I’ve been away to Boston for the past few weeks and got to spend time with the very excellent Dr. Randall of Particularity of Jetenderpaul. Around this time in 1999, we were planning a road trip to Savannah for the video shoot of “Our Future’s Passed” at Savannah College of Art and Design. The release of this video on the Jetenderpaul Presents The Modal Lines record ushered btv into the modern era. Their lo-fi indie pop remains some of our very favorite.

Bosque Brown has been very busy. Mara and Ryan went to Europe and played a couple of shows in anticipation of the release of Baby in Europe on France’s Fargo Records. Bosque Brown will also be playing CMJ in New York City, Wednesday, 21 October at Local 269 at 10pm. We have a few live videos to post of Bosque Brown performances and will do that in the next few days.

For the autumn, we will be properly releasing Erik Enocksson’s Farväl Falkenberg on LP. We will also start work on the 15th anniversary deluxe re-issue version of Starflyer 59 Gold on vinyl. We have many plans, but few details on that one. Vinyl re-issues have been consuming much of our spare thoughts as of late.

For Philadelphians, the very excellent Wovenhand will be playing at Johnny Brenda’s this Thursday, 8 October. If you recall, btv co-released the vinyl edition of Wovenhand’s Consider the Birds. Ten Stones was released most recently on Sounds Familyre.

Speaking of Sounds Familyre, our friends Dan, Elin, Lenny, and Marian Smith have launched the Great Comfort Records label. Their first release is Come, O Spirit, an anthology of hymns and spiritual songs, and features some of our old friends including Damien Jurado, David Bazan, Denison Witmer, and Rosie Thomas.

Another old friend, Joey Sweeney, has launched the Philebrity label. We wish him the very best. The first release is a new album from Philadelphia’s Blood Feathers which includes Drew Mills, formerly of Aspera.

Some friends and I got a chance to catch our old friend David Bazan at a West Philadelphia house show in late August (thanks Sean). The performance with just a guitar and no microphone was an inspiring one. Would love to see more folks play like this, for sure. Also got to catch Akron/Family play in September here in Philadelphia. This band gives one of the best live shows around.

Oh yeah, some folks from Reels of White Softly Flow joined up with more friends for a secret performance this past August. We’ll probably post an mp3 here shortly.

:::scott:::

Thanks for your support during 2008. It’s been a very busy year for us. Unwed Sailor’s Little Wars was released in the Spring and toured several times in the US and recently in Europe in support. We were also happy to release Denison Witmer’s Carry the Weight and Starflyer 59′s Dial M on vinyl. We were very relieved to wrap up the Starflyer 59 Ghosts of the Future 7″ series after a lot of hard work coordinating production, assembling 7″, and mailing out so many small boxes. We’re also very excited about Soporus’ first full-length 24,110 arriving just in time for a quiet winter season. 2008 saw the completion of Bosque Brown’s Baby album and great progress in our Byul full-length release. Before the end of the year, we sent off Baby to be mastered to vinyl along with Erik Enocksson’s Farväl Falkenberg soundtrack.

For 2009, we’re looking forward to releases from Bosque Brown, Byul, Erik Enocksson, Birchville Cat Motel, Steven R. Smith, and Half-handed Cloud.

For those interested in year end lists, Matt Stone (Soporus, Saxon Shore) and I wrote some quick lists for our friends at Tangzine: here and here. Feel free to read and make fun of us. Incidentally, our old friends Christian Wargo (ex-Scientific) and Josh Tillman (ex-Saxon Shore) are in Fleet Foxes who had their Sun Giantep and self-titled full-length selected as Pitchfork’s top release of 2008. We’re more than happy to sell you copies of their earlier releases.

Wishing you the best for 2009…

:::scott:::