The HONEYCUTTERS – Friday, May 18
CD Release Shows:
4:30pm In-store preview in The Bohemian Café
10pm Full Evening Show in The Bohemian Café

NEW! HONEYCUTTERS – When Bitter Met Sweet
The Honeycutters are excited to introduce their second full length studio release, When Bitter Met Sweet. Like their first release, Irene, When Bitter Met Sweet features singer/songwriter Amanda Anne Platt, who has been hailed as “one of the best songwriters coming out of WNC these days” by WNCW programming director Martin Anderson. Peter James accompanies her on lead and rhythm guitar as well as harmony vocals. They are backed up by Tal Taylor’s signature mandolin playing, Ian Harrod on bass, and Jon Ashley on drums creating an original brand of americana that has proved equally appealing to both the musician and the music lover, the country and the city, and the old and the young. Platt’s songs are shaped by a raw honesty that comes straight from the heart and emits a sort of melancholy happiness. The album features 11 tracks that touch upon childhood and loss of innocence, finding a sense of belonging and one’s voice, truth, love and patience, traveling and embarking on new life-journeys (and the fears that go along with these), and the understanding that comes about when life’s circumstances come full circle.

Birds Fly South on Sale!
CD $8.99, Deluxe LP $11.99

Husband and wife, singing and playing together.

And they’re each deft instrumentalists, and they’ve spent years playing in others’ bands before coming together as a unit. They’re bound by music and an uncommon depth of companionship, they’re good enough to make Steve Earle swoon, and all of that sounds quite nice.

Until 16 and a half seconds into track one, when Eleanor Whitmore begins singing, “The twitch in my left eye came back today.” “Yeah, we’re not exactly gazing lovingly at each other while we’re playing these songs,” says guitarist Chris Masterson. “Sometimes the ‘couple’ thing can seem a bit schmaltzy. We’re more a band than a duo, and we’re not going to be George and Tammy. We might not even be John and Exene.”

That’s not to say that these folks don’t love each other, or that they aren’t of a piece. It’s just that listening to The Mastersons – either live or on their immediately engaging, musically expansive debut album, Birds Fly South on New West Records – isn’t akin to eavesdropping on two soulmates’ impossibly intimate conversation. This is more fun than that, with bright melodies that lead to dark lyrics, inventive harmonies and enough sparkle and twang to fashion a Porter Wagoner suit. Together, Whitmore (who plays guitar, violin, mandolin and most anything else with strings) and Masterson arrive at a singular blend that Emmylou Harris speaks of as “the third voice,” one distinct from its individual elements.

“Eleanor on her own has a beautiful voice, far better than mine,” Masterson says. “But when we come together, something bigger happens

CD $11.99 Colored Vinyl Gatefold 2LP $16.99
It’s BEACH HOUSE listening party Tuesday-all day. Their new CD & LP from Subpop is BLOOM is being celebrated here and in select record stores nationwide with drawings to win highly collectible rarities like ONE of just 250 GLOW IN THE DARK limited edition LP of Bloom (yes it really glows), plus chances to grab limited edition Beach House picture sleeve singles, t-shirts, samplers and posters while they last. Exclusively at Horizon Records unless you make it to the bands show in New York City’s Bowery Ballroom that night.

Few bands arrive as fully formed as Beach House, which hasn’t strayed far from its musical calling card since its 2006 debut: frosty, dime-store analog keyboards, Alex Scally’s swoony slide guitar and the alluring vocals of Victoria Legrand. Where many bands take their fans through wild stylistic shifts or incorporate flashy arrangements, deconstructed beats or bursts of cacophony, Beach House has remained constant in tone, evolving incrementally through precise refinements.

The band’s fourth album, Bloom, is unquestionably a Beach House record, and one that on the surface feels more like a continuation than the product of evolution. That is, until you go back and hear how far this band has truly come. Through its first three records, Beach House’s development has followed an almost imperceptibly subtle yet linear path: The murky production has become cleaner and less hissy. The vocal lines shine brighter through the haze. The aching, dreamy melodies are more memorable.

Since the beginning, Beach House has cloaked its pop songs in gauzy nostalgia that conveys both innocence and wisdom. Amid airy synths and simple dusty machine patterns, Legrand sings romantically and darkly about the beginnings of love, about broken