at long last it’s time for an update friends.  what’s going on this fall?  where is the new music?  where are the shows?  what the hell have we been doing all year?  who ordered the code red?  these answers and more below.  here are the bullet points:

1– we’re releasing some singles this fall– one a month starting TODAY (september 18)!

2– in december we’re rereleasing our debut record ‘no disassemble’ with added covers, remixes, and b-sides

3– we’re playing a special show december 1 at the circular church in charleston sc.

4– lieutenant kendrick ordered the code red because colonel nathan jessup ordered him to do so.

so what the hell have we been doing?  lots of stuff.  random projects– kaler employing his studio wizardry for a variety of folks while i’ve been combining my two great loves– music and videogames– in scoring some games and animated shorts.  the other main thing i’ve been working on is raising a fresh little baby.  babies twist your emotions in knots cause they practically dare you to throw them out the window with their audacious selfishness and inability to care for themselves while simultaneously being so ridiculously cute you can’t help but keep feeding them and lovingly parading them around.  but they take up a lot of time and attention which is different but also nice  (one can only spin in the whirlpool of self absorption for so long).  unfortunately one not so nice thing is my kid was born with cranial issues that necessitate a surgery in october.  she’ll eventually be fine (we’re told), but between that and the birth in late may touring has been impossible, despite us desperately missing all of you and your wonderful cities and countries.  it’ll probably be 2013 before any more of that happens.  such is life.

luckily there’s more to being us than recklessly careening around the world in a magical van.  we have new music coming out!  the next proper slow runner album is still a ways off, but we’ve gone through the archives and chosen a few songs that for one reason or another didn’t make it onto our records.  i hesitate to call them b-sides cause that makes them sound like bench-warmers; they’re more like oddities.  victims of circumstance.  you’ll see.  they don’t fit on a sr record or even a collection of their own.  so we’re recording them fresh and releasing them as singles, one per month this fall.  the first comes out september 18 and is called ‘i always thought i would make you happy’ and it’s available on all the usual sites where you can pay money and listen to music.  that’ll be followed by another in october and another in november.  we might do more of them next year depending on the reaction.

album art for the new single by the ever-brilliant oliveargyle.

our debut record ‘no disassemble’ is unavailable in most markets and i’m guessing half of our fans don’t even know about it (thanks, sonybmg corporation!).  well f that s.  we’re rereleasing it this december with the full album and a second collection of remixes and covers by some dear and talented friends of ours.  if you’ve never heard it, this was our first attempt at making a record ourselves so calling it lo-fi is being charitable to the sound quality in some places.  we had no idea what we were doing.  but the sr songs and aesthetics that you’ve come to love/hate are all in there.  it’s always felt weird to have it unavailable and we’re excited to rectify that.  in some ways it’s still my favorite thing we’ve ever done.

finally, to cap off the year we’ll be playing a special show in the circular church in downtown charleston on saturday december 1.  more details on that coming soon but just fyi i’m looking into the logistics of wearing a cupcake bra that shoots out sparkles– it’s going to be a special night.  please come.

and that wraps up this update.  don’t you appreciate how we wait to tell you a bunch of things at once instead of flooding you with separate announcements for each specific thing?  we’re thoughtful.  it’s just who we are.  now if you’ll excuse me, i need to go make a 3-month-old crack up by singing to her in my david-sedaris-channeling-billie-holliday voice.  if i fail to amuse her she’ll yell at me.  this is my sweet, dangerous, boring, fascinating life.

thanks for listening.  –mef and jk