I sang lead on one song (“Songs from a Hotel Bar”) and did backups / extra vocals on two others.

Watch the video for “Sugar Waltz” on YouTube… I sing, but I’m not in the video. But’s it’s a great video. :-)

Description
(which I totally ripped off from Amazon!)

Morning Recordings returns with its second full-length, The Welcome Kinetic, which finds the Pramod Tummala-led ensemble (now including The Coctails’ Barry Phipps as vocalist and multi-instrumentalist) eschewing the intimate monotones of the first record in favor of a broader aural palette. Dub-inflected Latin, underwater Bachrach-ian pop, waltz-time sound collage, and warped ’70s funk are all rendered with a balladeer’s touch. Drag City artist Edith Frost joins the group to sing on three of the tracks, including the bewitching lead vocal on “Songs from a Hotel Bar.” Utilizing a talented group of musicians and eclectic instrumentation (vibraphone, pianos, cellos, horns, tape machine, acoustic and electric bowed metal, upright bass, Japanese table harp, and field recordings), Morning Recordings has created a work that is sonically bold and sweepingly cinematic.

“A time machine to 1975 AM-radio-pop nirvana. Pramod Tummala has a honeyed drawl that’s an ethereal instrument all its own.” — Magnet

“A warm base of guitars, bass, and slowly clocking drums is fleshed out with airy touches of piano, vibraphone, Rhodes, and strings … the result is a gentle lushness. Tummala’s vocals are welcoming and soothing, a match for the Sunday evening serenity of the album’s mood.” — Punk Planet

“Mellow music for laid-back lovers.” — Insound

“With sparse, gentle vocal melodies that evoke the ghost of Elliott Smith on top of intricate but subdued instrumental arrangements, Tummala succeeds in creating a record that is both relaxing and compelling, sort of like Iron & Wine but with organs and harmonium instead of acoustic guitars.” — Pop Culture Press

“Another notable chapter in Chicago’s post-rock scene opus.” — Chicago Free Press

Last summer, when I was out in the Bay Area scopin’ out the place to move here, I met up with Sonny again to do some more vocals, for his ONE ACT PLAYS project.  This was at his studio at the Headlands, near Sausalito. Also just one song (“Treat Me Mean”), but it’s a doozy!  It was so much fun to do, I had tons of room to play around with the harmonies and ooh’s and ahh’s and funny little curlicues.  Anyway that project has been released too… self-released, anyway.  I’m really not sure how you’d go about buying that one.  I’ll look into it.

And OMG, I almost pissed myself when I saw this on Sonny’s homepage.  Check it!!

In other news, regarding this-here personal website, I’m still working on it and I’m still sick of it!  I really dig Twitter though.  All the blabbing I used to do here, I’m doing over there now, in micro-bursts.  I think it’s become quite clear that I’m going to continue with that, so I might as well get used to it, and fix my site to reflect that shift of content… putting my actual music-related news on THIS blog, and the extraneous bullshit elsewhere.  I do like the idea of folding outside content into the website somehow though — not just displaying it, but fully indexed and searchable with everything else.  It would be nice… something like the lifestream thing I’m playing with over at Jaiku.  Anyway.  Hard to know what’s best.  For now I’m just working on badge-type things for my front page.  Twitter is done and Flickr’s almost done too, so at least they’ll be displayed.

A few years ago I blogged about an earthquake I felt in Chicago.  The one tonight one was scarier though.  It was just a jolt, but a pretty strong jolt compared to the Chicago one, which I only noticed because the floor-lamp was trembling.