Minneapolis' AirLands, fronted by Kevin Calaba (lead singer and co-founder of Stars of Track and Field), has released the video for their first single "Palisades" today via Popdust. The track appears on their second full-length album So Much to Keep, out April 14. Watch and share the video for "Palisades" here. Calaba tells Popdust about the inspiration behind the video: "The lonely rabbit finds the lonely mannequin and the two have a respectful and intimate evening together. I'm new to Minnesota and fell in love with the frozen lakes the moment I saw them. The rabbit wakes in the morning, only to find the mannequin has left, and is now exactly back where he found her previously (and the cycle repeats, infinitely)."
Produced by Marcus Paquin (The National, Arcade Fire, Local Natives) and Yale Yng-Wong (Bear Hands, Chairlift), So Much to Keep hits with the freshness of a
Peter Gabriel or Invisible Touch -era Genesis, yet with a billowed, impressionistic instrumentation and a personal tone closer to contemporaries like Bon Iver.
If all art comes from suffering, as the saying goes, this doesn't mean it has to wallow in it. Airlands' second release, So Much to Keep, is an album for when things are at long last going well, and the weather is breezy, warm, bright and right.
Calaba is candid about his darker days, important as they are for understanding his current state of grace. After rapidly riding his talents upward with Stars and Track and Field, he found himself in a tailspin familiar to many musicians: a broken marriage, painful addictions, and a band and creative friendship sacrificed to the maw of the industry. However, at his lowest point, the wheel of fortune turned once again to the better. Isolated and miserable in upstate New York and facing a third DUI charge, Kevin was invited to mentor at the Paul Green School of Rock. There, witnessing teen-wizards expertly summon Zappa, Page, and Hendrix not only shattered the preciosity of his Northwestern indie-sensibilities, it provided him needed solidity for his climb back to sobriety. Life clarity returned. He was soon writing again, and this time more self-reflectively. " With Stars, everything moved so fast. It gobbled us up. And while I was asking a lot of big questions- about the world, war, politics- by the end, it no longer felt like a personal story. After that, I wanted to look at myself and make something deliberate, and true. "
From this renewal came AirLands' self-titled first release, produced by Tony Lash (Elliot Smith, The Dandy Warhols), and gaining wider notice when the track Love and Exhale landed on Spotify's New Music Tuesday and the CW's Vampire Diaries . With his wife and collaborator, the singer Marlena Calaba, Kevin emigrated from New York to the friendlier, lakier lands of Minneapolis, and gathered up members for a more lasting line-up of AirLands. In no time,
Minnesota had gifted him with Mike Vasich (on keys), Joshua Wentland (on drums), as well as
Matthew Heaney on bass and Daniel Zamzow from the Minneapolis royals, Cloudcult, on cello.
Album Release Show:
4/14 - Minneapolis, MN - Icehouse MPLS - Tickets
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