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New CD In the Bright Rain will be released March 6th. Single Brighter Now available now on audio page or itunes. See the Brighter Now video now:
Convalescing in Braille CD Recently charted CMJ #10 at KDVS (Sacramento) and WBNY (Buffalo) . REVIEWS A lush but still subtle dash of moody piano pop, Crushed Stars’ leader Todd Gautreau is a delicate but evocative lyricist whose voice lolls when others roar. There’s no overreaching, no forced bombast, just a supple and elegant explication of pain and sorrow. His Texas crew takes the best of Nick Drake and Ryan Adams and splits the difference right down the middle.- emusic moody, dark and extremely beautiful. a melodically delicate and enchantingly moody album. Oft descriptive words associated with Gautreau and his Crushed Stars may relate to the night hours, overcast days, or infinite soundscapes. These words fit — there’s something oddly spacial about the dreamy pop of Crushed Stars, and that’s what makes the band, and an album like Convalescing In Braille work so well. Beyond the chill strums of guitar strings and emotive piano, beyond the shuffle in the percussion, is Gautreau’s beautifully melancholy vocals. A song like “Black Umbrella” can break your heart one moment and lift it above your troubles the next. In a way, that’s what makes Crushed Stars so special — the music whisks you away from it all.-Fensepost a smooth combination of elegant melodies...extremely sincere and incredibly moving... sorrowful perfection -stereo subversion Eerily brilliant. Textured, soothing, chill-out rock that perfectly suits gray drizzly days or droopy-eyed late nights. The pace is slowed down to a near-crawl and there's fragility in the mood he creates, often just with guitar and voice. Gautreau's melancholy sketches drift along with no sense of urgency, anchored by his gentle vocals; it is all very hypnotic and pretty. Convalescing In Braille has an aching loveliness about it that more than makes up for its lack of surprises.-Exclaim In a year deluged with jangling guitars and vocals drowning in enough reverb to kill a Olympic swimmers, please summon the strength to listen to Crushed Stars’ Convalescing in Braille with fresh ears. Like The Radio Dept. or, before them, Yo La Tengo, the band’s lonely pop places craft first. Even its simplest moments seem examined for maximum headphones richness: how the lightly clipping drums of “Spark” contrast with singer Todd Gautreau’s distant, wounded vocals; reaching the bottom of of the 10-foot-deep cymbals of “Black Umbrellas”; the firmness of piano keys against warbling synthesizers on “A Day Without You.” It’s less treble-heavy and propulsive than the Radio Dept.’s latest efforts, but the songs also explore feelings of landlocked loneliness. - rawkblog the songs don't try to create sonic landscapes, the landscapes just happen as a result of songs that make you wish that nighttime lasted throughout the day. absolutely beaming from hushed sentimentality that seems to be missing in so much popular music today. - one word titles Gautreau’s melodies find a way of slowly but surely winding their way into your mind, and his arrangements and atmospherics add just the right amount of tonal color in just the right spots. I’ve mostly listened to this album on long drives, and when the afternoon sun illuminates the empty cornfields and colorful trees as it only can in the Nebraska countryside, well… Convalescing in Braille makes for a pretty nice soundtrack for such scenery.- opus With subtle guitar, piano, and percussion paired up with Gautreau’s Interpol meets Nick Drake meets Alexi Murdoch vocals, this indie rock album will create a brief escape from reality.The album is full of soothing guitar riffs similar to The American Analog Set, no more prevalent in the album’s fifth track, “Spark” ".Eyeliner” starts off the album with a captivating guitar intro followed my Gautreau’s voice and a building combination of percussion and organ sounds that move you through the track. The album turns slightly upbeat with “Technicolor”, introduced by electric guitars and soft drums and vocals, creating an innocent sound reminiscent of Belle & Sebastian. “A Day Without You” shows us the electronic side of Gautreau as he creates a dreamy three-minute instrumental track full of light piano, organs, and whimsical synth effects. “Ocean” brings the album to a close sounding like it belongs on the Garden State or Away We Go movie soundtrack, bringing together all aspects of Todd Gautreau’s musical and lyrical style. A soft guitar and piano combination married with Gautreau’s entrancing vocals will have you feeling weightless. As a clarinet paired with a section of strings enter towards the end of the track, you’ll struggle to come back to reality. - live music guide The Smiths-meets-Mark Kozelek vibe of his latest album, Convalescing in Braille, further establishes the sonic signature that has been honed over the course of several albums since the group’s inception in 2005. Crushed Stars have been successful in getting the word out, over the past few years. Along with appearances at the all-encompassing SXSW and CMJ festivals, many radio stations have added songs from their catalog to their playlists. Recently, their genius cover of the campy 1980′s classic, “99 Red Balloons,” made noise on airwaves outside of North Texas.Having worked with an impressive group of producers including Stuart Sikes (White Stripes, Cat Power) and North Texas native John Congleton (Walkmen, St. Vincent, Sarah Jaffe), calling Crushed Stars a band might be a bit of a stretch, given that for this latest album, Gautreau played all of the instruments himself, with drums bing the lone exception. In this instance, it seems as the dedicated multi-tasking paid off, as the album flows evenly and effortlessly. Even with numbers like “Technicolor” and “Spark” boasting a bit more percussive pounding and quickened pace than many of the other softer tunes, the collection’s moody cohesion is never disturbed. While we’re always a bit reluctant to quote anything from Pitchfork, we’d be lying if we said that they didn’t sum up our general feelings as it pertains to the work of Gautreau when they reported that Crushed Stars music makes “you wish it were night all day long.” - the squawker Todd Gautreau's voice is the one you hear in your head as you drift off to sleep. It's the one you hear when you zone out on a long road trip. It's your own voice after drinking about 12 beers alone. constructs dreamy songs to suit his voice, breathy confessions that can be uncomfortably honest and always mesmerizing.
Crushed Stars - 99 Red Balloons b/w Lady Jane (single) Recently reached #1 CMJ at KDVS Sacramento. Also in heavy rotation at KKXT Dallas and KUSF San Francisco.
Crushed Stars - The Refracted Light of Crushed Stars All instrumental CD focusing on the band's electronic tendencies. 8 nocturnal lullabies. On Todd Gautreau's fourth release, the pulsar qualities of his moniker manifest in "Candy Colored Tiles," a track suffused with background radiation and captured signals behind the heat haze of piano. Gautreau, who also plays in electronic rock outfit Sonogram, takes a break from vocals and tucks away his guitar in preference of keyboards this time around. It's a move that initially polishes away edges and distils focus, creating a littoral flow of sounds that eddy rather than cut across waves. The latter half of the album catches a prevailing breeze. "Impervious" hoists a shuffling jazz rhythm and trumpet phrase just after "Interiors" marries hypnotic reverb organ to chain reaction drum machine beats. It's just enough of a push to keep the album from dissolving in its own atmosphere. Fans of Pan.American, the Rhodes Organ and steam baths will be pleased - exclaim Sounds swell and crinkle — the entire album floats by like a floating lullaby. The perfect soundtrack for some serious introspection. - emusic
Crushed Stars - Gossamer
Days Recorded with and mixed by Stuart Sikes (Cat Power, Modest Mouse,
White Stripes). ORDER
CDs Enamored of refracted sunlight and beams through leafy trees; it’s careful, considered, graceful, and in love with the feel of warmth on eyelids. In addition to Gautreau’s hushed vocals — he continues the line from Nick Drake to the Clientele — Gossamer Days features a lot of softly-tumbling guitar lines and slow-motion moments that allow for everything to unfold at its own speed. Pretty damn dreamy throughout; with its knowing solitude and broadly romantic lyrics, it features the sort of sound you’d imagine as the score to your fantasy autumn relationship with a pretty college professor. “We talked about Camus, we listened to Burt Jansch…the collars on our sweaters got in the way of our kissing.” — Detour Glossy
pop music. Deliberately paced tempos are set by finger-picked guitar
patterns augmented by sustained keyboard chords, and Gautreau calmly
and indistinctly intones his lyrics within the mix. It's all dreamy
and gauzy and vague, music meant to create (or accompany) a sleepy mood
rather than to listen to carefully, like the earnest mumbling of Michael
Stipe in early R.E.M. if the band were being produced by an Gautreau's voice sounds has a drunken slur to it which contrasts nicely with the pristine instrumentation: guitars chime with infinity, cymbals crash with luscious echoes and keys puncture the melodies beautifully; a finely constructed album.- under the radar The aptly named Crushed Stars are the indie pop project of Todd Gautreau and in the past, his music has been very, very quiet. While the ten songs on Gossamer Days could hardly be described as such, they do possess a richness that he had only hinted at previously. That might be in part thanks to the production of Stuart Sikes, who also worked with Cat Power on The Greatest, but it is also reflected in Gautreau’s songs, which mange to carefully walk the line between bleak and beautiful. There are hints of Red House Painters and the Clientele, but they are closest in spirit to nearly forgotten Sarah Records band Brighter, who also produced this kind of wonderful melancholy. When it comes to quiet indie pop, Gossamer Days is pretty much as good as it gets - exclaim You
won't find a more truthfully evocative Artist - Title pairing, anywhere.
Listening to, say, the opening track "Spies," is a little
like watching celestial bodies shooting up a hazy night sky, stardust
in slow-mo. Like a less enunciated Red House Painters. "Life Until
Now," meanwhile, introduces slightly more insistent snares and
hi-hats, but by verse two that's milk-coated with warmed, plinking keyboard
patterns and texturizing, rising guitars, keeping everything ... very
... dreamy. - stereogum Gautreau
continues to hone his brand of polite indie-rock, recording with Stuart
Sikes (Cat Power). It's the sort of album that starts in the background
of a relaxing day, and seeps through the cracks of scattered attentions,
attaching itself with careful guitar hooks and an absolutely pleasant
mood. This album is a contradiction: dense and delicate, minimal and
complicated, atmospheric and striking; It bends the singer-songwriter
genre with spatial colorings and patient unraveling. one of the most
lush and expansively beautiful albums I've ever had the pleasure of
day-dreaming to. I'm almost at a loss for words, or maybe I just can't
think of words that are as beautiful as the music I want to describe
them with.-
it
covers the hillsides Crushed Stars’ reverb-heavy vocal patterns and liquid-like guitar/organ melodies make for the perfect late night bedroom-pop listen...radiates in purity, basking in its calm nature. Relaxing and rejuvenating, Gossamer Days will slip into your soul with ease, breaking down that which is bad and replacing it with something a little bit better. - fensepost a sweet and fragile bit of bedroom pop…though the burning soul flickering away at the center of these starlit cuts is obvious enough. On this, his Stuart Sikes (Cat Power, Whiter Stripes, Modest Mouse) produced third album, Grutreau prefers to present the bare embers of his heart…as if any inferno of thought and emotion would be too much for the delicate silky strands of guitar and voice to handle. The result is an album of uncomplicated beauty. Glossy yet downtrodden, precious yet ultimately headstrong; Gossamer Days is a strikingly honest piece of music in the vein of Red House Painters and Kings of Convenience. – baeblemusic can very much be likened to a dark star-scattered sky; beautiful, melancholic and awe-inspiring.Filled with lush, dreamy songs, “Gossamer Days” is its own little galaxy, ready to be explored, star by star. – rocksellout easily one of my
favorite albums of the young new year. Slow and sad in ways that recall
more than a few of my other favorite albums, it's an introspective soon-to-be
classic that's perfect for these long winter nights - rawkblog
Crushed Stars - Obsolescence sleepyhead video: An opus of romantic gloom... a dreamy,
whispered collection - The
Observer Perfect rainy-day weather
music.
Buoyed by clean guitar and warm keyb’s and in his soft, steady
voice,
Crushed Stars - Self
Navigation A glittery and precious geode whose crystals are etched out of fragility, insecurity, and humanity's emotional underbelly. It transcends limits and expectations, and becomes something more beautiful, sensual, and meaningfulthan the sum of its parts. Has the intensity of a diary. Words seemed plucked from that perfect place of passionate immediacy and desperation. - Pop Matters The stunning result is enough to make you wish it were night all day long.- Pitchfork Like something
beautiful was pulled from the heavens and broken into several tiny pieces A record for a melancholy autumn spent gazing at unreachable stars.-Opuszine The kind of passion rarely heard on pop records.-Devil in the Woods Creates a meditative mood and sticks to it. Despite the languid pace of the songs,things don't get dull. Gautreau imbues his sound with such feeling and grace that it's hard to let go. Utterly seductive. That sound. It is the sound that really makes this disc. A certain echo in that guitar, the way the keyboards add just the right touch. Almost everything on this album has a delicate touch, to the extent that even the slightest heavy hand could ruin things. That doesn't happen. This album could not be forced. It simply had to flow, and it does. Crushed Stars has made music of uncommon elegance. Its muted dramatics are as moving as the most bombastic symphony. Utterly moving.-Aiding and Abetting There's a certain amount of stigma attached to the world of indie pop; far too many people have the attitude that it is self-indulgent and disposable. Yet there is something so incredibly honest about lo-fi guitar pop that wears everything on its sleeve, and that is exactly what Crushed Stars do. Self Navigation is a quiet, fragile album with songs that proceed at slightly more than a snail's pace - the upbeat moments are few and far between, and even on songs such as "Exit Wound" there is still a healthy dose of melancholy lurking in the lyrics. Musically, the album is sparse with Gautreau's guitar dominating the majority of the songs, while a few are fleshed out with some keyboards (impersonating trumpets and horns), but it is the quietness of Self Navigation that will stay will you after the CD stops spinning. It doesn't sound unlike the former Sarah Records band Brighter, or Trembling Blue Stars, with songs that walk along the tightrope between depressing and indifferent, never quite falling on one side or the other. Self Navigation is not one of those records that will have you singing along with every song; you might not even find yourself humming the tunes for days afterwards, but as you listen, you'll find yourself completely transfixed by Crushed Stars' beautiful music.-EXCLAIM What would happen if somebody took one of those jazzy post-rock lead guitar lines -- the sort of inquisitive, repetitive guitar figure practiced by second-generation instrumentalists like 33.3 -- and grafted it onto a low key folk-pop song? Crushed Stars apparently decided to find out, and the results are surprisingly impressive. Rather than hanging loosely on a minimalist framework and struggling desperately to engage your interest, these probing guitar lines find themselves resting on a bed of simple pop strumming, with low-key, confessional male vocals wrapping the package nicely (imagine a late-night jam with China Crisis and a few of the more responsible members of Tortoise). The combination of elements makes for a listening experience that's charged with subtle nuance; rather than wondering where, if anywhere, the song is going, you'll marvel at the difference between these playing styles and the ease with which they interact. When additional instruments are employed, such as the wind section used for "Gordon", the canvas is stretched even further; conversely. Most importantly, it's clear that Crushed Stars didn't set out to make a self-involved sonic experiment. They set out to make an enjoyable, unusual pop album, and they succeeded. - Splendid Intimate, elegant bedroom pop. Songs that gently go their own way, not expecting you to notice. If and when you do, you can't turn away.. - Observer Mysterious and poetic... a pop-no-mans-land - Crud Magazine
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