Five Kill Records is a new record label based in upstate NY, a fusion of five local labels into an artist-focused collective whose initial offerings caught our hearts and ears.
They’ve put together a little showcase with five tracks via Spotify, showing off the incredible diversity of talent radiating out from the Hudson Valley. But first…watch the new video by The Parlor for Soon which was directed, produced + edited by Eric Krans and Jen O’Connor and is from their forthcoming album Kiku.
“Soon was intended as a metaphor for the stages of grief. The chrysanthemums represent grief itself. We carry grief around with us, often to unlikely places. We try at times to let it go, to fling our grief from great heights or hope it’s carried off by time -an offering to the flowing waters of the hills. But ultimately we find ourselves steeping in it, drowning in it, and ideally cleansed by it in a baptism of intentional release. Allowing ourselves to stop fighting forces us to experience things that, as humans, we often try desperately to avoid. Allowing ourselves to dance in glowing sunlight empowers us to reclaim our spirit. And we are transported to a deeper place of understanding of one’s self and of the human experience as we know it. “Soon” is an expression of painful hope and illuminated heart.”
Five Kill Records is named after the confluence of five kills (rivers) where Albany was first settled as a Dutch colony—Rutten Kill, Vosen Kill, Beaver Kill, Normans Kill and Patroon Creek—the label itself is a confluence of five Albany/Troy-area professional and DIY recording collectives and labels: B3nson Recording Company, Swordpaw Collective, Collar City Records, The Rev Records, and Bee Side Cassettes.
Five Kill is a label run by musicians, artists, producers, engineers, promoters, house-show operators, editors, and videographers. The label’s aim is to support musicians and aid in developing their careers by providing ideas, support and access to music industry services to enrich the region’s creative economy. Fivekill is a not for profit record label reinvesting its income back into services for artists.
Over the past 10 years Five Kill members have released over 200 albums, created and produced a music festival (Restoration Festival) which featured Mount Erie, Man Man, Sharon Van Etten, Deer Tick, and Titus Andronicus, produced online video content for major-label artists, placed recorded material with larger publishing platforms, and created content that has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, Pitchfork, KEXP, Bandcamp Weekly, and Uproxx.
The first release from Five Kill is The Parlor’s third LP, Kiku, out on April 13th, with forthcoming releases from Rechorduroys, Onlyness (Rick Spataro of Florist), Bear Grass, Blue Ranger, and Neighborhood of Make Believe.
Rechorduroys – Two Stones – From their s/t album, due June 8
Two stones starts off with a catchy guitar riff that almost feels like a George Harrison outtake. This song has you feeling good from the start. It continues with dreamy, melancholy vocals that start to lift you up into the stratosphere and ends with an explosion of fuzz that snaps you back down to earth. I’m a tombstone or two stoned… you can’t be sure. Pre-Order
Onlyness – Leave Me Alone – From their s/t album, due July 6
Leave Me Alone is a song about finding yourself uncomfortable and overwhelmed around others, seeking isolation to resolve these feelings, and finding, once isolated, that the feelings persist because the problem is you. It’s a neurotic strut through drug-induced overconfidence in public leading to private regret later on. It’s seeing yourself as abandoned when you’ve intentionally closed yourself off. It’s believing your life is a mysterious spiraling curse of misfortune despite knowing it’s really the calculated sum of your actions and of random meaningless circumstances that are constantly changing and have nothing to do with you.
Bear Grass – Unawake – From the album LEFT, due August
Unawake reflects on the inability to truly understand what others are thinking. Frustration in the idea that we can know someone so closely, though never hear the thoughts that run through their mind. Never receive a true image of what they are thinking, how they feel, or the way they behave in solitude. Our minds often race with questions, dreams, blurred reality, and many of those thoughts may never be heard. Those which we wish to share, may never be perceived the way we wished they would. We have to trust that the gestures, looks, and actions of the individual fill in the picture, and instinctively determine that the words people decide to share are true.
Neighborhood of Make Believe – Between Two Nighttimes Lightning – From their s/t album, due November
A song about how a moment can forever divide time into before and after, and a meditation on how to gracefully handle moments that might change your life forever. Inspired by the work of the Spanish nobel laureate Vicente Aleixandre.
Visit Five Kill Records: https://www.fivekillrecords.com/