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The Town That Cursed Your Name

by The Reds, Pinks & Purples

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Joe
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Joe This isn’t a record review. Or maybe it is. But I fell asleep while listening to this album and had a wonderful dream: I was riding my bike through a fictional version of the city where I was born. You know what I mean- familiar, but strangely new? I rode through predawn darkness. The sun began to rise and made the city glow. Two buildings stood out, a liquor store and a pasta factory. I woke up in a happy mood and carried that feeling throughout the day. Favorite track: Burning Sunflowers.
Justin Stone
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Justin Stone Wow. Even by Donaldson's prolific standard (I'm loving every album), this one is a beauty. Every song urgent, melodic, yearning. A great hard edge on this collection. Each song a favorite. I've been thinking how Life In the Void is a perfect contemporary pop song, but I'm taken by the whole record. Listened in a genuine awe on release. Donaldson's songcraft genuinely makes me feel better. Favorite track: Life in the Void.
markverhijde_fan
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markverhijde_fan Bravo! Great songs, intense voice. Thank you. Favorite track: Here Comes the Lunar Hand.
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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    This album is pressed on lovely blue/green vinyl and comes with a bonus cream color 7" single featuring two more classics -- "Dull Panic & Sunday Gloom" and "Did You Put Your Song Up Today?"

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Town That Cursed Your Name via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    4 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      $24 USD or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Gorgeous blue/green vinyl, with printed inner sleeve.

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Town That Cursed Your Name via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $20 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    In sharp gatefold wallet. CDs sound pretty good!

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Town That Cursed Your Name via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $9 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $8.50 USD  or more

     

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about

NOTE: SLUMBERLAND IS LINKED TO THIS PART OF THE PAGE. PLEASE CONTACT SLUMBERLAND DIRECTLY WITH MAILORDER QUESTIONS. I HAVE NO ACCESS TO VINYL ORDER INFO -THANKS! -Glenn

'It’s ok to play out of time'

Music toys with time. Or, maybe songs reflect back that time is always toying with us. The world of a song takes hold of us like an eternity to be lost in, with its repetitions and variations, but ultimately, as with everything else, it has a start and then ends. And there’s no place to lose time like San Francisco, where there are no seasons and all the seasons occur within one day; where the fog takes the space where your plans might have been; where there’s insane wealth all around and everyone you know and love is hanging on at the periphery and making art on any given Tuesday night. About Glenn Donaldson's new record, "The Town That Cursed Your Name," he says, "I realized as I was piecing it together that it's a song cycle about trying to live while also feeling called to make music." It’s a double life when it works and a deeper doubleness to mirror the Gemini nature of songs themselves. "The Town That Cursed Your Name" contemplates this problem with wryness, generosity, and the micro- and macroscopic realness Donaldson is known and loved for.

Whereas the 2022 collection "Summer at Land's End" was a softer, gauzier world, "The Town That Cursed Your Name" is heavier, with fuzzed lines running through. "Leave It All Behind" starts out with an amorphous whine but quickly launches into something both supremely melodic and buzzing at the edges. "Here Comes the Lunar Hand" is an impressionist geometry that seems to capture the album’s themes without telling you how. Lyrically, Donaldson embraces the earnestness of his heroes Paul Westerberg and Grant McLennan. Sonically, late '80s college rock is filtered through song-forward lo-fi acts like East River Pipe and "House of Tomorrow"-era Magnetic Fields. Like the images that accompany his releases – flowers and residential street scenes are pushed to the breaking point with color – Donaldson’s songs are at the same time dazzling and lurid, beautiful and burdened, not unlike life as a musician around here.

In the liner notes, Donaldson dedicates the record "to everyone who ever tried to start a band in the Bay." There will be many knowing smiles at his title "Too Late For An Early Grave." But, this dedication captures something else about the particular strain of sincerity that laces the city water supply – the front man around here is on stage under those lights evincing the fervor not of the pop star but of the biggest fan.

-Karina Gill

credits

released March 24, 2023

performed by Glenn Donaldson
except piano on Break Up the Band by Clay Ruby

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all rights reserved

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The Reds, Pinks & Purples San Francisco, California

"Enveloping ennui"

music by Glenn Donaldson with Kati Mishikian, Lewis Gallardo, Thomas Rubenstein & Daniel Pearce

UK booking contact
outsider-artists.co.uk/artist/the-reds-pinks-purples/

for vinyl/CD ordering questions please contact Slumberland (USA) or Tough Love (UK) directly.
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