Underskog

PICASTRO, (Toronto, Polyvinyl/Monotremre rec)
Metal Cares’ is the second album from the Toronto band
Picastro. Their debut album ‘Red Your Blues’ was
awarded ‘album of the week’ in the Sunday Times and
was also well received in various other publications
including Q, The Wire, The Morning Star, Time Out New
York and AMG for its mesmeric avant rock soundscapes
featuring cello, guitar and the submerged, melancholic
vocals of front woman Liz Hysen. The band have played
shows with Godspeed, Mick Turner (of The Dirty Three),
Smog, Elliot Smith, Cat Power, Angels of Light, Herman
Düne, Cerberus Shoal and Thee More Shallows.

The North American release of ‘Metal Cares’ is on the
Polyvinyl label (Mates of State, Of Montreal, Rainer
Maria)

A previously unreleased Picastro track called ‘Tow
Truck” is on the Wire Tapper CD that comes free with
the June 2005 issue of The Wire.

“compelling, haunting vocals…. The beauty of the album
unfurls slowly but surely”
(4/5) – The Independent

“an often tragically beautiful album stuck between
swoonsome melody and the black dogs of depression.”
-Rock Sound

“music that quietly slowly unfurls in a warm hug of
beauty”
-Organ Magazine

“Undoubtedly familiar to many through their recent
appearance on The Wire’s ‘Tapper 13’, Picastro share
much with the elongated grandeur of God Speed You
Black Emperor or a downtempo Masada, building
wrath-like structures of cello, guitar and waterlogged
rhythms around Liz Hysen’s mournful voice. Weaved from
a cornucopia of disparate musical styles and
influences, ‘Metal Cares’ is belligerently eclectic in
it’s intent, borrowing post-rock structures one minute
(‘I Can’t Fall Asleep’) and Eastern European Folk the
next (‘Ah Nyeh Nyeh’). Yet whilst it casts a wide
aural web, ‘Metal Cares’ can always rely on the
hypnotic vocals of Hysen to provide the necessary
cohesion, bringing a real sense of emotional burden to
songs like ‘Blonde Fires’. Also including a remix from
Kid606 cohort Dwayne Sodahberk, ‘Metal Cares’ is
experimental in the most pleasingly eclectic fashion
imaginable.”
-Boomkat

“Toronto band whose bleak but beguiling folk blues
create a world of dark, threatening beauty like a
slowed down Joy Division.”
– Peterborough Evening Telegraph

“Their songs are always so suggested and so
suggestive, they’re like ghosts of songs, drifting and
shapeshifting. Only this time the ghosts are strong;
angry…Beautiful bare bones. You’ll like it.”
– Plan B

“Picastro does what Billy Corgan has futilely tried to
master for more than a decade: make scary and
realistic sorrow seem like pop. ‘Metal Cares’, is the
ultimate example of brooding becoming art…These are
the songs that make hearts wrench, ears bleed and eyes
well with tears.”
–Comes with a Smile Magazine

“If quiet is indeed the new loud, Picastro are today’s
answer to Black Sabbath”.
– Chart Attack

“If it’s a subtle edge you seek, something slightly
askew within otherwise solid and sweet orchestration,
you may have found it here.”
– Pop Matters

“Picastro have slowly woven a style of their own,
scouring the dark side of despair, heavy on the
strings, tugging at the heart.”
– Now Montreal

“An extremely accomplished album, ‘Metal Cares’
soothes and seduces while also threatening and
accusing.’
–Exclaim

The songs are…a vehicle for the group to expand their
vocabulary, creating a gloomy variant of folk blues
with a wide reach.
-Wire

and dynamics on their new album, Metal Cares, is so
exquisite and alert that the torpid rhythms feel like
part of an elegant high-wire act.
-Chicago Reader

…it’s all so sadly beautiful that it defies
depression, resulting in the most uplifting and
dynamic downer imaginable.
–The Onion

www.picastro.net
www.myspace.com/picastro
www.polyvinylrecords.com

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DWAYNE SODAHBERK (Sthlm, Tigerbeat6)

“described as a ‘swedish techno misfit’ ends up
creating one of the
most enigmatic albums of the year, certainly that tb6
has put out
(save the licensing of max tundra) his influences,
that include autechre,
blonde redhead, fennesz, and super_collider are all
veryclear in his own compositions, and make it all the
better. like running great tracks of all genres,
hip-hop, instrumental guitar, electronic, etc.,
filtering
them all incessantly than smashing them into dust, and
finely arranging them back together again. brilliant”
- Absorb.com

“Luckily there are a few out there who haven’t
forgotten how to write a
good song. Swedish electro-glitch-pop producer Dwayne
Sodahberk’s latest
on the Tigerbeat6 label rocks. Where other folktronic
acts tend to go
the hokey-acoustic route, Sodahberk throws together
elements of
electro-pop, DSP glitch-processing and psychedelic
shoegazing guitar
to give the album an edgier feel.
Very, very nice”.
- Vice magazine

Dwayne Sodahberk – Discography

Albums:
Cut Open (Tigerbeat6) 2006
Unfortunately (Tigerbeat6) 2003
Don’t want to know you (Tigerbeat6) 2002

EPs, Singles, etc:
Giant of Patience (Elefantkvinnan) 2005
The Partying Without Inhibition Or Dignity EP
(Tigerbeat6) 2003
Paws across scandinavia (Tigerbeat6/iDEAL) 2003 (split
7" with Kid606)
Unsound EP (Stuporsonika) 2001
E.Pr.Disco EP (Voltmusik) 2001 (with Janosh Brando)
Untitled EP (Stuporsonika) 2000

Other:
Paws across the world (Tigerbeat6) 2003 (split CD with
Kid606 and Dj/
rupture)
Erik Qvick Daniel Söderberg Agnar Már Magnusson
(Qvirec) 2003

Tracks on Compilations and 12"s released by
Tigerbeat6, Kitty-Yo,
Swayzak recordings, Average, Simballrec, Mitek, etc.
Plus a dozen CD-Rs.

Remixes for Soviac, Picastro, Sophie Rimheden, Kid606,
Numbers and
others.

www.myspace.com/dwaynesodah…
www.stuporsonika.se/ds.html
www.tigerbeat6.com/index.ph…
www.digfi.com/default.aspx?…