Tidelands to release album

“Holy Grail” is the first single and video from If… by Tidelands

[SOUNDCLOUD]: http://soundcloud.com/fanaticpro/tidelands-holy-grail

[MP3]: http://www.fanaticpromotion.com/projects/tidelands/mp3/tidelands-holygrail.mp3

[VIDEO]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlYskcAAnc8


See Tidelands live in San Francisco at a record release show for If… at Café du Nord on July 26th!

Tidelands is the duo of San Francisco’s Gabriel Montana Leis (Guitar, Flugelhorn, Vocals) and Mie Araki (Drums, Keyboards, Vocals). On the duo’s upcoming debut album If..., Leis and Araki have teamed up with Magik*Magik Orchestra conductor Minna Choi and Deerhoof engineer Ian Pellicci to create an album of sharp, poetic lyrics uniquely arranged with looped guitars, Moog bass and beautiful harmonies.

“I found myself writing melodies that I knew were meant for a horn,” Leis says of the Tidelands material that began to take shape in 2009. “Never having played a horn before, I purchased a beautiful vintage Benge flugelhorn and began at the beginning,” Leis says of the decision to learn the horn from scratch on his own. Leis soon recruited Araki, a classically trained percussionist, who then added a Moog to her ensemble of instruments, essentially learning to play the drums and synth at the same time.

Further exploring his earlier experiences in other bands writing for cello, violin and trumpet, Leis began using a looping device to write guitar parts that he could later pair with orchestral instruments. Araki would then transcribe these ideas to standard musical notation and via a connection with musician John Vanderslice, Tidelands was introduced to Choi and her ensemble, the Magik*Magik Orchestra.

“We gave her the framework of the songs and the charts and the freedom to create around what we had already written,” Leis explains. Recording engineer Pellicci was the final collaborator added to the project, and less than six short but studious months into becoming a flugelhorn player, Leis, Araki, Choi and Pellicci convened at San Francisco’s Tiny Telephone studios to create If...

If... will be released on July 26th, 2011. Tidelands will perform a hometown show in San Francisco at Café du Nord that same evening.

Tidelands – If…
(S/R, July 26th, 2011)
Track Listing:

01 Holy Grail
02 Holiday
03 Eyes of God
04 Amulet
05 Letter to a Young Soldier I Love
06 Sixes and Sevens
07 The Ship
08 In the Wake
09 Marigolds