MY COUSIN THE EMPEROR CD RELEASE SHOW APRIL 9
VOL I – PROSPECT PARK WEST & VOL II – BROADWAY-LAFAYETTE
OUT MARCH 29, 2011…PLAYS SOUTHPAW ON APRIL 9 WITH THE LOOM, AND YELLOWBIRDS.
“They say the Devil is in the details, but God is in there too… It’s those little details that can make or break a song, and I hear those details in My Cousin, The Emperor’s songs.”
- John Schaefer, Soundcheck – WNYC
New York, NY (January 11, 2011) – Time Out NY attests, Brooklyn’s “My Cousin, the Emperor makes happily gnarly music; the band’s debut album, A Long Way from Home, trades in rolling country rock & roll.” My Old Kentucky Blog calls it, “Filled to the brim with both alone-in-the-pouring-rain ballads and throw-me-another-whiskey barroom romps” and Under the Radar Magazine declares, “My Cousin, The Emperor stands up for all that’s still right with the genre of country.”
The accolades continued when the title track from their debut won the Independent Music Award for ‘Best Alternative Country Song of the Year’ and the quartet grabbed the crown for Brooklyn in WNYC’s “Battle Of The Boroughs.” MY COUSIN, THE EMPEROR follow up their first offering with the release of a single disc, double EP entitled, THE SUBWAY EPs on March 29, 2011.
Volume I of the set is the acoustic PROSPECT PARK WEST and Volume II is the electric BROADWAY-LAFAYETTE, named after lead singer, guitarist and songwriter Jason Reischel’s two main stops between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Think of it as the mirrored counterpart to Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home.
Reischel elaborates on the concept of the album, “It takes me about 20-25 minutes to get to places around New York, and I realized that with people’s short attention spans, and quick travel times, they usually only have time for about 20 minutes of music before they have to stop listening. So instead of a full record, we did two EPs… mini-soundtracks for the city that can be enjoyed uninterrupted in their entirety.”
On their blog, audiophile stalwarts Denon call My Cousin, The Emperor, “A band that fuses rock, Americana, country, and folk seamlessly together.” Relix commends, “My Cousin, The Emperor is a young band of country punks with a book full of ragged honky-tonk anthems” and The Deli Magazine recently approved, “They’ve been converting rock ‘n rollers by filtering their classic country sounds through low-fi nuances… to add the ‘alt’ to their ‘alt-country’ categorization.”
LISTEN & DOWNLOAD “NOTHING LEFT FOR US TO FIND” HERE (and feel free to post):
“Instead of recording a full album, we decided to record 2 EPs, but to give them entirely different personalities,” continues Reischel. “Volume 1 is more folky, country, singer- songwriter music. Volume 2 is more rock, upbeat, and energetic. This band does both of them very well, so I wanted to showcase it’s different personalities across the two EPs.”
In addition to Reischel and guitarist Terry Quire, MCTE have added two new members with Michael Feinberg on bass and Danny Wolf on drums. The jazz backgrounds of each bring even more tightness to the rhythm section of the already solid group.
On the horizon in 2011, My Cousin, The Emperor is contributing music to the film Jeremy Fink & The Meaning Of Life, based on the book by Wendy Mass, due out this summer and starring Mira Sorvino and Joey Pantoliano. They’ve also recorded a cover of “More Than Words” for Guilt By Association 3, set for release in April via Engine Room Recordings. Keep an eye out for tour dates to be announced shortly through February and March.
STREAM THE SUBWAY EPs at:
http://mycousintheemperor.bandcamp.com/
“With his band My Cousin, The Emperor, Reischel explores an alt-country sound that tips its hat to the
indie rock scene while still maintaining a simple twang.”
- Alana Harper, WNYC Music Hub
“My Cousin, The Emperor is like a country version of Pavement.
They have nuances of a lo-fi 90s band, mixed with a country acoustic twang.”
- The Deli Magazine
“Reverb-heavy melancholy that is very comparable to songs from artists like Chris Isaak and Roy Orbison.”
- Brooklyn Rocks
“These guys remind me of Explosions in the Sky. Great rhythm, great harmonies…great fusion of country and indie rock.”
- Rik Cordero, Three/21 Films
“The guitars have a certain twang that gives you the sudden urge to hike up your cowboy boots, dust off your cowboy hat and button up your plaid shirt. It’s clearly a country album but with a hint of Blues, which is exactly what these Brooklyn-based young men are trying to create a blend of ‘Country R&B’.”
- Sinister Girlz
http://www.myspace.com/mycousintheemperor
http://mycousintheemperor.com/