Today the brilliant Timothy Showalter aka Strand Of Oaks releases new album Dark Shores . To celebrate that fact, he has also made previous album Pope Killdragon available for free download in its entirety via Noisetrade. This is what is says on the Noisetrade page about Pope Killdragon : " In Strand Of Oaks songs, lovers get divorced, murder John Belushi’s drug dealer, go bowling with mythical giants, and watch their youth slip away and commune with John F. Kennedy’s illegitimate son. Obviously, Showalter has allowed himself many liberties with [...]
There isn't a single artist who I've longed for new material from more than Strand Of Oaks . When I caught him live last year it was apparent that although Timothy Showalter had already crafted one of the best albums of the last ten years with Pope Killdragon he was a long way off from showing us what brilliance he is capable of creating. His follow up album is Dark Shores which comes out Tuesday (7/24), " Trap Door " [...]
MP3: Strand of Oaks - Maureen's Strand of Oaks is Timothy Showalter, and in 2010 he released my favorite album of that year, Pope Killdragon . You can now download it, along with debut Leave Ruin , for free at Strand of Oaks' Bandcamp . Another freebie, "Maureen's," is the first taste of Showalter's coming album, Dark Shores . It's more guitar-based than I anticipated, especially after hearing the synth-drenched Shaking Through collaboration " Spacestations ," but it's no less affecting, and [...]
5 Songs is a weekly series where we point out the strange, the grand, and the unique connections between our favorite songs. Let’s get weird. Words by Chris Welcome to another special edition of 5 Songs. Today we will leap headlong into some demo collections, which is like jumping off the nice clean path into the scraggly briar-country of obsessive music collecting—C’mon! [...]
Full disclosure: I have never had much success enjoyably listening to bands or albums just because they have a great name. I don't think very many people do. However, that is how I stumbled across this hidden gem of an album in 2010. Strand of Oaks , the recording moniker used by Timothy Showalter, is, at its core, a singer-songwriter project. Rarely is anything ever heard beyond Showalter's melancholy voice and his guitar. Many of the songs you don't even hear his voice, choosing to forego that route for simple instrumental tracks. [...]
Holy shit how is 2010 over? Like, it's done. Finished. Dunzo. This year flew by and we're all finding ourselves one year older and staring 2011 right in the kisser. Some interesting stuff happened in 2010, didn't it? For one thing, we started this blog and have existed in the blogosphere for seven months now. Imagine that! Let's give the blogosphere a big round o' applause for not swallowing us up into oblivion. So, regardless if you had a good 2010 or a mediocre 2010, I think we can all agree that it was a pretty ridiculous year [...]
happy saturday, all! if it werent for majesty shredding , strand of oaks' pope killdragon would be my favorite record of the year. even with that said, its a very close second. here are some live performances on a dock that timothy did for the weekender . buy pope killdragon via emusic . Tags: best of 2010 , pope killdragon , [...]
New Wax If you are familiar with Tim Showalter's backstory (a fire, a breakup, homelessness) and his solid 2009 debut under the Strand Of Oaks moniker, Leave Ruin , then you might expect a similarly personal yet well-crafted album in Pope Killdragon , but the new LP is much denser both thematically and musically. While the stripped acoustic vibe is still Showalter's specialty, songs on Pope Killdragon unexpectedly break out into Crazy Horse-esque rock-outs and the instrumental tracks swimmingly veer far beyond the folk [...]
Frequent Columbus gigger and Black Swans buddy Tim Showalter aka Strand of Oaks released intimate sophomore album Pope Killdragon on emusic recently, and the more spins I give it the more it's transfixing me. Fans of Bon Iver, Will Oldham and maybe early Neil Young should find some common ground here. Showalter is the rare singer/songwriter who can be emotive without overly emoting. If you're not ready to pull the trigger on Killdragon , you can download Strand of Oaks' Live in Chicago 2008 EP for free [...]
strand of oaks' leave ruin is a record that for some reason i didnt put on my best of list last year, and thats criminal. some of the other ones, looking back, could and do take a back to seat to said record. its not an immediate "hey this is the greatest thing ever" kind of record, but damn does it catch fire once its fully digested. well, timothy showalter and his strand of oaks are back with a new, equally excellent record called pope killdragon . pope killdragon "suffers" from the same immediacy issues as [...]
Tim Showalter of Strand of Oaks is probably the most melancholy musician you could find in the great range of North American music that has some sort of Folk association. (Presuming Bon Iver's highest position.) The songs are damned by the guy's life stories, of which possibly all have unfortunate endings. There's a time and a place for these sort of depressing and doleful tunes. And it's usually a terrible time and a terrible place. Music like this puts a sort of emotional/melancholy emphasis on it; it enhances the emotion yet makes it more bearable to endure. It works the same like a [...]
Today you can get the new Strand of Oaks album, Pope Killdragon exclusively at eMusic as part of their "Selects" program. This album follows last year's gorgeous "Leave Ruin, " which was one of our favorite albums of the year and allowed us to bring Tim to Milwaukee , Madison as well as our SXSW showcases . It's safe to say that Strand of Oaks is one of our favorites. Pope Killdragon [...]
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