Berry :: Blue Sky Raging Sun :: Joyful Noise Recordings

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Berry
Blue Sky, Raging Sun

Catalog Number: jnr49
Release Date: 05/18/10

Vinyl + MP3: $12

(black vinyl)

Cassette + MP3: $8

(blue tape)

MP3: $7

Track List:

Out
Circles and Squares
Lonely Tired
Desired Desire
Maiden Oregon
Immigrant Hands
Blue Sky, Raging Sun
Hard, Broken, Beautiful
Conscious or Un
Beauty Is All
Convictions
Uncle, Father, Friend

Classic songwriting amidst Rubik's-Cube-structures - the music of Berry is a curious hybrid. At once dense and delicate, their blend of forward-thinking indie-pop is as graceful as it is perplexing. Having written and recorded over 100 songs in 7 years, Berry has found a way to marry meticulously detailed instrumentation with genuinely alluring pop.

The band's most recent offering, Blue Sky, Raging Sun, contains 43 minutes of their boldest musical statements to date. The album draws its inspiration from the band's "Amtrak Tour 2008," in which Berry decided to scrap their trusty 15-passenger van and tour by train. They packed only the essentials - what fit in their arms and on their backs - but returned home with an exciting new sound. Contrarily, they also found the gloomy reality of the American music scene, but with it, a renewed vigilance to create. This is the dynamic force at the heart of the new album.

Blue Sky, Raging Sun tumbles across twelve tracks of blurry musical terrain. Stark melodies pierce brooding arrangements. Cascading keyboards wash out into oceanic cymbal crashes. Sweat, love, experience, and disillusionment meld into an array of post-modern indie epics.

"Berry captures an offbeat and remarkably rewarding modern take on echo-chamber pop. Dirty Projectors with The Cure, Arcade Fire and Big Audio Dynamite, The dB's with Grandaddy. There's nothing cataclysmically vital going on in Blue Sky, Raging Sun, but it's easily odd enough to pique interest."
Verbicide

"Affected, intricately-crafted songs that will either enchant or annoy. Fans of Rob Crow will smile. Those who don't know what I'm talking about will want to pull out their hair."
Aiding & Abetting

"Berry is an under-heralded band. The post-psych rock quartet, comprised of vocalist/guitarist Joey Lemon, bassist Shane Bordeau, keyboardist Matt Aufrecht, and drummer Paul Goodnnough, employ the warmth of vintage gear - they record at home on an 8 track reel-to-reel deck - with the expansive ambitions of latter day space rockers such as Granddaddy and Super Furry Animals. Despite releasing four LPs and a handful of EPs in just five years, the Chicagoans' brand of multi-layered psych-pop is still just glimmering at the edges of indie awareness. But perhaps this will ultimately prove fruitful - they've had time to cultivate a special musical language, simultaneously evocative of artful pop constructions past while retaining a fresh outlook. Their latest recording, Blue Sky, Raging Sun is being handled by the Joyful Noise imprint, which has a knack for raising artists' profiles while allowing them to continue music-making with integrity... Berry manage to fit a startling amount of subtle variation into the standard 3-4 minute format. The exception is "Beauty is All," a space-rocker with a touch of prog which takes the listener through seven minutes of rhythmically supple, metrically shifting terrain. Groovy yet substantive stuff! "
Christian Carey, Signal To Noise