{"title":"Shana Cleveland","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"shana-cleveland_night-of-the-worm-moon","title":"Night of the Worm Moon","description":"\u003cp\u003e\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShana Cleveland has been beguiling listeners for\ryears in her role as the superlative frontwoman for elastic surf rockers \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/la_luz\"\u003eLa\rLuz\u003c\/a\u003e. Now Cleveland is evolving her sound on the new solo full-length \u003ci\u003eNight of the Worm Moon\u003c\/i\u003e, a serene album\rthat flows like a warm current while simultaneously wresting open a portal to\ranother dimension.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\r\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs much a work of California sci-fi as Octavia\rButler’s \u003ci\u003eParable\u003c\/i\u003e novels, \u003ci\u003eNight of the Worm Moon \u003c\/i\u003eincorporates\reverything from alternate realities to divine celestial bodies. Inspired in\rpart by one of her musical idols, the Afro-futurist visionary Sun Ra (the\ralbum’s title is a tip of the hat to his 1970 release \u003ci\u003eNight of the Purple Moon\u003c\/i\u003e), the record blends pastoral folk with\rcosmic concerns.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\r\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCleveland dreamt up this premise while living in\rLos Angeles, a city where--as deftly explored on La Luz’s recent \u003ci\u003eFloating Features\u003c\/i\u003e--reality and fantasy\rcasually co-exist. One particularly evocative scene laid the groundwork for \u003ci\u003eNight of the Worm Moon\u003c\/i\u003e’s psychedelic\rundercurrents. As Cleveland tells it, “Shortly\rafter I moved to Los Angeles I went to a hip hotel to watch a poolside\rscreening of a documentary about a local alien-worshiping cult. Out front\rcelebrities were getting out of the backs of cars and rushing past autograph\rhounds into some roped-off room where a secret dinner was about to commence. In\rthe lobby a woman was being paid to exist inside a glass box. [Then] a car\rdressed as a spaceship pulled up in front to release 30 white doves into the sky\rabove Sunset Boulevard.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\r\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAppropriately enough, \u003ci\u003eNight of the Worm Moon\u003c\/i\u003e was recorded\rduring a rare cosmic occurrence: 2017’s solar eclipse. “\u003cspan\u003eWe took a break from recording during [the] totality\rand looked at the sun's image through a piece of cardboard projecting onto a\rgarbage can,” Cleveland says. “When we came back inside the studio was covered\rin dozens of tiny crescent suns, refracted from a mirrored disco ball that\r[engineer Johnny Goss] had hanging in a window.” Abetting Cleveland during the\rrecording process was a familiar gallery of co-conspirators:\rmulti-instrumentalist Will Sprott of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/shannon_and_the_clams\"\u003eShannon \u0026amp; the Clams\u003c\/a\u003e, original La Luz\rbassist Abbey Blackwell, Goss, pedal steel player Olie Eshelman, and Kristian\rGarrard, who drummed on Cleveland’s previous solo effort (with then-backing\rband The Sandcastles), 2011’s \u003ci\u003eOh Man,\rCover the Ground\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\r\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut whereas that album was internal and contemplative, \u003ci\u003eNight of the Worm Moon\u003c\/i\u003e occupies a\rdifferent, vibrant kind of headspace. UFO sightings, insect carcasses, and\rtwilight dimensions are all grist for Cleveland’s restless creativity, and they\rand other inspirations collide beautifully on the album’s 10 kaleidoscopic\rtracks--a spacebound transmission from America’s weirdo frontier.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shana Cleveland","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":41479358709945,"sku":"731111","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":41479358742713,"sku":"731112","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":41479358775481,"sku":"731114","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":41479358808249,"sku":"731116","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0559\/7180\/7417\/products\/shanacleveland-nightofthewormmoon-2400.jpg?v=1636151563"},{"product_id":"shana-cleveland_manzanita","title":"Manzanita","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eManzanita is the common name for a kind of small evergreen tree endemic to California which has strong medicinal properties. It’s also the name of the brand new full length by songwriter, musician, visual artist, and writer Shana Cleveland. Subtle, powerful, and unafraid. We can’t actually tell you how much we love this record because you’d never believe us, so we’ll just say that it is her strongest and most personal album to date. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThese songs are as strong as the bricks in the Brill building, and seem destined to be covered by others in years to come. Where her previous record, 2019’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eNight of the Worm Moon\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e (Hardly Art) functions as a collection of speculative fictions equally inspired by Afro-futurist pioneers Herman “Sun Ra” Blount and Octavia Butler, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eManzanita \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003econcerns the love that loves to love. “This is a supernatural love album set in the California wilderness,” Cleveland explains. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe combinations of words and song structure are so strong throughout that one hardly notices Cleveland’s nimble fingerpicking on first listen, or how much is packed into the arrangements. The lyrics are satisfyingly direct, with the buoyantly whimsical descriptions typical of the 1960s New York School of poetry. It’s peppered with the kind of unexpected turns that make the words more modern, and in their spookiness they are more West Coast, as in “Mystic Mine,” with its “Mystic Mine Lane, cars rotting away\/ I feel so relieved to be\/ Back in the country.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe Album starts off so strongly with the gorgeous, Mellotron-backed, angelic dirge “A Ghost,” and we’re off from there. These are domestic scenes, and bliss abounds, but it’s more about the utter weirdness of being a creature than anything, as in “Walking Through Morning Dew” with its “Little Ozzy crawling up my lap\/ To claw my playing mute\/ Sometimes in his face I think\/ I’m seeing you.” In “Mayonnaise,” a paean to the writer Richard Brautigan who she adores for his “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003esweet and gently psychedelic California nature scenes\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e,” the song’s protagonist sings “Now I am a Californian\/ I never wanna leave the state again… I’ll write a thousand songs before I’m done.” Hopefully Cleveland will write at least that many. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThis is a love album that’s somehow populated with the insect world, ghosts, and evil spirits. Sonically, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eManzanita \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003esits in a meadow similar to her previous solo records, set back and away from the genre-recombinant garage pop of her band La Luz. This is part due to the fact that there’s a different sonic palette in use here. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWhile Shana Cleveland continues to play guitar and vocals; Johnny Goss, who has recorded all of Shana’s solo material and early La Luz recordings, and Abbey Blackwell (Alvvays, La Luz) play the bass; Olie Eshleman is on pedal steel; and Will Sprott plays the keyboards, dulcimer, glockenspiel, and harpsichord—little of which would have been out of place on her previous two solo records—Sprott also adds layers of synthesizer. And while synthesizers have a reputation for being \"unnatural\" instruments, Cleveland contends that “they are actually the best vehicle for conveying the sounds of nature (bugs, wind, birds, chainsaws--rural white noise); we used synthesizers as a way of recreating the atmosphere of being outside in the natural world while in the studio.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe natural world continues to inspire, in part because that’s her workplace. “Part of moving to California for me was living somewhere where writing outside was possible all year,” Cleveland says. The record was recorded around the time of having her first child, an experience which made her realize that she is not separate from nature, that none of us are. “I think of this as a Springtime record,” Cleveland says. “In California, Spring is the season when nature comes inside. The house is suddenly full of weird bugs. Everything is blindingly in bloom.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eSo much of the pop music we love is propelled by those first blushes of infatuation and lust, but \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eManzanita \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003econcerns the kind of love that one can only experience with time, work, and devotion. “The songs were all written while I was pregnant (side A) or shortly after my son's birth in that weird everything-has-quietly-but-monumentally-shifted state (side B),” she says. Moving to the country, starting a family, laughing for real at the same joke the thirteenth time you’ve heard it, surviving heavy shit (this is the first release since Cleveland’s successful treatment for a diagnosis of breast cancer at the start of 2022). \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eA song like the fluttering orchestral pop number “Faces in the Firelight” delivers little gifts with each listen. At first it sounds like the singer says “Faces in the firelight\/ A blooming room inside the night\/ Do you love me like I do?” Which she does sing, but there’s a dramatic pause before Cleveland does add “youuuu.” And that is such a great and intentional riff on the usual love song, to intentionally posit self-love before also expressing devotion for the other.  It’s a little thing, but it’s real. And in that, it’s a big thing. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Faces in the Firelight” is addressed to both her son in utero and her life partner (the also ridiculously talented guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, producer and longtime member of Shannon and the Clams, Will Sprott). “The song is about watching Will tend to a huge burn pile that was still going long after dark and realizing that out there in the dark field he looked like the ultrasound image we had on our fridge,” she says. “I was thinking that the greatest act of love might be  to wait for someone. To say, I’ll be here whenever you’re done, whenever you’re ready.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shana Cleveland","offers":[{"title":"Color LP","offer_id":44226376466707,"sku":"731590","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":44226376499475,"sku":"731592","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":44226376532243,"sku":"731594","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":44226376565011,"sku":"731596","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0559\/7180\/7417\/products\/shanacleveland-manzanita-2400x2400_fb067d19-9783-4839-b687-def4989eba6c.jpg?v=1681507520"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0559\/7180\/7417\/collections\/shanacleveland.png?v=1675896210","url":"https:\/\/www.hardlyart.com\/collections\/shana-cleveland\/format-cassette.oembed","provider":"Hardly Art","version":"1.0","type":"link"}