thematically, it’s not as wide-eyed or lighthearted, picking apart the relationships faced as we pass through the world—with our surroundings, each other, ourselves. Sonically, it remains as beat-centric, though these beats are deliciously artificial—stretched and compacted and distorted beyond recognition.

Melodies are scuzzy and digital, no guitars strummed or basses plucked. McPhun’s soulful upper-register croon, swallowed into the mix, replaces group chants and full-throated singalongs. Rather than an album of clearly-drawn influences, Fight Softly is a unique, inscrutable synthesis, more itself than anything else.


The rules can't be any simpler for our Sub Pop LP Giveaways this week: each day this week we'll be launching a new Sub Pop RSD2010 Vinyl Giveaway and all you need to do to enter to win is to leave a comment in the comments section to that week's giveaway letting us know why you deserve to win that week's LP.

Be creative, funny, incisive—whatever it takes to grab our attention to deem you the winner. Most important however is to leave us a contact email address! You can be brilliant as hell, but if we can't track ya' down, you're out of the running.

All winners will all be notified
on Monday (3/1) upon the launch of the next RSD2010 Vinyl Giveaway!

5 comments:

Lawdrone said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lawdrone said...

Because I've thrown my name in for every other Sub Pop lp this week. And because if the music is half as great as the colors on the cover, it'll be a welcome antidote to the sound of wind battering my apartment.

bennettstarnes (at) gmail

Andy Dunn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Andy Dunn said...

Ruby Sun's last full album was a beast, it had everything I ever wanted in an album. The album is perfect for the summer and parties. I am very excited about the ruby's new album and would love to add this to my collection.

Thank You

dunnand (at) gmail.com

Kyle said...

I deserve to win the Ruby Suns "Fight Softly" LP because I am a poor college kid with a need to listen to music. Having this vinyl would mean the world to me, because it would mean that I would be able to listen to something awesome on our record player.

Please make this Michigan cold feel like summer!

kdbusse@gmail.com