A two-song single (double A side) in advance of Lovers of Fiction's debut full length album, due out in Fall 2015. This is a free download, but we are asking you to pre-order the full length at this time.
PLEASE NOTE - If you wish to pre-order the FULL-LENGTH, 11-song album that comes out in December, please scroll down and click on the "Long Overdue" album cover. If you buy this single for $10 or more we'll assume you are pre-ordering, but it's easier for us to keep things straight and make sure you get your release on time if you pre-order over there (these two songs are free regardless).
See our pre-order plea video!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL4a4hveFpk&feature=youtu.be
What happens when a music theory and classical composition professor taps three of his most talented former students to help realize his dream of an original rock band? The answer is Lovers of Fiction, a Portland, Maine based quartet which formed in 2012, and will release their first full-length album, Long Overdue, in December 2015. They have released a two-song “single,” So Simple and Another Song, which is available for free download on their band camp page
loversoffiction.bandcamp.com. Additionally, the song “The Bear Part 2” is now available for free streaming.
Dan Sonenberg (piano, drums, guitar, vocals), professor of music at the University of Southern Maine, surprised three former students, each one very active in the Portland rock scene with his request to form his band.
Mark Dennis (guitar, bass, drums) says of Sonenberg “I think my initial thought on entering his class was that ‘this is the most disorganized adult I've ever seen in my life.’ In hindsight, it makes a lot more sense to see that human as a rock musician and not a composer of intricate orchestral scores.’ Dennis has played in numerous bands in Portland, most notably with local instrumental math rock favorites The Waldos.
Sam Chandler (keyboards, bass, vocals) is known in Portland as the secretary of the Maine Green Party, as well as the keyboardist for the rock band Theodore Treehouse. “Dan was far out,” Chandler comments. “Always turned us on to unexpected stuff and had an open mind. Never in my life did I imagine him playing in a rock band, though. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.”
Jimmy Dority (guitar, bass, vocals) locally adored as the bar pianist at the late Mama’s Crowbar’s weekly Piano Night, had returned to school as a nontraditional student and found himself working with Sonenberg, he too was approached to join the ensemble, and would eventually contribute original material to the group.
The Bear
Lovers of Fiction released a three-song EP, The Bear, to significant local praise in 2013. Writing in the Portland Phoenix, Sam Pfeiffle noted “The best thing about all of this is that it doesn't seem a put-on. You can tell Sonenberg's been in plenty of bands before and this is part of who he is as a musician and composer.”
New releases from Lovers of Fiction (late 2015)
In October 2015, Lovers of Fiction released a two-song “single,” So Simple & Another Song, in advance of the December 2015 release of their debut full-length album Long Overdue. The tracks continue an emphasis on drama, driving rock, and elaborate vocal arrangements. They also include the first song written by another member, Jimmy Dority, entitled “Another Song.” The tune is a driving rocker with verses in 5/4, and a narrator lamenting the futility of tearing out one’s guts just to make a three-minute song. It features a lead vocal from Dority and screaming lead guitar work from both Dority and Dennis.
“In many ways this album is the definitive Lovers of Fiction statement,” says Sonenberg. “It contains 11 songs that we’ve played out for years and really honed. These include signature songs like our Myers-Briggs anthem, ‘Everybody Wants to be an ENFP,’ and a sequel to our first single, called ‘The Bear part 2.’” The latter picks up the tale of the mysterious “Bear” figure, an antagonist in the first song, but shows him in another light, now commiserating with the song’s narrator over how they were both mislead by a former flame they shared in common (presumably the female narrator of the first song).” [this song is now available for free streaming on the band’s bandcamp site,
loversoffiction.bandcamp.com
The album continues themes Sonenberg explored on an anguished recent solo album, Peaks Island Ferry (2014), but has a very different overall tone. “Oh there are songs about heartbreak to be sure,” says Sonenberg. “But there is much more an element of playfulness to this album. A song as bitter as ‘The Bear part 2’ goes out in a blaze of glory with all of the members pounding on junk pianos and Mark Dennis’s screaming guitar in progressively deeper layers. You can’t help but hear the fun we’re having. This is also more of a toe-tapping affair.”
The album also features some ambitious instrumental arrangements. “We sort of pulled out the stops for this one,” Sonenberg says, “we wanted the core to be us four guys playing and singing in a room, but we weren’t afraid to add texture where and when we needed it.” Two songs, “Lost Weekend” and “Big Boy Walking” features trumpets and saxes, and there are other solo turns by guest musicians, including renowned Portland trumpeter Mark Tipton, playing in the cavernous Corthell Hall stairwell at USM.
Perhaps the album’s most ambitious number is the penultimate song, “Old Man in a Rainstorm,” which concludes with a four-minute outro complete with double-tracked chorus, brass quintet, and kazoo ensemble. “On the day of the recording,” Sonenberg recalls, “I wanted to make it festive and strange, much as the Beatles did for their ‘Day in the Life’ session with the orchestra. So I bought fake mustaches and kazoos for all performers. They all gamely put on these mustaches, and we did two takes of them singing and stomping their feet, and then one of them playing kazoos. All wearing these ridiculous fake mustaches while belting out this tragic, cathartic refrain. It was one of the more beautiful and ridiculous musical evenings I’ve spent. Jimmy Dority was conducting the group w/ his acoustic guitar, and he too was working the ‘stache. All in the name of art.”