Bilders - Dustbin of Empathy LP (w/Bonus Tape Option)

PRE-ORDER (release date August 2nd, 2024). 

Co-Released by Sophomore Lounge and Grapefruit Records.

DUSTBIN OF EMPATHY: The NZ-American Bilders of 2024 brings Bill Direen, Alex McManus (Vic Chestnutt, Lambchop, Bruces) and Matt Swanson (My Dad is Dead, Lambchop) into the fold, all with acclaimed albums in their saddlebags.

Quality production standards and mature song themes reflect a lot of pure experience. Dustbin of Empathy opens with a voyage across Europe and down the generations, a tribute to the tenacity of the small people who survive massive events. One tune is about a simple nightwatchman, who “guards the square”, servant of a city, observer of the puzzle. Another has an anti-war bias. Peace! Another is a trip of a kind, Angel (The Astronomer), an eerie voyage into the “sinuses” of space. Most of the tunes were co-written. A couple were penned by Direen alone. The high quality of these recordings, and the independence experience of the musicians who made it happen, make it likely Radio New Zealand and local stations will playlist them. It is hard to choose one stand-out track for campus radios worldwide, will it be the alluring “Lately Rain”, the epic Citizens of Nowhere that opens the album, the harder edge of Anvil Dark or the inventive net cast by Custody of Love and others? Pure quality to take you from Dustbin to Empathy.

SPECIAL BONUS album "Nictate" available on cassette as a pre-order add-on.  Nictate's Side A is mostly Direen/McManus/Swanson spillovers from the Dustbin relay sessions, an alternative route from the LP. But this is no residuum. In 22 minutes, six tales of marginality pass by cafés of experimentalism and heresy, intersecting with psycho-acoustic secrets known only to the sound producers. Guests include distinctive piano from Tony Crow (The Thieves, Lambchop), the grace of Hawk and a Hacksaw's Heather Trost (violin) and Jeremy Barnes' scene-setting accordion (Hawk and a Hacksaw, Neutral Milk Hotel).

Side B is no B Side. Fifteen micro-songs by the NZ Otago Bilders group made up of Direen, composer and multi-performer Steve Cournane (Alpaca Brothers), William Henry Meung (found instruments, outlier circuit-bent synths) and long-time Dunedin denizen, expatriate American violinist Alan Starrett (also erhu). The music grew from a book published by Grapefruit in 2023 ('100 Years of Darkness'). The result was fifteen
micro-tunes that fit together like an armadillo’s tiles. Separation, horror, war brutality, the mentally ill, the beauty of children … jagged and smooth fragments of an entire story-film, compact and committed as any Bilders project.

Tracklist:
DUSTBIN OF EMPATHY (LP)
A: 1. Citizens of Nowhere 2. Bad Night’s Sleep 3. Shapin’ East, Scaribus
4. Anvil Dark 5. Caprice and Nemesis 6. Lately Rain
B: 1. Angel (The Astronomer) 2. My Father’s Enemy 3. Comrades 4. Obedience 5. The Weevil 6. The Third War 7. Statistics

NICTATE (limited edition cassette)
A: 1. Custody of Love 2. Serpentine Tooth 3. Trip Slug 4. This Is
Tomorrow 5. Good Guy Bad Guy 6. Cranky
B:  1. Nocturne 2. The Wind 3. Cánh dồng hoang 4. How To Be Loved 5.
Cargo 200 6. Donbass 7. La société du spectacle 8. Friend’s House 9. The
Turin Horse 10. Ballando Ballando 11. Tous les matins du monde 12. Moro
Naba 13. Jabberwocky 14. Greed 15. Walden

Check out the first video for the album HERE!