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No Guitar (Deluxe Edition)

by Curling

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $15 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Limited Edition Compact Disc housed in a full color digipak with original artwork by Mathilde Hostein, featuring two unreleased bonus tracks from the album sessions. Made in the USA.

    Includes unlimited streaming of No Guitar (Deluxe Edition) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days

      $15 USD or more 

     

  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Limited Edition Cassette Tape with full-color J-Card featuring original artwork by Mathilde Hostein, and two unreleased bonus tracks from the album sessions. Professionally dubbed high quality cassette tapes featuring FerroMaster C456™ Type I Super Ferric cassette tape. Made in the USA.

    Includes unlimited streaming of No Guitar (Deluxe Edition) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days

      $15 USD or more 

     

1.
Shamble 03:03
I've been told that's the way that it goes when you're dead to feeling. Holy shit, someone needs to kick my ass to get back that feeling. I've been down. Not enough, but I know. Still I try to take this love of mine. To take this, once in a lifetime. On the desert plane of love, you lost your mind forever. Breathe out. Nothing.
2.
Pastoral 02:16
You say I'm a shapeshifter. Out of touch. But you're afraid I'll change my mind, like I did last time, and follow my heart. All those days are gone, right before your eyes. Brave until you're not. How long can we do this? Should I hope you'll let me down? Go it alone, but you're too scared to be on your own. Just fucking say so.
3.
Pop Song 02:02
You love this: taking shit from other people all day. Just breathing in. Lay down your little head and submit to your loneliness now, alright forever. You know it's not so bad. On the precipice of crying and laughter. Oh god, I just lost my job. And in this heart of rot, your loneliness is an echo chasing after this fear. I'm destined to try.
4.
URDoM 02:30
If you've been bad at everything, you better try tonguing at the pain. Every night, these thoughts erase your mind and you'll never know if your heart is swinging from a chain. It hangs and the loneliness you've got to show them anyways, because you're do-M.
5.
I lay there like a stranger. I never want to know or to be known. I am nothing. I wanna live life on my own jealousy. I'm trying to hurt you, but sometimes I don't know how. So how could a person ever be so mean? It's just a reflection, reflecting and staring back. On my own is all I know.
6.
Dysfunction 03:49
Sometimes I'm a lover of all my dysfunction. I will index all the sharp spots and run my finger through. I'll tie the blades in little knots. Again they irritate me and I adore them still.
7.
Majesty 02:23
You came like a bolt from the blue in dreams I dreamed only of you. There's something in her eyes: love like you always know now. Under her painted heart, there's a love to mend your broken body to. Stay by her side when the world's turned to dust. Listen to her yearning. Beneath those painted eyes, all alone, like her royal majesty. You'll be her light when the world's turned too dark. Listen to her yearning.
8.
Hey, don't lose that longing. Lift up your head, yeah, there is life all around, can't you see? I'd like to take you by the hand, especially when you know that's not how it goes, and that you can't take back what you have never had. Adored, my love, now that you're gone to sleep. Adorned, effortlessly. Took a lifetime to know that you're looking for a thrill. Tied down for a lullaby.
9.
Patience 02:52 video
It's not a love song. Not yet. Don't be defined by these chains when you realize shame: that you're enamored with pain. Just take some time to realize you could be happy. You could be anything. Washing away your lipstick and blush, that drugstore mascara. You're falling in love with someone just 'cause you're tired of innocence. All your days: lonesome, effortless. It was always going to be like you wanted it to somehow. Don't be defined by these chains when you realize pain: that you're enamored with shame.
10.
Husk 05:07
You are the husk of a pony today. Ethereal in the window out this dimension. If I could find you with these words, I'd talk. Outside of my mind’s four metal walls. I know it can't get better, all of this time living in the hollow of you. You are just an empty husk. I've been lost. Forever chasing what I'm not. Forever. Were you in this life to know? Were you in this life void of all character? If I could find you with these words, I'd talk. Outside of my mind's four metal walls.
11.
Hotel 03:55
I guess I'm no good to anyone right now. I try to give a love, but I'm never found. I only had a weakness that anyone who cared could see. Now, waiting around is never enough. I'll take a drive past the dead trees, said I'd visit now and then. I never said I loved you. Not enough, anyways. You're singing carols to yourself.
12.
No Guitar 01:05
Top.
13.
14.
15.
I've been told that's the way that it goes when you're dead to feeling. Holy shit, someone needs to kick my ass to get back that feeling. I've been down. Not enough, but I know. Still I try to take this love of mine. To take this, once in a lifetime. On the desert plane of love, you lost your mind forever. Breathe out. Nothing.

about

Royal Oakie Records is proud to release No Guitar (Deluxe Edition) which combines the original album with two instrumental bonus tracks from the "No Guitar" sessions, "Cavalry" and "C2", both featuring transitional drummer Kevin Stewart. Mixed and mastered by David Glasebrook, the bonus tracks add further depth and stylistic reach to the album.

Curling’s third album No Guitar is their most fully realized work yet, a lush and intricate collection that covers a ton of ground, from the bittersweet jangle of power-pop, to indie-folk, Midwestern emo, and much more. The album marks the latest evolution for cross-continental duo Bernie Gelman and Joseph Brandel, who first met in high school and have been fusing their own unique musical sensibilities ever since, with Gelman operating out of the San Francisco Bay Area while Brandel currently resides in Japan.

Perusing an online message board, Gelman came across drummer Kynwyn Sterling from Portland, OR and reached out to see if she’d be interested in playing together. Pretty soon thereafter Brandel and Gelman decamped to Portland with Sterling and everything started coming together; the newly-formed trio felt their creativity flowing and four new songs emerged, the beginnings of many sessions to come with engineer Ian Pellici at Brothers Chinese Recording in Oakland, CA.

The album title reflects an initial notion to abandon the six-strings of their previous albums. “It lasted 30 minutes before we picked up some guitars,” Gelman laughs. “No Guitar was originally supposed to be the first Curling album where we diverged from writing songs with guitars. That definitely didn’t happen! Except for one song, which is called 'No Guitar'.”

The name of the album has two further meanings for the band. For example, ’no’ in Japanese works like the possessive in English. “Those who know Japanese will notice that ‘Curling No Guitar’ literally translates to ‘Curling’s Guitar’ and ‘No Guitar’ also refers to my father’s command regarding my after-hours music-making in adolescence,” adds Gelman.

You can hear shades of shoegaze in "Hi-Elixir", where a massive wall of fuzzy guitars recalls My Bloody Valentine; "Patience" has a sweet-and-sour bite that recalls acts like Archers of Loaf and Shudder to Think; while "URDoM" swings and sways with a tapestry of guitars reminiscent of American Football and Mineral.

During the pandemic, Curling effectively went on hiatus for three years. “Coming back together was strange,” Gelman remembers. “Jojo hadn’t picked up a guitar in months, and after a certain point we were like, ‘Do we want to be doing this?’” Brandel was going through a serious breakup, and Gelman’s father passed away, an absence addressed in the acoustic melodies of "Hotel". “It’s a song about that feeling of grief, as well as the intangible loss of words that you never said,” Gelman explains. “We’ve gotten better at idea-sharing,” Brandel adds. “We’ve become more comfortable working with each other's songs.”

Fittingly, "No Guitar" ends with a gorgeous and wordless tangle of electronics, gesturing towards the future’s perpetual uncertainties, while also pointing towards an exciting new future for the band.

credits

released March 1, 2024

Produced by Joseph Brandel and Bernie Gelman

Engineered and mixed by Ian Pellicci at Brothers Chinese Recording in Oakland, CA
“Cavalry” and “C2” mixed & mastered by David Glasebrook at The Garden Shed - Oakland, CA
Additional engineering on “Cavalry” by David Glasebrook
Acoustic guitar and vocals on 'Pop Song' engineered by Yoshiaki Kondoh at Gok Sound in Tokyo, JP
Executive Producer: David Glasebrook

Mastered by Golden Mastering in Ventura, CA

Album artwork by Mathilde Hostein
CD & cassette layout by Aaron Hubbard

All songs written by Joseph Brandel and Bernie Gelman ©2024 BMI, except lyrics to 'Dysfunction' written by Michael Fernando

---PERSONNEL---
Joseph Brandel: Vocals, guitars, bass, horse
Bernie Gelman: Vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, tremolo
Kynwyn Sterling: Drums, percussion, yawns

---ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL---
Ross Eustis: Trumpet on 'Shamble'
Raffi Garabedian: Tenor saxophone on 'Shamble'
Danny Lubin-Laden: Trombone on 'Shamble'
Samsun van Loon: Cello on 'Pastoral'
Liana Berube: Violin on 'Majesty' and 'Pastoral'
Akio Jeimus: Congas on 'Dysfunction'
Evan Price: Violin on 'Majesty'
Tatiana Trono: Viola on 'Majesty'
Lucas Chen: Cello on 'Majesty'
Michael Graham: Cello on 'Husk'
Kevin Stewart: Drums on “Cavalry” and “C2”
Additional arrangement for horns and strings by Doug Stuart

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tags

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Curling Berkeley, California

jojo // bernie // kynwyn
tokyo // berkeley // portland

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