THE CHAIN

All the new press releases I write for the bands I represent can now be found at TheChainWorld.com. 

CR best of 2016

My favorite music of the year, not including the many wonderful bands I worked with:

1) Broncho – Double Vanity
2) Wormed – Krighsu
3) TV Baby – “Powering” single
4) Code Orange – “Forever” single
5) The Soft Moon – Deeper Remixed
6) Xiu Xiu – Plays the Music of Twin Peaks
7) 1-800-BAND – High Beams
8) Black Sugar Transmission – In the City’s Arms
9) Johnny Couch – “Animal Instinct” single
10) Rihanna – Anti

See my year-end list, and others', here:
http://ghettoblastermagazine.com/category/features/special-report/best-of-2016/

See the list of bands I worked with this year, here:
http://curranreynolds.blogspot.com/p/new-releases.html

2016, 2017

Closing out 2016, preparing for 2017.

I spent 2016, like most years, making art and championing the art of others I admire.

The two biggest things that came to fruition:

The release of my second solo EP, Body Stuff 2. 

Listen, here:

bodystuff.bandcamp.com

Read about it, here:

noecho.net/interviews/curran-reynolds-body-stuff-wetnurse-today-is-the-day-music-publicist

The launch of my PR team, The Chain, with my partners Justin Pearson and Brandon Gallagher. 

Check us out here:

thechainworld.blogspot.com

facebook.com/thechainworld

instagram.com/thechainworld

twitter.com/thechainworld

I had the honor to represent so many great bands in 2016, as a publicist. Some highlights:

Graf Orlock added one more new album, Crime Traveler, to its legacy. I love the DIY spirit and wild creativity this band represents. Their vibe lands right on the line between fun and brutality, intelligence and boneheadedness – right where I like it. And they're my longest-running client, going back more than 10 years. Brother band Ghostlimb put out a new one too, Difficult Loves, and the mastermind of both bands, Justin Smith, put out both records via his label, Vitriol Records.

Eight Bells made their masterpiece, Landless, and toured with Voivod.

I got to rep my friend Martin Bisi, a legend of NYC's musical history (see: Sonic Youth, Swans, John Zorn), with whom I've recorded two albums in the past.

I teamed up with Ben Weinman of The Dillinger Escape Plan and his label Party Smasher Inc, to handle the new Primitive Weapons album, The Future of Death.

Old Wounds did Warped Tour and followed it up with an Every Time I Die tour. '68 toured hard too.

New supergroup Asphalt Graves (current/ex Misery Index, Dying Fetus, GWAR, The Black Dahlia Murder) achieved death-grind greatness on their Vitriol Records debut.

Spotlights – success story of the year, maybe. Married couple from Brooklyn makes heavy, dreamy rock, lands tour with Deftones and Refused.

Car Bomb – wow. Unparalleled musicianship on their new album, Meta.

Explosive and awesome new albums by Meek Is Murder (NYC buffalo stampede-core), Nomads (streetwise LA crust punk), Knife Hits (ultra intense O.G. screamo revival), Black Table (blackened tar pit of prog-depression, featuring my favorite female metal vocalist), and Moon Tooth (Living Colour meets Gojira!?).

Fight Amp – when I was in Today Is the Day I toured North America with this band for six weeks, and I was honored to work with them as a publicist this fall on what would turn out to be their final tour.

I teamed up with Profound Lore Records for the first time, via post-punk band Soft Kill.

Italian duo OvO released their ninth album – a carnival of primitive industrial, horror-movie ambience, and noise-rock harshness.

Good Fight Music put out a slew of good stuff, including Ion Dissonance (huge comeback album from a band that helped shape the course of heavy music), Homewrecker (absolutely badass young Slayer-ites), Hollow Earth (deep space-themed Neurosis-core), and much more.

A full list of the year's releases and tours is here:

curranreynolds.blogspot.com/p/new-releases.html

2017 kicks off with the Jan 27th release of the new Set and Setting album, Reflectionless. Dual-drummer, instrumental band from Florida brings an aggressive attack to the lulls and swells of the post-rock genre. Recorded by Ryan Haft (Torche, Capsule), mastered by Ed Brooks (R.E.M., Death Cab for Cutie).

Also in January, we have Old Wounds hitting the road for four weekend tours across the US, featuring the debut of their as-yet-unannounced new frontman!

Happy holidays, everyone.

Peace and love in these crazy times.

THANKS!

THANKS!

THANKS!

BODY STUFF + Decibel

Review in the Jan '17 issue of Decibel Magazine – "It's as though a housebound, pimply-faced dweeb with a rat moustache started writing music after absorbing INXS, Crowded House and Cure in between all the cool stuff that led to him making Roadrunner mix tapes and bootleg Earache shirts... Malice dominates the pumping industrial of 'Coward Song,' 'Ice' discordantly recalls early Jim (Foetus) Thirlwell and 'Cabin Song' is all razor-sharp elegy."

BODY STUFF + Svbterranean

Svbterranean inteviewed me about Body Stuff 2. Read the full piece, here...

BODY STUFF + Gear Gods

Ryan Jones and I talked with Gear Gods about the musical, lyrical, and technical ideas behind Body Stuff 2. Check it out...

 

Out today: BODY STUFF - Body Stuff 2

My new EP, Body Stuff 2, is out today on The Path Less Traveled Records.

Listen, here:
http://bodystuff.bandcamp.com

Buy the cassette here:
https://thepathlesstraveledrecords.bandcamp.com/album/body-stuff-2

Read an interview here:
http://www.noecho.net/interviews/curran-reynolds-body-stuff-wetnurse-today-is-the-day-music-publicist

"Creepy, beautiful, inspiring, and an interesting example of the kinds of uncommon influences that can work in heavy music today... Haunting, almost goth-ish post-rock... A deluge of heavy riffs and sweaty, groaned vocals... And though Reynolds is a New York metal star, the music on the record was written in a cabin on a lake in Maine." 
–MetalSucks 

"It's as though a housebound, pimply-faced dweeb with a rat moustache started writing music after absorbing INXS, Crowded House and Cure in between all the cool stuff that led to him making Roadrunner mix tapes and bootleg Earache shirts... Malice dominates the pumping industrial of 'Coward Song,' 'Ice' discordantly recalls early Jim (Foetus) Thirlwell and 'Cabin Song' is all razor-sharp elegy."
–Decibel

"Written completely by Reynolds, but with instruments played by Ryan Jones (Mutilation Rites), the endeavour combines industrial metal, post-rock and experimental drone in a Killing Joke-meets-Godflesh-meets-Swans kind of way — it's totally unexpected, yet works brilliantly. While Body Stuff's 2013 debut self-titled EP was an ode to NYC, new EP Body Stuff 2 was written at a lake house in Maine and features cryptic lyrics and an eerie vibe that reflect the remote surroundings... Reynolds' dark, haunting vocals are highlighted throughout Body Stuff 2, showcasing intense emotions to complement the strange, brooding atmospheres that will linger in your mind even after it's over." 
–Exclaim! 

"Of all his work, Body Stuff might be the closest to Reynolds' heart. The solo project serves as a vessel for the NYC-based musician to indulge his various influences in the worlds of industrial, '80s pop, and post-punk. Composed in a house on a lake in Maine, Body Stuff 2 is a forthcoming EP from the project that brings to mind something legendary Long Island new wave-leaning radio station WLIR would have played in the late '80s." 
–No Echo 

"Decidedly New York... Rolling, dream pop... Devolves into a sonic, post-metal pummeling that would fit right at home on a Swans record." 
–PunkNews 

"Ice-cold punk... A really catchy, fun little piece of music."
–Gear Gods

"Nods to everyone from Billy Idol to Suicide." 
–Ghettoblaster 

"Harsh rhythms, dreamy melodies and dark, Michael Gira-esque vocals."
–Svbterranean

"Joyous experimental heavy rock music."
–Idioteq

BODY STUFF - "Witness"

Ghettoblaster premiered my new song "Witness" today, off the new EP, Body Stuff 2.

"A fist-pumper that nods to everyone from Billy Idol to Suicide."
–Ghettoblaster

At the end of my final tour with Today Is the Day in 2013, I found myself in a small town on the coast of Maine. I would end up staying there for a year, renting a house on a lake and writing most of Body Stuff 2. For 15 years up to that point I had been living the loud, fast life in New York City. Always pushing forward, forward, forward. The year in Maine was a moment of stillness and quiet. “Witness” is a song that reflects on the fast life and finds not much to show for it, not even memories.

Read more...

CR + No Echo

Honored to do this interview with Carlos Ramirez, looking back at my life so far as a music fan, musician, and publicist.

http://www.noecho.net/interviews/curran-reynolds-body-stuff-wetnurse-today-is-the-day-music-publicist

BODY STUFF - "World of Men"

The third single off my new EP, Body Stuff 2, debuted today via No Echo.

"Of all his work, Body Stuff might be the closest to Reynolds' heart. The solo project serves as a vessel for the NYC-based musician to indulge his various influences in the worlds of industrial, '80s pop, and post-punk. Composed in a house on a lake in Maine, Body Stuff 2 is a forthcoming EP from the project that brings to mind something legendary Long Island new wave-leaning radio station WLIR would have played in the late '80s."
–No Echo

As a young kid, I was raised by my mom and my sister. There were some tough times. We were broke. We moved a lot. There was no father figure in sight. But there was a lot of love between us. For a few years in the late '80s, we lived in a house in the country in Maine, a mile down a dirt road, next to a blueberry field. My mom and I would split wood with an axe to heat the house. I was thinking back to those years when I wrote "World of Men." The song is a tribute to the women who raised me, and the life we had.

Read more...