The City and I is the weed-buttered food baby of Colins ‘Bear’ Regisford (Kids, Mannequin Pussy). His first album, Downer, is influenced less by any particular genre and more by universal anxieties: late night munchies, early morning loneliness, the inability to deal with the pressures of choosing what to make for lunch. Each song is taken from a real place or moment of time in his ADD-filled head. Introspective lyrics weave in and out of songs like mantras, while snippets of conversations and city noises float over hazy guitars, creating dreamscapes that take you to all those moments that you try to forget, the ones we can’t quite remember but know happened. There’s a sense of inevitability in Downer and in between the tape hiss lies all the familiar ups and downs of someone just trying to find their way in life.
Though The City & I started in 2004 as a personal acoustic project, Bear solicited help from his friends in the Philadelphia scene to flesh out his sonic reverie in Downer, including members of The Spirit of The Beehive, Ghost Gum, and Gunk. The result is an album that treats you as a confidant, inviting you to share in one man’s most intimate reflections. When it comes down to it, Downer is the album for those who never wanna leave the basement and The City & I is just a full-grown man-baby trying to figure out where his Baba (beer) went.
Limited to 350 translucent green cassettes, Downer drops November 27th as part of the second annual Infinity Cat Cassette Series, curated by Casey Weissbuch.
credits
released November 27, 2015
The City is:
Travis Gaston - Bass on Tracks 3 and 6. Guitar On 5
Pat Conaboy - Drums on 2, 3, and 6
Arik Dayan - Drums on track 5
Josh Mackie - Back up Vocals on track 2
Carolyn haynes - Guitar on Track 5
Ben Roth - Soundscape on track 4
I Is:
Bear: vocals, guitar, bass, aux, Keys, Drum Machine
Recorded Jan-July of 2015 at The Engine Room In Philadelphia, PA
Produced and Engineered By Dave Sampson
Mastered by Eric Muth
Photo By Emily Burtner
All Songs written by Bear
Thanks: Chelsea Yosco, Ben Roth, The regisford squad, emily Burtner, Ali and casey @ ICAT, David Sampson, Nate Dion, Eric Muth, Squid, Roundy, Mook Mook, Chauncey(RIP), Dave Gavigan, Will Salle, Craig scheihing, sean sean, Abi reimold, Shannen Moser, Kaleen Reading, and all my friends and people i pass the eye of ra
A unique production and a cozy atmosphere create this fuzzy, warm, and nostalgic feeling record. I could listen to this on repeat for days honestly. thecursedone
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