Crushed Stars News

New CD In the Bright Rain will be released March 6th. Single Brighter Now available now on audio page or itunes.
Pre-order new CD now and get a free cd of your choice from Simulacra Records. Do not add free selection to cart, we will contact you
once order is processed with more details.

See the Brighter Now video now:

"amherst Incident" was recently featured on an episode of "Skins."

sonogram (crushed stars electronic side project) has just released their new CD CUBISTS

Convalescing in Braille
recorded with john congleton (clinic, the walkmen, st.vincent)
distributed by DARLA

Recently charted CMJ Top #10 at KDVS (Sacramento) and WBNY (Buffalo).

REVIEWS

With a voice that’s an instrument all its own, Gautreau paints a serene picture of daydreaming through an overwhelmingly emotional and honest melting pot of guitar, piano and heart... creating an atmospheric and mystic experience that is both genuine and mesmerizing. - Magnet

Bathed in gorgeous guitar washes, this effervescent offering is just right for this rainy day, as it would be for hung-over Sundays - Blurt

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.
a gray, emotional album that eventually makes good on the promise of a rainbow. By all means, let it rain. - The L Magazine

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.
...at once melancholy, nostalgic and cheery -The Observer

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 my favorite albums of the yearSongs that have the air of a deep sigh on a rainy day. Gautreau sings softly behind a mix of acoustic guitar, sepia piano and brushed drums on “Black Umbrellas,”On “Eyeliner,” a claustrophobic guitar part repeats as other instruments and Gautreau’s voice swirl around over it.- 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.
The low, buzzy groan is an instrument from its own world. - billings gazette

Our cover of 99 Red Balloons recently reached #1 at KDVS Sacramento. Currently in heavy rotation at KKXT Dallas and recently added at KUSF San Francisco.

Follow us on our new facebook page or myspace.

the refracted light of crushed stars
all-instrumental cd, available now.

The new CD from Sonogram "Pixels" is out now. Sonogram is the electronic side-project of Crushed Stars.
Todd Gautreau also appears on the new Myopic record. Both are available on Simulacra Records.

The remastered version of the 2001 debut Self Navigation is now available with three bonus tracks and new artwork. Order Now.
Send in your copy of the old version for a free copy of the remaster. Email us for more info.

The new record "Gossamer Days" is now available.
It was recorded with and mixed by Stuart Sikes (Cat Power, Modest Mouse, White Stripes).
Guests include Myopic/Pleasant Grove's Jeff Ryan.

It recently landed in KCRW's Top 40 and can be heard regularly on Nic Harcourt's show.

It is distributed by DARLA .

ORDER NOW

REVIEWS

Slow and drifting beauty that flows almost jazz touched, like soft red-lit lounge as opposed to scattered improve style. Vocals caress and surround, and it sort of reminds me of Spain (the band, not the place). Gossamer is a very good word and actually describes the music and the songs perfectly. The mood is low and dark, but still floating, like you could slip into the clouds at any moment. Like the Coctails, but slower and deeper. Lush but not full, soft, but not empty. Like music that moves through a movie that you remember in your dreams, playing in the flashbacks,the clouded memories of lost loves and that indescribable ache for a perfect moment.
- the big takeover

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
ambient-minded Brian Eno - all music guide

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

a facilitating warmth, one that easily brings you back to soft and tender moments that are long past. A liquid reverb ripples off of Todd Gautreau's vocals, lapping against the quietly seductive instrumentation. Yes... quietly seductive... even when you turn the volume up on Crushed stars you're simply moving closer to a purring cat. This is the kind of music that relaxes me, I don't even have to understand the lyrics, they could be Portuguese for all it matters... it's the vibe borne out of the various elements that makes this music magical. - sixeyes

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- i am the crime

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

Fans of Air and the Clientele will enjoy Crushed Stars’ third album, Gossamer Days, whose tunes play like a lullaby, inviting — or perhaps entrancing –– the listener into an alternate dream world in which beauty is personified through tender, elegant music. Each song masterfully creates an emotional journey, as in “In Parallel,” or the instrumental “Snow Day,” where the delicate keyboards echo the first flakes of winter snow, transporting the listener to the white landscape in songwriter Todd Gautreau’s mind. - music connection

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

Crushed Stars = Grizzly Bear + Red House Painters + Calla
"Closing my eyes, sleeping away, these gossamer days:" The soft tones and guitar chords of the album's namesake song create an image of a wet, glistening, rainy day. You can hear the pitter-patter of rain drops emanate from piano keys and see the image of a cold fall season as she brings forth a soft, falling snow: a sparkling, twinkling scene trapping musicians and lovers indoors. This is the scenery from "Snowy Day," an instrumental ode to dreary weather. Not weather necessarily freezing or causing apathy, but slowing the hours—perhaps even the mood and musical crafting of Todd Gautreau. Gautreau's vocals are often muffled but deep, like Mark Kozelek or Marc Lanegan. Gatrueau's guitar style is also like Lanegan’s—expertly sounding like lap steel and giving dreamy electronic numbers a folk show; also similar to the popular indie-dreamer Sam Beam (Iron & Wine). Crushed Stars give you another soft, romantic album for those days when you just want to gaze out a window. – slug

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

This is one of the best records so far this year, and definitely leaves me wanting to check out its predecessor Obsolescence. It's a perfect record for the end of winter. It's the little things here and there, like the fact that the guitar lick in "Amherst Incident" is insanely catchy and that the last track is called "Clare Grogan's Scar." - heaven is above your head

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

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.

Minimal percussion and strings compositions are showcased in the album's sixth track, "Amherst Incident," where they support Gautreau's velveteen vocals. Taylor Reed delicately joins in during the chorus, paralleling the male-female juxtaposition on Bonnie ‘Prince' Billy's "The Letting Go," but unlike the Bonnie record, Reed avoids getting into the eyelid-dropping lulls that plague its musical cousin. Gautreau's words have a lamenting immediacy. He sings like a man of experience, delicately whispering ideas not in hope of their vicarious animation, they but as a means to illuminate a world of previous senselessness.."Gautreau's voice is the most striking part of Crushed Stars. The guitar work subtly plays up his rich voice. In the album opener, Gautreau's voice sounds like a downtrodden Morrissey on a lazy day off, timidly bellowing personal thoughts through a tunnel of reverb.

In a display of diversity, the album does have its ambient moment in "Snow Day," providing a Brian Eno-influenced instrumental track. A beautiful Rhodes piano plays a scattered melody over
a pulsing traditional piano. Layers of heavy reverb and guitar ambience flow in and out toward the end of the song, leaving behind visions of cascading white puffs trickling down from the heavens.
In a tired genre of singer-songwriter, Crushed Stars manages to fins its own niche, using elements of ambience, carefully delivered vocals, and thoughtful lyrics.
Gossamer Days is one of the budding year's highlights and is something to look out for. RIYL: Nick Drake, The Sea and Cake A | Glen Elkins -- playback stl

NEWS ARCHIVE

Crushed Stars will be playing the CMJ MUSIC FEST Saturday Nov 4th,
8 PM at Pianos on Ludlow.

We will be opening for Bettie Serveert at The Gypsy Tearoom Fri Oct 20.

We will also play the Cavern 10/13.

Crushed Stars has signed to ARENA ROCK RECORDS.
The new CD "OBSOLESCENCE" is now available.
Visit the catalog page for a preview!

You can order from Arena Rock, Amazon or Tower Records.
It is available at many indie shops as well as Best Buy and Virgin.

The artwork for the new record features a recently unearthed shot of
Edie Sedgwick shot by Warhol photographer Nat Finkelstein (Velvet Underground).

Download a Quicktime video of the sleepyhead.
Or view it below.

Crushed Stars CDs as well as side projects Sonogram and Tear Ceremony, are available from amazon and itunes .

Visit our myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/crushedstarsband

New t-shirts are available which feature the logo above on a charcoal shirt. Available in L or XL, $15 includes shipping. Email info@crushedstars.com for ordering info.