"Dalmatian", the third album by Chris Price, Is Now Available Digitally Everywhere

I have a new album. The new album is called "Dalmatian" and it has 13 songs on it. Below, you can click the corresponding link to listen to the first single "Fever Dream" on Spotify/Apple Music/etc. The image above is the "Dalmatian" album cover, which has a photo taken by my insanely talented cousin Lindsay Woodruff in October at Fiddle Lake in Pennsylvania (the cover was designed by the great Greg Allen).

The music on "Dalmatian" was culled from the same sessions that produced "Stop Talking". After that album came out last May, I spent some time reflecting on all the stuff I had left over (around 30 tracks in various levels of completion/quality remained) and considered what my options were in terms of using it all. Should I release a bunch of singles one at a time over the course of a year or two? Should I drop some sort of mega box set with 4 discs and charge everyone an arm and a leg? Eventually I settled on this idea of putting together another album based on what was left. The big hurdle in my mind once that was decided was that, when looking at all that remained, none of it made sense to me as a unified collection in the same way "Stop Talking" did. It didn't have the same thematic, sonic flow to it, mainly because most of it was recorded and thought of individually as one-offs over a long period of time. I knew that many of the tracks were worth putting out there. In fact, a bunch of the songs were amongst my favorites from the whole project. But how could I possibly arrive at a cohesive album based on the pile I'm staring at?

Then I started to think about other records that were born out of a similar predicament. The Beach Boys, in an attempt to fashion something out of the aborted SMiLE sessions, put together something unique and singular in "Smiley Smile", an album that deconstructs and re-contextualizes the mass of material in a fresh way and offers something new instead. Radiohead found themselves with a lot of material after "Kid A" and ended up with a worthy companion album called "Amnesiac" that truly has it's own vibe and flow. I also thought about albums like "Son Of Schmilsson" in which Harry threads the needle between wildly disparate sounds and styles to offer something cohesive simply by tying it all together with his sense of humor and personality. Then I became obsessed with making something that worked in that way. 

Over this past holiday season, I spent several sleepless nights poring over songs and snippets and fine tuning a new album that I truly feel stands up proudly alongside "Stop Talking", but in its own way and with its own completely distinct sensibility. This album, even more so than the last one, is designed as a continuous listening experience, strung together by bits and snippets and studio banter and outtakes that have been carefully chosen and placed. The goal is to have someone start the album and get sucked in to the point that you don't even realize you're already on track 7. Also, the entire thing is just over 34 minutes long so it doesn't put a huge dent in your day.

I want to thank the following people for their contributions to the album, as it wouldn't be even close to what it is without them:

Benjamin Lecourt, Fernando Perdomo, Alex Jules, Emeen Zarookian, Corey Perez, Kaitlin Wolfberg, Matt Fish, Nadeem Majdalany, Corinne Olsen, Kyle Fredrickson, Taylor Locke, Tony Berg, Ian Doerr, Lindsay Woodruff, Greg Allen, Brad Rosenberger, Cheryl Pawelski, Lee Lodyga, Dutch Cramblitt, Pat Rainer, Audrey Bilger and Bethany Davis.

Please enjoy "Dalmatian" by clicking the links below to check it out!

LISTEN TO "DALMATIAN"

Spotify

Apple Music

- Chris

2017 year-end lists go for "Stop Talking"

Thanks to all the publications who have chosen STOP TALKING as one of the best albums of 2017 (or the ones who chose some of the tracks as some of the best of the year)! Below are links to some of the write-ups:

Randall Roberts (The Los Angeles Times): http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-ca-ms-california-sounds-best-la-music-2017-20171217-story.html

Bud Scoppa (HITS Magazine): http://hitsdailydouble.com/&id=309826

Eleni P. Austin (Coachella Valley Weekly): http://coachellavalleyweekly.com/top-music-picks-2017/

Gary Calamar (KCRW, Mimosa Music Series): https://www.facebook.com/GaryZCalamar/posts/10214193600331543?pnref=story

David Bash (International Pop Overthrow): https://www.facebook.com/notes/david-bash/my-best-of-2017-lists/10155766947865552/

Aaron Kupferberg (Powerpopaholic): http://www.powerpopaholic.com/2018/01/power-popaholic-top-30-2017.html

BuzzBands LA Staff (Albums List): http://buzzbands.la/2017/12/20/2017-buzz-bands-las-favorite-albums-year/

BuzzBands LA Staff (Songs List): http://buzzbands.la/2017/12/18/stream-buzz-bands-las-favorite-101-songs-2017/

Eric Cocks (WPKN): https://www.facebook.com/eric.cocks/posts/10155938366914780?pnref=story

Andy Leschnik (PowerPopSquare): http://powerpopsquare.blogspot.com/2017/12/powerpopsquare-top-10-of-2017.html

Pop Fair: http://popfair.blogspot.com/2017/12/top-25-power-pop-releases-of-2017.html

Play Me Some Of That!: https://www.blubrry.com/play_me_some_of_that/30108249/87-the-top-albums-of-2017?sbe=1#autoplay

HITS Magazine's Mid Year 2017 Critics' Choice →

"Chris Price was raised in Miami, but his music is quintessential L.A. This was delightfully apparent in his insightful production of Rainbow Ends, Emitt Rhodes’ first album since 1973, and now on his own Stop Talking, which stopped me in my tracks. With 14 songs, each conceived and executed with jewel-like precision and withering candor, Price has made an album of revelatory musical and lyrical eloquence, a work that reminds me of Harry Nilsson at the peak of his powers. Imagine Nilsson Sings Newman with George Harrison on guitar and string arrangements by George Martin—and one guy playing all these roles.  

When I asked Chris via email what he picked up from Nilsson’s records, and what other artists helped shape his style and sensibility, the 32-year-old polymath responded: “Nilsson had a knack for locating the humor in tragedy, and the tragedy inherent in humor. He was like a great stand-up comic in that sense, always letting you know that things were deeper and more complex than what’s on the surface and actively trying to reveal that complexity to you. It helped that he was perhaps the greatest male pop vocalist of the 20th century. Other artists I am drawn to for similar reasons are The Kinks and the wry, cutting songs of Ray Davies; Nick Drake, who nailed alienation and longing better than almost anyone; Antonio Carlos Jobim, who reveals emotions through chords almost more so than through lyrics; Randy Newman, obviously; and of course, Lennon/McCartney/Harrison.”

Price is trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the 40-odd songs he recorded during the Stop Talking sessions, while also finishing up the debut album of the power-pop supergroup Bebopalula. “It’s incredibly gratifying to be back in a band, especially one where everyone else is such a good singer/songwriter in their own right,” he says. “It takes so much of the pressure off when you only have to deliver 1/4 of the material, and the rest of the time you can really focus on making your contributions as a musician as impactful as possible. The album has a very unique sound, I think unlike anything else around currently.”

Can’t wait."

Read more HERE

The Best Albums of May 2017 (via Paste Magazine) →

4. Chris Price, Stop Talking 
Rating: 8.8

Somewhere along the line, “singer-songwriter” went from being a job description to being a genre to being a pejorative. Still, it’s the best way to describe Stop Talking, Chris Price’s follow up to his acclaimed 2012 debut Homesick. It’s full up with uncommonly good singing and smart, surprising songwriting. Drawing from a well of pop knowledge, Price constructs melodies that are both sure and unexpected. Every song has a whiff of the familiar, but where an ordinary tune would turn right, Price’s turn left, and just like that, he’s widened the domain of pop songwriting. Most importantly, though, with Stop Talking, Price pushes further and reinvigorates the entire singer-songwriter idiom for the 21st century. —Craig Dorfman

Read the full review of the album from Paste Mag HERE.

The Los Angeles Times has nice words for "Stop Talking" (via the Los Angeles Times) →

"Price is admired in the power pop community, an oft-insular world that lives and dies on catchy hooks and earworm-worthy melodies. But Price’s brand of stickiness is less rigid and more pessimistic, and recalls the music of songwriters including Alex Chilton, Gene Clark and Aimee Mann, none of whom ever shied away from hard emotion.

Plus, the album is less claustrophobic than a genre album, and revels in spacious, inventive arrangements and instrumental flourishes."

- Randall Roberts, 6/2/17

read more at the LA Times' website.

CONSIDER THIS: Chris Price - "Stop Talking" (via Coachella Valley Weekly) →

""Back in 1968, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were at a press conference to announce the formation of Apple Corps. Famously, they each named Harry Nilsson as their "favorite American singer and group". Nearly 50 years on, if they could answer that question today, there could only be one correct reply, Chris Price. Stop Talking is a masterpiece from start to finish."

- Eleni P. Austin, week of May 18th, 2017

Read more at THIS LINK

STOP TALKING is out today everywhere.

Visit your local indie record store, your favorite streaming site, or anywhere else that music is available and get yourself acquainted with the new Chris Price album STOP TALKING. Or just click the button below to get a CD or Digital copy. If you'd like an EXTREMELY limited edition gatefold Vinyl LP, send me a message here and I will give you details as to how to make that happen.  

TRACK PREMIERE: "Man Down" (via Innocent Words) →

Recorded from 2013 to 2016, ‘Stop Talking’ contains 14 tracks produced, engineered, and arranged by Price, and features a wide variety of sounds and styles. One of the first singles from the new album is the rich musicianship on “Man Down,” whic is premiering here today at Innocent Words.

“This was written during the 2014 holiday season while visiting my parents. They have a piano that’s been in our family since I was pretty young, and every time I get back there and sit down at the keys something always comes out,” Chris Price said of “Man Down.” “It’s a song about guilt, and about how we end up imprisoning ourselves for our own crimes when no one else will. It’s not literally about murder, although I can see why someone would think so. It’s “emotional murder” we’re talking about here.

“The title of the song has a pretty ridiculous origin story. My mom was watching a show called “Iyanla, Fix My Life” one afternoon, and I was sitting on the couch watching it with her. It was a Celebrity Edition in which Iyanla was “fixing” the football player Terrell Owens’ life. At one point, she and Owens visit his high school football field and he has an emotional epiphany at the 50 yard line. Iyanla responds to this by cheekily shouting “We’ve got a man down on the field!” And that’s when I went to the piano.”

Stream: Chris Price, 'Stop Talking' and 'Hi Lo' (via buzzbands.la) →

Chris Price (Photo by Kyle Safieh)

Chris Price’s sophomore album “Stop Talking” took three-plus years to shape, materializing in fits and starts between his work as producer on the comeback albums by Emitt Rhodes and Linda Perhacs and his role in the quintet Bebopalula, which released an EP last year.

Price, who originally came to California a decade ago from his native Florida with the brother band Price, released his first solo effort “Homesick” in 2012, earning acclaim more for how he made album — it was recorded on an iPhone 4 using a $10 app — than the music. Which was kind of a shame, since not many guys have a handle on the Kinksian power-pop in which Price engages.

“Stop Talking,” which arrives May 19 via Omnivore Recordings, again reveals Price as a guitarist’s guitarist, forgoing formula in favor of gently off-kilter chord progressions and surprising song structures. Among the contributors to the album are Kyle Fredrickson, Fernando Perdomo (who worked with Price on Perhacs’ album), Joe Seiders and his Bebopalula bandmate Ben Lecourt. Part of “Stop Talking’s” context, though, was Price’s work with Perhacs and Rhodes, both in their 60s when their albums (for Perhacs, her first in 44 years; for Rhodes, his first in 43) were made. Prices calls them “incredibly inspiring and fulfilling projects [that] ended up deeply informing my work, pushing me to think harder about my lyrics, become more adventurous in my production and never take the safe route musically.”

||| Stream: “Stop Talking” and “Hi Lo”

https://soundcloud.com/omnivore-recordings/chris-price-stop-talking/s-w2W7R

https://soundcloud.com/omnivore-recordings/chris-price-hi-lo/s-eKC6i

TRACK PREMIERE: "Stop Talking" →

Song Premiere: "Stop Talking" by Chris Price

28 April 2017

by Big Takeover Exclusives

Chris Price; Photo Credit: Kyle Safieh

Chris Price, the producer for Emitt Rhodes and Linda Perhacs, is readying his second solo album, Stop Talking, for a May 19th release via Omnivore Records.

It’s been five years since Price released his debut solo album, titled Homesick, but there are a few reasons it’s taken this long for a follow-up — he’s been a bit busy as an in-demand producer and musician. But even as he produced critically acclaimed comebacks from Linda Perhacs and Emitt Rhodes, opened for the Who with Tal Wilkenfeld’s band, and wrote songs with Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (Jellyfish, Beck), Price continued to write and record his own new music. 

Recorded from 2013 to 2016, Stop Talking contains 14 tracks produced, engineered, and arranged by Price, and features a wide variety of sounds and styles. Acoustic tracks (“Once Was True”) meet electric tracks like the title cut. Others are peppered with string arrangements (“Man Down”), Mellotron, and tape loops (“Algebra in the Sky”). Chris was joined in the studio by a variety of top veteran musicians, including Kyle Fredrickson, Ben Lecourt, Fernando Perdomo, Joe Seiders, and many others.

According to Price, “I spent the five years since my first album Homesick working on albums for two heroes of mine, Emitt Rhodes and Linda Perhacs. But I never stopped writing and recording material of my own, and both of those incredibly inspiring and fulfilling projects ended up deeply informing my work, pushing me to think harder about my lyrics, become more adventurous in my production and never take the safe route musically.”

Price continues, “I’m very proud of this work, which has been brewing for quite some time. But I should really stop talking and let the music speak for itself.”

https://soundcloud.com/omnivore-recordings/chris-price-stop-talking/s-w2W7R

TRACK PREMIERE: "Hi Lo" (via Blurt Online) →

“Weird chords” abound in key track from new album, due in May.

By Blurt Staff, 4/25/17

It’s called Stop Talking but anyone who’s been privy to a preview of LA songwriter and producer Chris Price’s forthcoming album is probably urging him to keep going. As good as Price’s 2012 solo debut Homesick was, the expansive, luminous pop and rock dotting Stop Talking (due May 19 via  Omnivore) marks a quantum leap in songwriting and arranging for the musician. We’re privileged to unveil the first single from the album, “Hi Lo,” so please check it out:

https://soundcloud.com/omnivore-recordings/chris-price-hi-lo/s-eKC6i

Price talks about the song, noting, “I wrote this in Berlin half asleep, immediately after many hours of travel to get there. I was sitting in a hotel room, it was late, but I couldn’t fall asleep and I was more than a little delirious. And these chords just came. It kinda felt like I was channeling something from a place I don’t always have access to, but that could definitely just be the insomnia talking.

“The acoustic guitar I wrote it on broke immediately after I played it through for the first time, which is…something? It’s got a lot of ‘weird’ chords in it, which is always a great thing to get to say about a song.”

The product of several years’ worth of on-and-off work and representing the cream of nearly 50 songs that were recorded during those years, Stop Talking was also influenced by Price’s outside work: producing comebacks by Linda Perhacs and Emitt Rhodes, playing in Tal Wilkenfeld’s band and opening for The Who, and writing with Jellyfish/Beck mainstay Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. Those experiences clearly assisted Price in forming a holistic perspective for his own work—although, as Price is quick to quip, “I really should stop talking and let the music speak for itself.”

Chris Price to release 2nd solo album "Stop Talking" May 19th, 2017

CHRIS PRICE,
PRODUCER FOR EMITT RHODES AND LINDA PERHACS,
READIES SECOND SOLO ALBUM

Second solo album, Stop Talking, coming on Omnivore Recordings on May 19; features veteran musicians

  LOS ANGELES, Calif. —It’s been five years since Chris Price released his debut solo album, but there are a few reasons it’s taken this long for a follow-up — he’s been a bit busy. Even as he produced critically acclaimed comebacks from Linda Perhacs and Emitt Rhodes, opened for the Who with Tal Wilkenfeld’s band, and wrote songs with Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (Jellyfish, Beck), Price continued to write and record his own new music.

The result? Stop Talking, due out on Omnivore Recordings on May 19, 2017.

    Recorded from 2013 to 2016, Stop Talking contains 14 tracks produced, engineered, and arranged by Price, and features a wide variety of sounds and styles. Acoustic tracks (“Once Was True”) meet electric tracks like the title cut. Others are peppered with string arrangements (“Man Down”), Mellotron, and tape loops (“Algebra in the Sky”). Chris was joined in the studio by a variety of top musicians, including Kyle Fredrickson, Ben Lecourt, Fernando Perdomo, Joe Seiders, and many others.

According to Price, “I spent the five years since my first album Homesick working on albums for two heroes of mine, Emitt Rhodes and Linda Perhacs. But I never stopped writing and recording material of my own, and both of those incredibly inspiring and fulfilling projects ended up deeply informing my work, pushing me to think harder about my lyrics, become more adventurous in my production and never take the safe route musically. Nearly 50 songs were recorded for this project, and I went through an arduous and at times painful process whittling it all down to the form it is now in. I'm very proud of this work, which has been brewing for quite some time. But I should really stop talking and let the music speak for itself.”

Stop Talking is a perfect introduction to understanding why Chris Price is such an in-demand producer and musician. Stellar songwriting and playing all add up to one of the best listening experiences you will have in 2017. Once you hear it, you will not be able to stop talking about Stop Talking.

Track listing:

1. Stop Talking

2. Hi Lo

3. Pulling Teeth

4. Man Down

5. Father to the Man

6. Once Was True

7. You and Me (and Everyone Else)

8. Algebra in the Sky

9. Sigh

10. Darkness

11. Contrition

12. One of Them

13. Just in Time

14. Anhedonia

# # #

For more information regarding Omnivore Recordings and Chris Price, please contact Conqueroo:
Cary Baker • (323) 656-1600 • cary@conqueroo.com

Watch (and feel free to post) the Chris Price trailer:
https://youtu.be/_u6J8mDB8gc

Ears Wide Open - Bebopalula

Kevin Bronson at BuzzBandsLA did a profile on Price's new band Bebopalula. 

"Bebopalula is more Harry Nilsson meets British Invasion — the kind of psych-pop perhaps imagined by John Lennon and Nilsson when they were drinking buddies in L.A. in the mid-1970s."

Read more HERE

Rainbow Ends by Emitt Rhodes

Chris Price had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to produce new music for one of his heroes, power pop legend Emitt Rhodes. The resulting album, Rainbow Ends, is Rhodes' first album in 43 years, following 1973's Farewell To Paradise. After a hugely successful pre-order campaign on PledgeMusic (reaching 122% of its goal), the album was released to rapturous reviews, including 4-star mentions from AllMusicGuide, MOJO Magazine and American Songwriter. The album even charted on the Billboard 200, reaching #150, which marked the first time Rhodes had graced the charts since 1971 (his previous album Farewell To Paradise never charted)! 

The album is available through all outlets including Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon and many physical retailers. Or you can click this link and purchase the album directly from Omnivore Recordings.

The Wall Street Journal premiered the lead track "Dog On A Chain" featuring Aimee Mann, Jon Brion, Roger Joseph Manning Jr and Jason Falkner: Listen here

Brooklyn Vegan premiered the track "Isn't It So": Listen here