mis ojos » Press: Nitetime Rainbows

Press: Nitetime Rainbows

Ben Daniels should hate being on tour.

Currently on the road for months on end, the frontman of “A Sunny Day in Glasgow” is thousands of miles from his home, in Sydney, Australia, where he also leaves behind his wife. It’s also nearly impossible to get anything done creatively (unless, of course, you call watching old “Simpsons” episodes inspiration).

Lucky for you, though; despite these drawbacks, the singer is a fan of touring.

“I love being on tour,” said Daniels from his van while on a long drive from Des Moines to Denver. “Life gets very simple on tour – there’s so much less to worry about, you just have to play shows and get to the next city.”

The band will soon set their compass East, as they make their way to Brooklyn for a show at the Bell House in Gowanus on March 29.

“New York and Brooklyn have always been really good to us,” says Daniels. “We love coming through there.”

Before they left, ASDIG was able to get the creative juices flowing, releasing the digital/vinyl-only EP “Nitetime Rainbows” earlier this month. It’s been considered a more concise follow up to last year’s “Ashes Grammar,” which put the band on the ambient-pop map.

“They’re more poppy, maybe a little less sprawling,” says Daniels of the seven new tracks, songs they started while working on “Grammar” but which didn’t mesh with the rest of the album. “We stopped (working on them then) because they were kind of different from the other ones.”

Initially formed in Philadelphia in 2005 by Daniels and his two sisters as a bedroom recording project, since, ASDIG has had a revolving door of band members, with Daniels always at the helm. While Daniels now lives in Australia (his wife got a research position at a university there), the band can’t shake that Philly label. Which is fair – Daniels has only lived on the continent for a month. After moving there in September, a month later, he was off on a tour that will see the band traveling for most of the year.

When he returns to Sydney, it’s difficult to say what will become of the traveling ASDIG.

“I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” says Daniels. “It’s hard to think about life past August.”

Until then, the frontman’s going to enjoy life on the road and worry about the only thing he has to – the next city.

Exclaim Show Review

A Sunny Day in Glasgow / Solars
Media Club, Vancouver, BC March 8
By Mark E. Rich

Vancouver act Solars may have seemed an odd pairing for A Sunny Day In Glasgow’s debut show in the city, but if you follow back the lineage of both band’s love of shoegaze, there are definitely a few dots to connect. Solars, a guitar-based two-piece who have already released a handful of cassettes and seven-inches in their brief existence, take the heavily affected guitars from the cult shoegaze band Flying Saucer Attack and stretch them out into a wavering, blissful noise. Their 20-minute set was an awe-inspiring and ear-ringing testimony to the staying power and the ingenious mutations of the genre.

A Sunny Day In Glasgow, too, have a penchant for piling on a mountain of effects in the style of bands like My Bloody Valentine or Cocteau Twins, smearing their songs into a blissed-out, pastel-hued mist. This musical blurring often makes it difficult to separate one song from the other, particularly on their most recent effort, 2009’s Ashes Grammar. The live show, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. Every song in their hour-long performance at the cavernous Media Club popped out of the speakers as clear as a sunny day in, well, you get the idea.

Most notably in the front of the mix were the dual female vocals, which had previously been buried beneath the mix far enough to obscure most of the lyrics. “Failure” and “Close Chorus” from Ashes Grammar were stripped down to the bare essentials, revealing an almost sugary pop that seemed miles away from the heavily treated sound the band has become synonymous with.

Despite the resistance to clutter their sound, there was still plenty happening on stage. Between every song, the six members swapped guitars, drums, bass and a scattering of keyboards and random electronics. The crowd soaked the whole show up, swaying and shimmying to the ecstatic groove laid down, which is about as much as you can hope to get out of the usually pacifistic Vancouver concertgoer.

Urban Outfitters SXSW

Loud Loop Press Show Review
It was a night filled with offset guitars, otherworldly vocal harmonies and vigorous dancing. If you missed A Sunny Day In Glasgow at Schubas on Wednesday night, then you missed quite the extravaganza.

Two hailed from the east including Brooklyn’s Acrylics and Philadelphia’s A Sunny Day In Glasgow, while Chicago’s Light Pollution opened. And the best part of the whole show? Every single band danced to their own music. Not just bobbed a little, these kids cut loose and really danced.

It all kicked off with Light Pollution. It’s almost as if they took the open-hearted, lofty vocals of Sufjan Stevens and mashed them together with Animal Collective’s off-kilter synth beats. All the while, the lead singer ceaselessly bounces in place like a vertical metronome. Light Pollution is a very tight band for the amount of chaos that is going on in their music. Just when you think they are going to lose it, they bring it back into something upbeat and funky. It just made you happy.

Rising stars, Acrylics came on next and took us down a few notches with their calm, cool folkish rock. Using both acoustic and electric instruments and focusing on the quiet side of things, they reminded me of a cross somewhere between The Sundays and The Cranberries. Their clear male/female vocal harmonies and minimalistic music was a nice cleansing of the auditory palate. If this is a revival of that sound we knew so well in the 90’s, then Acrylics have captured the essence entirely. Instead of a drummer, they used a drum machine, but I’m not sure if that was even necessary. Early in the show, the drum machine did start acting up, causing them to turn it off and their music pulled through just fine without it. A good portion of their set was highlighted by a vintage-looking Steele guitar that really rounded out their whole sound.

We moved on from the quiet of the Acrylics to the beautiful dreamy sounds of guitarist Ben Daniel’s masterpiece, A Sunny Day in Glasgow. The small, candlelit venue with a Bavarian beer hall feel, suddenly gave way to a room full of flailing and shimmying fans shaking what their mamas gave them to the music. ASDIG is a force to be reckoned with on stage. Their passion and emotion for the sound they make is seen in every member of the band. Everyone appears to get lost in the music, completely enjoying every minute of it. The effect this has on an audience is sensational. It’s near impossible to resist moving along with them. But, then, with that music, how could you not dance?

I have to say that I didn’t expect them to be able to pull off their music live. I thought there would be a number of replacements or fill-ins for parts that I expected to be there. But no, ASDIG packed the stage with all sorts of instruments, computers, and electronic devices that I didn’t even recognize, just to make sure their fans got the full amount of sound they needed and expected. Lead singers Annie Fredrickson and Jen Goma stretch every vocal chord they have to create the choir-like atmosphere found on their albums. Back-up vocalist and guitarist (or I should say Jaguarist) Josh Meakim blended in perfectly with the ladies, hitting ranges that you had to see to believe. Bassist Ryan Newmyer had the difficult job of maintaining control and losing control all at the same time. His impressive bass tones had to fit in with both the wild sounds of the band, but also be stable for Adam Herndon’s fantastic drumming. Herdon appears to have found the final piece to this intricate puzzle and stands with his feet on the ground no matter where his dreamy companions try to fly to.

They played all my favorites from Ashes Grammar including “Failure” and “Shy”. They were even sweet enough to come back for an encore and play a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere” which sent everyone reeling and cheering. After the show, they manned their own merchandise table where fans were able to speak with them, take pictures and of course buy merchandise. It was a delightfully personal show with a delightfully personable band. I would do it again and again. I think you should too.

TA Live Show Preview / EP Review
reality, 2010 should be predestined as a tough year for A Sunny Day in Glasgow. Not because they’re stuck in dreary weather in Glasgow — they’re not. The band is actually from Philly, and there’s nothing particularly sunny nor glasgow-y about them in the first place.

You see, 2010 should be tough because it has the unenviable task of following 2009’s fairy tale ride of indie buzz and critical acclaim in the wake of the band’s sophomore breakout, Ashes Grammar.

The 2010 product, Nitetime Rainbows, isn’t as much a fresh musical statement as it is cutting room floor material from the Ashes sessions. Typically, even the B-side scraps of a masterpiece are delightful, and there’s no exception here. Rainbows delivers a slightly brighter (sunnier, perhaps?) spin on the same post-rock grungy shoegaze goodness that got them here in the first place — smart in sticking to the tried and true formula but noble in proving the band’s more than a one trick pony.

Rainbows can’t be taken on the same level as Grammar and it’s likely not the band’s intent for it to be, as signified by the inclusion of three remixes of the title track. Superfluous on a new LP, each different take on the tune really defines this record as a waiting game filler that underscores the point — that ASDIG shouldn’t leave your radar any time soon. A perfect coda to Ashes‘ brilliance, Rainbows is the perfect appetizer for a feast surely to come with the next full-length.

A Sunny Day In Glasgow play DC9 March 28. Tickets are on sale at Ticket Alternative.

Agit Reader Interview
With a record as gorgeous and epic as last year’s Agit favorite, Ashes Grammar, it’s hard not to psychoanalyze its creator in order to find some deeper meaning, some sense of purpose as to why and how it was made. A Sunny Day in Glasgow, a band that claims Philadelphia as its most stable home, started as the bedroom project of Ben Daniels. Once Daniels realized he needed vocals to flesh out the pop songs he envisioned, he quickly recruited his twin sisters, Robin and Lauren, into the fold and began fully realizing the dreamy mix of pop, ambience and shimmering soundscapes swirling around in his head. The band’s 2006 debut, Scribble Mural Comic Journal, certainly sounded like an amorphous blend of those tropes, but may have been too slight, layered beyond cohesion and ultimately not taking hold of the listener despite some breathtaking moments. In comparison, Ashes Grammar is that colorful, textural, fever dream for which Daniels has been searching from the beginning, one that inhabits a space somewhere between the ethereal gauze of the Cocteau Twins, the glowing guitar waves of My Bloody Valentine, and the shape-shifting minimalism of electronic artists like the Field and Fennesz. But even as expansive and seemingly comprehensive as Ashes Grammar sounds, there are plenty of loose ends, patterns that blur in the horizon, and unformed thoughts that suggest Daniels’ journey is far from over.

Daniels’ sisters left the band before Ashes Grammar, but Annie Fredrickson came on board in time for the recording. When it came time to take the record on the road, longtime fan Ryan Newmeyer joined as bassist and Adam Herndon came on to play drums, while Jen Goma was recruited to sing through an open-call for recorded submissions. In fact, in talking with Daniels and guitarist Josh Mekam before a recent show in Columbus about topics as varied as psycho-geography and the profound influence of Led Zeppelin, I found that A Sunny Day in Glasgow is still a constantly evolving band, recording new material and ideas whenever and wherever they bloom and synthesizing all of these wild muses into a transcendental blur of pop.

Given that your albums are filled with a number of ambient pieces, noisy fragments, and decorative interludes, would you consider yourself more of a composer than a songwriter? I guess what I’m asking is do you feel more comfortable experimenting with sounds or sitting around writing a skeleton of a melody first?

Ben Daniels: It’s half and half, maybe more experimenting with sound.

Josh Mekam: At least that’s how it was with this record. It started off with Ben writing songs and being the core, making demos. He had these skeletal ideas and we took them to the studio and fleshed them all out, and that’s where we did all of the experimenting.

I think that even when you have something that resembles a song, like “Close Chorus” or “The White Witch,” you tend to obscure those melodies even more than the blatantly abstract material. Is this a conscious effort when you are recording? Do you think the melodies become more profound when the listener really has to dig for them?

BD: It’s not such a clear thought as that. You go into the studio and try things, and if it works, you follow that path.

JM: As cheesy as it sounds, we were just trying to make a record that we liked. There were songs that we mixed as straightforward pop songs at first, but then we’d throw reverb on the whole track. Maybe it’s because with this one we were trying to appeal to fans of the last album, but at the same time move in a direction of recording pop songs. We were listening to a lot of ambient and electronic music at the time, so it’s hard not to have your influences seep in.

BD: I was thinking about that today, about what we were listening to leading up to that year. I haven’t listened to a Kompakt compilation in a long time.

Ashes Grammar sounds like a fairly ambitious album, in that editing and piecing it together took some time and patience. Was this a project, one whole work, that you had envisioned from the start, knowing everything that it would encompass, or did it take on a sprawl of its own once you began?

BD: There were a lot more songs that we started recording that we stopped two months in because we knew we wouldn’t finish them. The songs on the album that really tend to build into each other, those we wrote together as a group. But for the most part I didn’t have it mapped out other than just standing back and saying, “Jesus Christ, this is a long album!”

JM: We were really just having a lot of fun. The last album Ben did in his bedroom, so this time we had the proper space. We were able to experiment with all sorts of mics and able to start a song, and if we didn’t like it or got bored, we could work on something else.

I’ve read in a lot of interviews that you have a particular disdain for ’90s shoegaze and don’t really appreciate the comparisons. But given the fact that you’re almost always compared to those bands, I was wondering if you could elaborate on what you find frustrating about those comparisons.

BD: Generally, when somebody mentions one of those bands, I try to argue against it. For me, there were a handful of bands that get called “shoegaze” that were incredible. It was something real that they expressed. Then there are a lot of other bands just taking that aesthetic, and it’s those bands I don’t have time for.

JM: It’s definitely an influence, but we owe just as much to something like the Field. As soon as you use a delay pedal and reverb, you’re in that genre.

BD: I love Boards of Canada. To me, that’s something you could call “dream pop.”

Though I’m not the biggest My Bloody Valentine fan, I do consider the tones and textures of Loveless to be a landmark in modern music. So many bands since then have tried to achieve that sound, though few have even come close to replicating. I feel like Ashes Grammar is an album that reaches that level, without succumbing to mimicry, so I’d like to know how much of an influence Loveless is on your work.

BD: I came into Loveless pretty late. It was actually Josh that introduced that to me.

JM: It’s not something I would want to mimic, but I think it’s a record that is trying to make sounds that have not been made, and that’s something I always try to do.

Is there something else—that doesn’t particularly have to be a band or album—which has truly inspired your recordings?

BD: When I was a kid I got super into Led Zeppelin to the point that now I don’t listen to it anymore. I remember driving around with my mom, and “Over the Hills and Far Away” came on the radio. I loved that song so much. My mom suggested I start playing guitar, so that’s where that started.

You’ve travelled and lived in a number of different places over the years, and I do think there’s transience in your music that represents that wanderlust. Do you think being a bit of a nomad has an influence on what you do musically?

BD: On our albums, I like to put cities on there because I’m a strong believer in psycho-geography. It’s the study of places affecting thought. Living in London had a big impact on some of my songwriting.

I know Ashes Grammar was finished quite some time ago, so what have you been doing in the meantime? Can you give a hint at all at what you want the next record to sound like?

BD: We have a lot of songs we need to finish up once we finish touring. Compared to Ashes Grammar, they are a lot happier, a little poppier.

Soundcheck Magazine Show Review + Photos
The very band name of A Sunny Day in Glasgow actually hints at improbability. A sunny day in Glasgow? That’s like a cold day in the netherworld. Yet, the band has a very accessible and catchy sound that has survived numerous lineup changes and what some might call shifts in sound or direction. Mainly from Philadelphia, the band is now a six piece with Ben Daniels leading the group. You wouldn’t necessarily realize this from their stage presence, however, as Daniels tends to let the female presence dominate and lead the youthful sets they are becoming increasingly well known for.

Though the music is made up of original compositions vs. covers and has a much different feel to it (think shoegaze crossed with light hearted indie pop), the live presence of the band bears some similarities to Nouvelle Vague. Mainly, it’s the two beautiful females that stand out the most up front in the light while the four men behind them really serve to give the songs their lush sound. In fact, it was difficult to see most of the males on stage because of the size of the band and where they positioned themselves. Jen Goma and Annie Fredrickson lived it up front playing keyboards but mainly singing in glorious union. They also seemed to be having the time of their lives between their dancing and their hair flips, which made the band increasingly fun to watch. Their positive energy even recalled twee bands such as The Brunettes in terms of their happy demeanor and sense of un-self-conscious fun.

It also bears mentioning that the six piece isn’t trying to one up eachother live. Though there are layers of instrumentation, no one member dominates with an extended play. You won’t hear any intricate guitar solos or attention given to bombastic drums, for example. Instead, there is a glowing sense of unity that its members are working together to make the sound possible and an enjoyable experience for everyone. In fact, it wasn’t the least bit surprising to see audience members dancing around to the songs with a gleeful response.

In some ways, the overall sound of A Sunny Day in Glasgow is not too surprising considering the rise in popularity of shoegaze bands such as The Besnard Lakes and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. A Sunny Day in Glasgow is much closer to the latter, especially with their recent output and stage presence. There are no reeling guitars or heavy progressions weighting the songs down. There’s really only the ethereal, which was one thing that was unfortunately reduced live in comparison to some of their album recordings. It’s possible that the band’s sound will evolve even further after this most recent release, Nitetime Rainbows EP. There’s a likelihood that they could become a much more mainstream act. Let’s hope if that happens, they won’t sacrifice all the hopes and dreams that have made all their songs worthwhile.

Playing a 50 long minute set, the band succeeded in captivating the audience with songs like “Shy” and “Failure” as well as a surprising encore cover of “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac. Though their set length was substantial, like many good shows it felt like it was finished too soon, as if by the time the audience was completely engaged, they were departing the stage, leaving their fans to long for more. Let’s hope they come back soon!

(Chicago)Time Out Show Review + Photos
A Sunny Day in Glasgow was the obvious draw for the evening, packing the venue before kicking its set off with the title track from its latest EP, Nitetime Rainbows. Throwing in tambourines, maracas and plenty of handclaps, the dream-poppers churned out an enchanting performance fueled by infectious energy and angelic female voices. Despite relentless touring, the Philly kids were far from burnt-out and made friendly small talk with the audience, throwing in an obligatory toast, “We love Chicago.” But with their cheerful demeanor, it’s hard to think they didn’t mean it. A magnetic performance elevated shoegazing to a celestial level.

Vancouver Courier Show Mention

(Denver) AV Club Show Mention

Radio Free Chicago Show Review
The highlight of the evening featured ambient shoegaze sextet from Philadelphia, A Sunny Day in Glasgow. The solid 60-minute mesmerizing performance by the band were lead by the dueling angelic vocals of Jen Goma and Annie Frederickson coupled with the spacey guitars licks of Ben Daniels. Also at the driving wheel were Ryan Newmyer on the thumping bass, Josh Meakim on trancey guitars and Adam Herndon on bombastic drums. Sunny Day hit the road following the release of its recent EP, Nightime Rainbows and its magnificient, 2009 third LP, Ashes Grammar; a 22 track celebration of shoegaze scene, which calls to mind, the early works of Lush or the late works of Northern Picture Library or Slowdive’s Pygmallion. Nevertheless, the cacophony of sound filled up the room brightly with its heavenly salute to shoegaze, which had me staring at my shoes entranced by a higher light. While playing such favorites as “Close Chorus,” “Ashes Math” and “Nighttime Rainbow,” the band encored with a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere.”

Limewire
In 2009, A Sunny Day In Glasgow’s second album, Ashes Grammar, put the Philadelphia-based band at the top of the ambient-pop heap with its twinkling, ethereal kaleidoscope of sounds. In the time-honored “give them an EP until the follow-up album’s ready” tradition, ASDiG has based a seven-track EP around the ‘09 album cut “Nitetime Rainbows.” In this case, the gambit seems likely to keep fans satisfied; after leading off with the aforementioned album track, we are led into a sequel of sorts called “Daytime Rainbows,” whose more clamorous, fuzzy-guitar feel will bring a smile to those who recall actual Scottish ambient popsters Adventures In Stereo (a possible influence?). From there it’s on to a bit of dream-pop paradise with the psychedelic guitars and squelchy synths of “So Bloody So Tight” and the rather School Of Seven Bells-ish “Piano Lessons,” before we’re launched into a trio of title-track remixes, one dance-minded, one noisy, and one minimal/ethereal. All in a all, a pretty wild ride for a group best known for keeping their heads up in the clouds.

Vancouver Straight Show Preview
No one could ever accuse A Sunny Day in Glasgow of lacking ambition. The Philadelphia-based band’s most recent album has 24 tracks on it. Sure, some of them are as short as 11 or 43 seconds, but when you consider that Ashes Grammar clocks in at just over 63 minutes, it’s still a monumental achievement. Even so, the band’s guitarist and main songwriter, Ben Daniels, says that if he and the album’s producer, ASDIG guitarist-keyboardist Josh Meakim, hadn’t reined it in, the album might have turned into a never-ending project.

“We had tons and tons of songs, actually, that we started,” Daniels says, reached at the band’s rehearsal space. “We’d still be recording it now if we kept going for all these songs. So we kind of saw where we were at with them and we said ‘We’re not going to worry about that one. We’ll come back to that. These other ones are further along.’ And we just stopped working on a bunch, because we were going to go crazy. And it’s very good that we did that, because it still took another four months from that point.”

When Ashes Grammar was finally complete, it was released by Mis Ojos Discos last September to universal acclaim, its pastel-hued layers of reverb-saturated vocals, sunburst-and–snow-blind ambient haze, and lo-fi dance beats garnering comparisons to the 4AD and Creation Records back catalogues. Mind you, Daniels makes it clear he has little use for any of that, pointedly dismissing the likes of Lush and Slowdive in conversation with the Straight. It’s telling, too, that he coyly avoids using the term “dream pop”, preferring to describe A Sunny Day in Glasgow as merely “dreamy pop”—not that he spends a lot of time worrying about making his music fit into any particular genre.

“I don’t know that I think about it that much, to tell you the truth,” Daniels says. “I think when I generally write songs, it’s kind of like a pop format, I guess you’d say. I mean, on Ashes Grammar, there’s a bunch of really long songs, but generally when I start they’re like three or four minutes and there’s maybe a verse part and a chorus part or something. And that’s maybe how it would be at the beginning….There’s not always so much of a firm concept or plan when it gets going. You do stuff and you react to stuff, and eventually you figure out what works and what doesn’t, and you end up with, hopefully, something good.”

Well, it’s working out so far—even if the end result is a lot closer to classic dream pop than Daniels would ever admit.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow plays the Media Club on Monday (March 8).

Des Moines Metromix Show Preview
A Sunny Day in Glasgow got its start in Philadelphia when founders Ben Daniels and Ever Nalens returned to their home city after living in the United Kingdom for several years. The band earned some early acclaim when indie music site Pitchfork Media gave the band’s debut album, “Scribble Mural Comic Journal” an 8.0 out of 10, high praise from the notoriously stingy review site.

This week ASDIG has a new EP, “Nitetime Rainbows,” and a gig in Des Moines Thursday at the Vaudeville Mews. Daniels answered a few questions via e-mail while on the road.

Q: On your fall tour the band got in three car accidents in three days. Was there any worry that the entire tour might be problematic, or that you might be cursed?

A: Haha, those first three car accidents were all very minor and more funny (can a car accident be funny?). I actually felt like the last tour was charmed or something. There were no massive problems. We did get in a “proper” car accident in New Orleans where a guy ran a red light and drove right into us on the driver side. It could have been a lot worse than it was (as the driver could have easily been killed). And then, on a positive note, the shows were all fantastic.

Q: Tell me about the “Nitetime Rainbows” EP. Was this material that was worked on while making “Ashes Grammar,” or more recent compositions?

A: This is all stuff that we started with “Ashes Grammar.” We started recording close to 35-plus songs and after about six weeks Josh (Meakim, guitarist) and I realized we needed to cut back or else the album would never get done. So these songs were all put on hold. There’s another whole album’s worth of songs from this time as well. We’re working on getting these done for later too.

Q: You’re playing Glasgow in May. Has the band played there before, and if so what kind of reaction have you gotten?

A: We’ve played in Glasgow twice and it’s like playing in your hometown or at your best friend’s house. They are so nice to us and we love playing there. The first time we played there, there were only three of us and we had to borrow instruments and play with drum beats on an iPod. It was a terrible show, but the crowd was so nice and they even made us play an encore and then everyone just hung out with us for the rest of the night.

The next time we came back with the full band and played a sold-out show that was attended by Stephen Pastel and members of Teenage Fanclub, which was kind of mind-blowing.

The 405 EP Preview
A Sunny Day In Glasgow have always been a mystery to me.

I remember buying my first record from them a couple of years ago in one of my new-music-hunting spree at Pure Groove (for the record, it was the impeccable Scribble Mural Comic Journal).

When I first listened to that album, it was one of those gloomy days that only British weather can offer – and while letting my gaze wander out of the window, I was asking myself what a sunny day in Glasgow must be.

Now I know that ASDIG are actually from Philadelphia and have nothing to do with the Scottish landscape, a part from the fact that ASDIG mastermind Ben Daniels - who, despite the ever-changing line-up of the band, keeps being the brain behind the band’s dreamy-pop sound and haunting melodies of faraway places - lived there for a while and never forgot it, apparently.

After Scribble Mural Comic Journal came out I never heard of the band again, and even the superb Ashes Grammar, released last year, and which contains already a version of ‘Nitetime Rainbow’, passed strangely unobserved to my eyes and especially ears.

But I’m quickly catching up and Nitetime Rainbows will definitely be the target of my next record shopping spree. Plus, it comes only in digital and vinyl, which is another pro (CDs should be banned in my ideal world!)

‘Nitetime Rainbow’ opens with a classic ASDIG vibe, a bit dreamy, a bit space-y, a bit melancholic, a bit floaty… The fuzzy guitars and hypnotic keyboards remind of Memory Tapes ’Bicycle’, only more complex and harmonic, a kind of richness of sound – but not too much – that could only be achieved by a full band, as ASDIG are.

But it’s ‘Daytime Rainbows’ the most surprising track of the EP. With its shoegaze-y guitars, drones and heavy toms, it sounds more Dum Dum Girls than ASDIG, and it’s so catchy and hypnotic that one could listen to it forever.

‘So Bloody, So Tight’ keeps up with ASDIG trademark drones, echoes and otherworldly atmospheres, while ‘Pianos Lessons’ delivers 6 minutes of piano virtuosity combined to an almost krautrock backing track.

The following 3 tracks of the EP are remixes of ‘Nitetime Rainbows’ - which is OK, but to be honest, I found them unnecessary, being the original track already so beautiful.

Anyway, here is a great EP from a genuinely great band, which finally deserves to get out of the shadow.

Their calendar is full of dates and I see they’re going to play in SXSW 2010 too. Still no dates for London, but I’m sure we’ll hear from these guys soon.

Time Out Chicago Show Preview
MUSIC - A Sunny Day in Glasgow + Acrylics
A Sunny Day in Glasgow, which actually hails from Philly, plays post–Animal Collective pop, with bright, hopeful melodies peeking out from a jungle of surreal textures. A dude in Grizzly Bear produced the mellow gold of boy-girl duo Acrylics. Schubas, 9pm. $10

Read more: http://www3.timeoutny.com/chicago/blog/out-and-about/2010/03/five-things-to-do-march-3/#ixzz0hAw4fA3E

Denver Westword Show Preview
Despite the Anglocentricity of its name, Philadelphia’s A Sunny Day in Glasgow is far from some Belle and Sebastian clone. Instead, the coed ensemble reaches toward the heavens with a wispy, wintry shoegaze sound that’s as abstract as it is dizzying. Like a shitstorm in a teacup, A Sunny Day’s debut full-length, 2006’s Scribble Mural Comic Journal, is full of blunted angles and skittish hooks that take My Bloody Valentine’s aural washes and scramble them into something far more disembodied and deeper in the dream cycle. Despite some major changes in the group’s lineup, last year’s Ashes Grammar is just as blindingly brilliant; packed with whiteout soundscapes and avalanche-trapped vocals, the disc embraces the depths of sonic probing and the heights of beauty. But as with MBV, there’s a chance A Sunny Day’s careful chaos could turn into a shimmering, disorienting haze at this hi-dive show. We can only hope.

L Magazine Show Preview
With Ashes Grammar, A Sunny Day in Glasgow released one of the dark-horse best records of 2009. It’s a massive album full of sprawling, multi-layer compositions that utilize the talents not only of mastermind Ben Daniels, but of Annie Fredrickson, who shines as a cellist, a pianist and a singer.

The Line of Best Fit Tour Preview

The Music Fix Tour Preview

Alt Sounds Tour Preview

Mishka Bloglin EP Review
This EP could be 2 EPs. Or 3 proper singles and some B-sides, or a couple remix singles. Whatever you want—there are tons of ways to approach the Philly nu-gaze band’s latest, and just as many ways to totally love it. Fresh off the heels of last year’s so-incredible Ashes Grammar, the Nitetime Rainbows EP features (duh) the OG but newly mixed “Nitetime Rainbows”, plus 3 new jams and 3 remixes, all manner of ASDiG extras intent to sate die-hards until the tour rolls through town. But even though it has a bit of hodge-podge to it—there’s a lot of stuff here and it’s ultimately more collected than composed—this EP doesn’t feel like a bunch of junk thrown together on a whim, mere Ashes Grammar garbage repurposed to make a few bucks. Suspend disbelief long enough to take it track by track (or EP by EP) and you’ll unearth some truly gilded moments.

Skip around. The pacing is fine, but it’s open to interpretation; what are you here for? The A-side is piled with new things: a perfectly poppy “So Bloody, So Tight”, the simple, childlike “Piano Lessons” and, maybe most importantly, the atmospheric counterpoint of “Daytime Rainbows”. ASDiG has a serious knack for extending a theme through both name and concept (see: “Ashes Grammar/Ashes Maths”) and paired with the title track, this song has a real sunrise/sunset vibe about it. Sweet to start, all tangled with layered vocals and chime-like guitars, but gone just a little sideways by its finish.

And then the remixes. Cue for many to tune the eff out, sure, but I love the mere idea of edits and reinterpretations so this second half—the second EP, if you’re so inclined—is totally my shit. Buddy System turns “Nitetime Rainbows” into an angular, propulsive dance track, and Benoit Pioulard’s Acid Wash edit lives up to its name: crunchy, gritty, dipped in Clorox and shoved through, like, a food processor. But Ezekiel Honig’s mix, the most bare-bones and minimal of the bunch, reveals the most about “Nitetime Rainbows”; atmosphere-stripped and exposed to the elements, ASDiG’s dream-pop is recognizable via a flash of samples but still completely bare. A concept flowing in reverse. Which, when you think about it, is totally the point of an EP like this—a miniature bizarro world where the strictures of a full-length’s cohesive sound go crashing out the window. Point and counterpoint. True ASDiG style.

Loud loop Show Preview
Three reasons to get y’rself over to Schuba’s to see A Sunny Day In Glasgow this wondrous Wednesday eve…
1. It’s the first day we’ve seen the sun in who knows how long. To commemorate this occasion and keep with the sunshine theme, you should go see A Sunny Day in Glasgow at Schubas tonight.

2. ASDIG’s Ashes Grammar was hands down number one on my Top Ten Best Albums of 2009. This band has the ability to convey emotions through their music like nothing you’ve ever heard. After many hardships while creating Ashes Grammar, ASDIG overcame all they needed and launched themselves to the forefront of the indie rock scene. Holding to the spirit of cerebral shoegaze and atmospheric, sparkly vocal layers of lyrics you will never understand – akin to bands like My Bloody Valentine-, ASDIG will take you through the emotional ride of all they felt while creating their songs. It will be a night of beautiful, shimmery shoegaze in a perfect size venue to create just the right level of intimacy ASDIG needs to tell their story.

3. Here. Let me just show you what I mean:

Portland Mercury Show Preview
MIDWAY THROUGH “Close Chorus,” a track on A Sunny Day in Glasgow’s 2009 album Ashes Grammar, there’s a break on which a brass sample rises from the reverb-flooded song. Listen closely and behind it you’ll hear lightning crashing against the tin roof above the recording space, a semi-abandoned dance studio in New Jersey. It’s an illuminating window into both the physical environment and larger sound that have been visited by the Philadelphia outfit since their 2007 full-length debut, Scribble Mural Comic Journal.

Back then, Glasgow was bedroom pop riddled with noise, tamed by the coo of co-vocalists Lauren and Robin Daniels, the twin sisters of brother and band co-founder Ben Daniels (Ever Nalens, who named the band, left before their debut). Many pundits called it shoegaze, a label Ben steers clear of. “I don’t care for any descriptors really,” he says. “They usually do more harm than good.”

When Journal appeared, critics fell all over themselves finding ways to cite Glasgow’s cobbled lineage. Drowned in Sound raved that it “deconstructs the best parts of tried-and-tested genres and pastes them into one sonically astounding collage.” Pitchfork laboriously quoted a review of The Velvet Underground and Nico from an obscure rock rag. This kind of talk is the indie rock press’ mealy-mouthed equivalent of a knighting.

In 2008, Lauren and Robin left for non-musical pursuits and Ben began using the dance studio on weekends. “We had a huge room, so it made sense to put mics all over and see how things sounded,” he explains. Much of this experimentation was influenced by composer Alvin Lucier, whose signature work, I am sitting in a room (1969), gradually layers natural reverb in such a way that it completely washes out the original source. Applied to Ben’s melodic reveries, the result is Ashes Grammar, an album boasting an acoustic depth practically unheard of in the Pro Tools era.

Now with two new vocalists (Annie Fredrickson and Jen Goma) replacing the Daniels twins, the project is on its sturdiest footing to date. A Sunny Day in Glasgow may not be a shoegaze band, but, at long last, they are a band.

San Diego Examiner Show Preview
A Sunny Day in Glasgow is touring this spring making a stop in San Diego. They will play Soda Bar in North Park on 3/14. They released a digital / vinyl-only EP titled, Nitetime Rainbows this week on Mis Ojos Discos. The album is an eclectic mix of new ASDIG cuts and remixes by The Buddy System, Benoit Poiulard and Ezekiel Honig.

ASDIG music is at times very epic in length and in construct, with dream-like transcendental feelings permeating everything; they take the listener on a journey through shifting and swirling worlds where lyrics and sounds twist around each other. Underneath their dense sound is alluring melodies and a playfulness that keeps the music fun, thus separating them from the sea of mediocre shoe-gaze knock-offs pirating the past without creating something authentic and new.

This project has a protoolian foundation though it moves in so many directions. Yet, all the songs seem to be grounded by a very engaging, organic feel. This warms the digital production, making it an all-together salacious mix of atmospheric sounds and chorus style vocals. To sum it up…imagine a f’ing great party inside of a Cathedral.

Don’t miss A Sunny Day in Glasglow in San Diego on 3/14 at Soda Bar. To learn more about this project read an interview with Ben Daniels, the wizard behind the curtain, so-to-speak, of this experimental, electro-fused project:

A lot of publications have reported on ASDIG and often use the label “second generation shoe-gaze” when doing what journalist do best, that is define by comparison…what does shoe-gaze mean to you guys and is it a fair term to use when defining your sound?

I can understand why people use that term with us, it makes sense to me. But I’ve always tried to distance this band from it because I think the overwhelming majority of bands labeled “second generation shoe gaze” or even the first generation, are/were incredibly boring. There were only a small handful of bands that had something original and new to get across and these few bands did it using an aesthetic that everyone else jumped on and used to make boring music. I also understand that there are probably a lot of people who would level that charge against us, but I am really trying for something (if not new) different.
Do you find these labels to be helpful in communicating the vision, feel or style of a band or do you perceive it to be laziness on the part of the journalism community?

Honestly, more laziness. But I guess if you have to review hundreds of albums you have to use these kinds of things to help you save time. Still, I feel like they do so much more harm. I mean any label here. Because someone will hear it and think they know what the band is all about without listening to it. I usually try to argue against any labels people apply to us just in the hopes of at least creating some kind of confusion so a potential listener will maybe feel like they have to listen to it to figure it out for themselves.

You bury a lot of beautiful melodies deep within the music…with an often elaborate (or seemingly elaborate) and almost ethereal like sound-scape layered on top…explain a little bit about your chemistry when writing material and how does the creative process works for you?

There’s no real formula or anything. I almost always write some music and then start to play around with it. Usually I’ll make some mistakes or sounds will just kind of bubble up. Once there is a more coherent structure then I can usually start writing lyrics. And then once vocals are recorded, more sounds usually come out or get cut out. Sometimes I’ll hear a noise or some random sound and a song will just grow up around that. And sometimes, very rarely but most welcomely, you just sit down and everything gets written in a half hour and it’s done. The last one is the best.

Your songs are at times, very epic in length and in construct, with dream-like transcendental feelings permeating everything; you take the listener on a journey through shifting and swirling worlds where lyrics and sounds twist around each other. What’s the impetus for all the movement in your songs?

Wow, that sounds nice. Thanks. I couldn’t say what the impetus is. This is just what comes out while I am trying to make boring music.

Any last remarks or comments?

Thanks for listening!

Atlanta Music Guide EP Review
In reality, 2010 should be predestined as a tough year for A Sunny Day in Glasgow. Not because they’re stuck in dreary weather in Glasgow — they’re not. The band is actually from Philly, and there’s nothing particularly sunny nor glasgow-y about them in the first place.

Seattle Weekly Show Preview
Philadelphia sextet A Sunny Day in Glasgow – so named for the city in which one of the founding (now former) members was living prior to returning to the States and starting the band in 2006 – crafts dreamy, woozy rock music by running their guitars through an ass-load of pedals, slathering on some droney, noisy textures, and gently placing some feathery female vocals on top. I suppose you could call it “shoegazer’” their vibe is vaguely reminiscent of MBV, Ride, Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, and the like. Thankfully, these ladies and lads have actual, honest-to-goodness melodies to go along with the swirly atmospherics and celestial vocal harmonies that tend to nudge things away from the ruminative and downcast to brighter, more uplifting spaces.

Pittsburgh City Paper Show Preview
Philadelphia’s A Sunny Day in Glasgow is on a tear: Tonight the band appears at Brillobox early in a tour that takes it across the nation and across Europe, as well (including a date in its namesake town). The ambient outfit, centered on songwriter Ben Daniels, has released a series of records — LPs, double LPs, digital downloads — on the micro-indie Mis Ojos Discos, and just hatched a new EP, Nitetime Rainbows, packed with hypnotic synth swirls and ethereal, echoing vocals.

New City Show Preview
Often mistaken for actually being from Glasgow, this dream-pop company hails from Philadelphia. Pairing ambient shoegaze atmosphere with electronic beats and heavenly vocal harmonies, the band’s two full-length records have been artistic successes if not quite homeruns. The group’s EPs have been impressive too, and their most recent, “Nitetime Rainbows,” will be released the first week of March. While the band has enough talent to one day create an astounding record from start to finish, it hasn’t yet; the group does seem to be leaning more towards minimalist techno and away from traditional rock these days, and it suits them well. But that doesn’t mean A Sunny Day in Glasgow can’t be unbelievably frustrating—every time a song seems to be approaching a moment of stunning beauty, the band backs off and injects some sampled weirdness. Live, though, this is all said to be a treat.

House List Show review
A Sunny Day in Glasgow was literally what NYC needed on Friday night. The idea of any kind of sunshine was a far-away dream buried beneath the snowed-in streets, but that didn’t stop the band from launching their US tour in a packed Mercury Lounge. A Sunny Day in Glasgow is not sentimentally named. Instead, the moniker refers to what a freakish occurrence a not-gray day actually is over there. The idea of waiting out the everyday for those unusual moments exactly describes the group’s process, constructing dense layers of just barely melodic sound.

The blasted wash of guitar tones consists of a thousand individual chance elements. And the harmonies from Annie Fredrickson and Jen Goma, who sometimes seem to be singing completely different melodies and lyrics, come together in a way that can’t be planned. Rows of guitar pedals and samplers, with inexact dials and effects, add even more layers of uncertainty to the band’s live performance. Ben Daniels, a founding member, and Josh Meakim, both on guitar, certainly work hard to keep the saturated tones cooperating, carefully watching each other for changing effects and sound cues. Adam Herndon, on drums, provides the only consistent sound, keeping an even rhythm for the reverberated vocals from both frontwomen. It all comes together in an experimental twee soundtrack of dizzying heights.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow thanked the audience for braving the weather, but it didn’t seem to be on anyone’s mind. For this group, ambient shoegaze pop didn’t end with My Bloody Valentine, Lush or Cocteau Twins. No, they’re trying to create that unexpected moment when the clouds finally part.

Under the Radar Album Review 7/10
Comprised of three Ashes Grammar B-sides, and four versions of Nitetime Rainbows (three remixes and the original), this EP delivers exactly what fans want - meticulously layered sonic delicacies, frosted with ethereal female vocals. On the new tracks, heavy drums step t up during “So bloody, so tight;” “Piano Lesson” features a gloriously pounded piano; and “Daytime rainbows” plays like a photo negative of “Nitetime rainbows.” However it can be tough to rework already saturated sounds. Ezekiel Honig’s remix, with its asthmatic wheezing sounds, falls flat. “Acid wash edit” lives up to it’s name but “The buddy system” comes out on top, transforming “Nitetime rainbows” into a surrealistic dream.

Pitchfork Album Review; 7.0
Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of EPs: 1) Those, whether intended or not, that function as a unique short-form listening experience, and 2) Those that serve more as a clearinghouse for leftover material, covers, remixes, scattered ideas, and the like. That second type tend to be stopgaps and rewards for committed fans, and as such they tend to be the more forgettable of the two. (Though Grizzly Bear’s Friend was a recent notable success.)

Still, we can forgive a band like A Sunny Day in Glasgow for offering up something of a patchwork EP with Nitetime Rainbows. After all, this is a group that managed to cram no fewer than 22 tracks onto last year’s winning hour-plus opus, Ashes Grammar, so it stands to reason that there would be plenty more from where that came from. What’s more, the Philly outfit seems to be experiencing something of a recent renaissance. After playing lineup musical chairs for a few years, a band has finally coalesced around ASDIG mastermind Ben Daniels, and it makes sense that the new crew is eager to get more representative material out there. Hence the Nitetime Rainbows EP, home to three new compositions, alongside the title track (lifted from Ashes but newly mixed) and three remixes of said tune. As if the times needed another sign, it’s vinyl and digital only.

Ashes Grammar was the rare record that actually benefitted from its sprawl, and the act of teasing ecstatic moments out of that sprawl is a key delight of the Ashes listening experience. Nitetime foregrounds one of the finer moments, a series of particularly evocative synthetic tones that form the intro of “Nitetime Rainbows”. Hidden amidst the LP, these sounds have a transformative, palette-cleansing effect, but even divorced from that context they still make for a marvelously effective mood-setter. Otherworldly and nocturnal, that mood is less second-hand signifiers and more of a piece with the stuff that makes dream-pop and shoegaze so alluring in the first place.

As if to suggest there’s more than one way to assemble the Ashes Grammar puzzle, ASDIG roll “Nitetime” right into “Daytime Rainbows”, and a renewed esprit de corps immediately becomes evident. The syrup-thick toms and initial volley of “do-do-do”s would have us think we’re due for a jangle-pop throwback rave-up in the style of Vivian Girls or the Pains of Being Pure of Heart, but before long a guitar goes de-tuned, the vocals get smeared, and we’re right back to business as usual. Even so, to date it’s their most pure pop moment. “So Bloody, So Tight” is pretty clean and patient by ASDIG standards, while “Piano Lessons” turns Daniels’ late-night attempt to relearn the titular instrument into a spirited ride along a motorik groove. It would have made a perfect closing track were it not for…

The remixes, which is where, in true clearinghouse fashion, things start to taper off and feel tacked-on. Athens, Georgia’s the Buddy System come up trumps here with their take on “Rainbows”, which shimmers things up and chops the vocals into a delirious rhythmic component. It’s rote but enjoyable all the same. Kranky recording artist Benoît Pioulard sands the smooth edges of “Nitetime” with glaciers of static, very much in the manner of Fennesz or Tim Hecker.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Anticipate label boss Ezekiel Honig, whose significantly more subtle reworking deconstructs the original track into a few chief elements: a drone here, a guitar loop there, a lone handclap somewhere in between. If anything, though, it serves only to prove that it’s the collusion of these elements that makes the original such a golden egg. Ashes Grammar, mind you, wasn’t without its dull moments– they were just tucked away at appropriate intervals across a majestic sonic vista. Here those moments cloud together, and the view gets a little obscured.

Brooklyn VeganShow Preview
A Sunny Day in Glasgow are back in NYC, playing Mercury Lounge (tickets). They’ve got a new EP, Nitetime Rainbows, coming out next week that shows off their more experimental, soundscape-y side. Which side will we get Friday? This is the start of a lengthy tour which of course includes SXSW.

Spinner SXSW Preview
Originally begun as a “bedroom recording project” by frontman Ben Daniels and his sisters, Philadelphia’s A Sunny Day in Glasgow experienced a revolving door of band members last year while they were recording their second LP, 2009’s ‘Ashes Grammar.’ Despite the lineup changes (which included the departure of Daniels’ sisters), the dream pop sextet continued to garner attention from the indie rock blogosphere and plans to spend much of 2010 touring and releasing new material. Spinner recently spoke with founding member Daniels and singer/cellist Annie Fredrickson about the band’s upcoming first trip to SXSW.

How did you come up with the band name?

Ben Daniels: When it first started out, it was me and a friend of mine, and he had lived in Glasgow while I was actually living in London, and he came up with the name. He’s no longer in the band. He left actually before it became a band, but I just kept the name.

Describe your sound.

BD: I would say bluesy pop music with lots of melodies, and maybe kind of dreamy.

Ben, you originally formed the band with your sisters, who are no longer involved. How did the current lineup form?

BD: It was kind of like an evolution. While my sisters were still in the band, Josh joined the band. And then, while we were recording our last record, my one sister moved to Colorado and the other sister kind of just moved away from the band, just kind of wasn’t as involved. So Josh and I were like, oh, we need to get someone else to sing. So we got Annie to join up, and then we played some shows with that lineup. Then my sister and her boyfriend [Brice Hickey], who was our bass player, didn’t want to go on tour [after Hickey broke his leg]. So, we found another singer, another drummer and another bass player, because Josh had played drums but wanted to play guitar. It just kind of seemed a natural evolution.

Annie Fredrickson: I’d never sung in a band before. I have training as a cellist. I’ve been playing cello for, like, 20 years. I was nervous and not even really sure why they wanted me to sing in the band. But when it became evident that they did, then it was really fun after that point.

Who are your musical influences?

BD: I don’t know if the collective group has one, but individually, the KLF were really important to me. I don’t know. Boring answers like the Cure and R.E.M., Magnetic Fields, I would say.

AF: That’s such a hard question. I should probably think of a better answer. It’s hard to think of yourself as having influences, because everyone wants to think that they’re original, you know? And so, it’s hard to say you’re trying to be like [someone else].

What are your musical guilty pleasures?

BD: Coldplay is totally ridiculous. I mean, intellectually, I know that. But once in a while, I just want to hear ‘Clocks.’

AF: La Roux. She’s kind of forgettable. I can’t remember any music I’ve been listening to all day today, but it’s totally fun.

Who are some other SXSW acts you’re excited to see?

BD: I really want to try to see the XX and JJ.

AF: I know that [the SXSW] lineup isn’t solidified yet, and so I don’t want to get excited about going to a show and then find out that I can’t go. So I’m gonna wait until I know what we’re doing.

BD: Oh, that’s a good idea. But I’m most excited just to go in general, because I’ve never been to SXSW before.

Any thoughts on how you’re going to survive the week?

BD: I think it will be a test of stamina rather than performing ability. I don’t even drink coffee, so I don’t know how I’m going to make it.

AF: Yeah, me either. That’s a good question. A lot of tea.

Is there a concert experience that had a particular impact on you?

AF: When I was younger, I was very much immersed in the classical world, and so it was probably going to see the orchestra when I was, like, seven or eight or something. I wanted to be a professional cellist for a really long time.

BD: They Might Be Giants. That was my favorite concert ever, of all time. I remember the exact date. It was December 30, 1995. I grew up in the Philly suburbs. It was cold and I think it was a little snowy. And we hung out, and we smoked pot, I remember, in this country club on the way to the train station to go downtown to see the show. They Might Be Giants have this song called ‘The Statue Got Me High,’ and so we kept making jokes about how, like, if we got arrested, we would just tell the officer that the statue got us high. Then we went to the show, and it was, like, totally packed. Everybody danced the entire time. It was just so much fun. It was like the best concert experience ever. It was awesome.

What’s your craziest tour moment in recent memory?

BD: We did a video [for the song ‘So Bloody, So Tight’) … in New Orleans on our last tour. The first day we were there it was 70 degrees and beautiful. And then as soon as filming started, it went to 40 degrees and raining. We got in a car accident … Some of us were drunk for, like, 15 hours of the 20 hours of the shoot.

AF: I was covered in paint the whole time. It was crazy.

A car accident?

BD: We were driving to the set. And we were all like, man, we’re gonna be freezing. And [guitarist] Josh [Meakim] and I were like, we need to get some whiskey, because that’s the only way we’re gonna stay warm. So at 8:30 in the morning, we were driving to buy whiskey and this guy ran a red light and hit us. It was a crazy day.

Stereogum “So bloody, so tight” video & The New Gay footage
The dreamy Philadelphia swirl-pop outfit A Sunny Day In Glasgow put out the record I most often cited as “most overlooked” last year with Ashes Grammar, a 22-track portrait full of soft vocals floating in lush soundscapes and shifting rhythms, stitched together by scene-setting, gauzy, often synthetic interstitials. It requires a full listening, but is worth it. Despite a list-season reappraisal that brought them a little more notice, it still sits on the under-appreciated side of things. Maybe Ashes hasn’t gone as far because it is a true album at a time when blogs (yes, like this one) have sights set on “key tracks.” (Which, “Failure”btw.) So the band announcing a quicktime followup to last year’s LP with the forthcoming EP Nitetime Rainbows is great news in terms of timing (capitalizing on year-end movement) and in terms of offering a manageable amount of new material (three previously unreleased tracks, in addition to the title cut which comes from Ashes and its three remixes by various artists). “So Bloody, So Tight” is one of the new ones, and considerably brighter (or as the band put it, “more hopeful”) than what we’re used to hearing from them. In turn, the video is much goofier than anything we’d expect from them.

Here’s the band in a very different costume, covering Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere” acoustic (acoustic!) for The New Gay. It’s pretty, although I’d post it however it sounded out of love for A Sunny Day In Glasgow and worship for Fleetwood Mac:

Pitchfork “So bloody, so tight” video premiere

Fluxblog track review
A Sunny Day In Glasgow “Nitetime Rainbows” (The Buddy System Remix)
This remix doesn’t sound a great deal like the original recording by A Sunny Day In Glasgow, but it certainly sounds like A Sunny Day In Glasgow. This version feels more solid and focused than anything on the deliberately hazy and amorphous Ashes Grammar album, but the gently vertiginous swirl of essentially wordless soprano vocals is unmistakable. The arrangement here is lovely, mixing the cool sweetness of the female voices with an assertive forward momentum. It feels like being led along through colorful abstraction, like some kind of obvious sensible path through blissful psychedelic confusion.

Tiny Mix Tapes EP & tour announcement

Wears The Trousers EP & show announcement
The second single to be lifted from last year’s Ashes Grammar [review], this seven-track EP will be available on limited edition clear 12″ vinyl from March 1, with a digital release coming a week earlier on February 22. Includes new songs (‘So Bloody, So Tight’, ‘Piano Lessons’) and mixes galore. A Sunny Day In Glasgow play a one-off show at the Brixton Windmill in London on April 8, followed by an 8-date tour from May 13–20 including appearances at the Great Escape festival in Brighton on May 13 and Sound City Festival in Liverpool on May 19. Full list of dates on their Myspace.

Prefix EP announcement
Philadelphia’s A Sunny Day in Glasgow follow up their critically-acclaimed Ashes Grammar with Nitetime Rainbows, an EP featuring new material, holdovers from the Ashes Grammar studio session and rounded out by 3 remixes of the title track. Still as dreamy and shoegazey as ever, Nitetime Rainbows is some of the brightest-sounding music of ASDIG’s career. It’s the sound of the band taking a victory lap after a triumphant 2009.

Aversion EP announcement
A Sunny Day In Glasgow is all rainbows, all the time on its next EP.

The indie pop band’s Nitetime Rainbows EP is built around the title track and its sunnier counterpart, “Daytime Rainbows.” Recorded while main man Ben Daniels was house-sitting somebody’s mansion, the EP also features “So Bloody, So Tight” and “Piano Lessons” along with three remixes of tracks on the band’s Ashes Grammar (review) (Mis Ojos Discos) and is in stores March 2.

Comfort Comes EP & tour announcement

Limewire EP & tour announcement

in your speakers EP & tour announcement
A Sunny Day In Glasgow, not content so rest on the laurels of their very decent 2009 album Ashes Grammar, are already releasing a new EP of new material as well as planning a lengthy world tour, which will take the oft-changing line up of musicians to cities all over Europe and the United States, with stops at a number of festivals, including SXSW.

The EP, entitled Nitetime Rainbows, was recorded in a mansion Ben Daniels was house-sitting after he was laid off from his job, while the band was supposedly taking a break. The resulting sessions, reportedly the sound of A Sunny Day In Glasgow “falling in love…having fun,” as well as the sound of the core group of members cementing their friendship to one another.

Nitetime Rainbows will be released March 02, and in the meantime the title track can be streamed here.

Exclaim!EP & tour announcement
Philadelphia, PA left-field shoegazers A Sunny Day in Glasgow are on a bit of a roll right now. Their first two albums, 2007’s universally lauded debut, Scribble Mural Comic Journal, and the stunning 2009 follow-up, Ashes Grammar, both got Exclaim! recommendations, and their limited run of 250 coloured vinyl copies of the latter sold out in no time. Suddenly, 2010 doesn’t look too shabby for the band either.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow will release a new EP, titled Nitetime Rainbows, on March 2 via Mis Ojos Discos. The EP is made up of songs from the Ashes Grammar recording sessions, a few new songs and some remixes from Benoît Pioulard, Ezekiel Honig and the Buddy System. The band’s press release states that “these are the sounds of a band falling in love, a band having fun.”

A Sunny Day in Glasgow have also announced a massive spring 2010 tour in support of the EP, swinging through Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. They’ll also join Vancouver garage poppers Japandroids for a couple of shows along the way.

And one last thing: that limited-edition, coloured-vinyl version of Ashes Grammar that’s “completely sold out”? The band have announced on their MySpace that they’ve kept a few to sell on tour.

Philadelphia Weekly EP & tour announcement
Philly dream-pop outfit A Sunny Day in Glasgow just announced a new EP — Nitetime Rainbows, out March 2nd (cover art at right) — and a lengthy spring tour that will take them around the country, down to SXSW in Austin (where they’ll hopefully wow some music industry bigwigs) and back to town for an April 1st (no foolin’) show at Kung Fu Necktie before sending them to Europe just in time for festival season.

Under the Radar EP & tour announcement
Philadelphia ambient-shoegazers A Sunny Day in Glasgow will follow up last year’s enchanting Ashes Grammar with a seven-track EP named after Ashes song, “Nitetime Rainbows.” Alongside the title track, the release features three new songs and three remixes. It’s drops in MP3 and vinyl formats on March 2nd, via Mis Ojos Discos.

The Sunny Day six-piece will also line up a North American trek that starts in New York at the end of February. Noise-pop duo Japandroids will offer support for a few Southern concerts. Check out those dates below. Also, Sunny Day co-founder/guitarist Ben Daniels recently divulged to us what he loved about the 2000s in our recent Best of the Decade Artist Survey.

Pitchfork EP & tour announcement
Philly shoegazers A Sunny Day in Glasgow will follow up last year’s Ashes Grammar (Pitchfork’s #42 album of 2009) with a seven-track EP named after Ashes highlight “Nitetime Rainbows”. Along with the title track, the extended player features three new tracks and three remixes. It’s out on MP3 and vinyl March 2 via Mis Ojos Discos.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow are also set to embark on a continent-spanning tour starting in New York at the end of February. Check out those dates and stream “Nitetime Rainbows” below:

Posted in news |