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CAR SEAT HEADREST

Car Seat Headrest

Faces From The Masquerade

    On March 28th-30th 2022, Car Seat Headrest played three consecutive sold out nights at Brooklyn Steel in New York. An air of celebration, community and showmanship was present, made all the more palpable as the shows were far from a certainty - they took place amidst a year which saw the band having to postpone or cancel a large swath of their North American tour dates due to ongoing health issues.

    The three night residency is captured on Faces From The Masquerade - a double album’s worth of live performances that finds Car Seat Headrest at their most playful, exuberant and precision honed. The title alludes to the by now familiar, custom-made gas mask worn by frontman Will Toledo at shows, complete with an expressive LED display for eyes. In addition to the group’s four core members - Toledo, guitarist/backing vocalist Ethan Ives, bassist Seth Dalby and drummer Andrew Katz - they were joined on the tour by keyboard player Ben Roth.



    TRACK LISTING

    1. Crows
    2. Weightlifters
    3. Fill In The Blank
    4. Hymn
    5. Hollywood
    6. Bodys
    7. Something Soon
    8. 1937 State Park
    9. Sober To Death
    10. Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales
    11. It’s My Child (I’ll Do What I Like)
    12. Can’t Cool Me Down
    13. Beach Life-In-Death
    14. Deadlines

    Car Seat Headrest

    Making A Door Less Open

      Created over the course of four years, Making a Door Less Open is the result of a fruitful “collaboration” between Car Seat Headrest, led by Will Toledo, and 1 Trait Danger, a CSH electronic side project consisting of drummer Andrew Katz and Toledo’s alternative persona, “Trait.” To realize this, the band recorded the album twice: once live with guitars, drums and bass, and once in a MIDI environment using purely synthesized sounds. During the mixing process, the two approaches were gradually combined using elements of each, with additional overdubs.

      In this way, Making A Door Less Open sees Toledo embarking on new and imaginative roads to songwriting and recording, placing emphasis on the individual songs, each with its own “special energy,” rather than attempting to draw a coherent storyteller narrative through the album as he has in the past , resulting in his most dynamic and open-ended work to date.

      Comprised of Will Toledo, Andrew Katz (drums), Ethan Ives (guitar) and Seth Dalby (bass), Car Seat Headrest has either released 11 or three albums to date, depending on the way you look at it. A prolific songwriter, Toledo took his moniker from making early recordings in the private environment of his family’s car, releasing a dozen self-recorded and produced albums on Bandcamp and building a tight-knit following. Toledo has since gone from an empty five-seater to selling out tours and filling festival main stages. 2015’s Teens of Style was a collection of songs from his early years. The band’s proper Matador debut, Teens of Denial, followed in 2016 and catapulted them to overnight commercial success and widespread critical acclaim, as well as highlighting Toledo as a prodigious lyricist. 2018’s Twin Fantasy, an epic re-imagination of an album originally released in 2011, demonstrated newfound scale, depth and ambition.

      TRACK LISTING

      Vinyl
      Weightlifters
      Can’t Cool Me Down
      Hollywood
      There Must Be More Than Blood
      Hymn
      Deadlines
      Martin
      What’s With You Lately
      Life Worth Missing
      Famous

      CD
      Weightlifters
      Can’t Cool Me Down
      Hollywood
      Martin
      Hymn (Remix)
      There Must Be More Than Blood
      Deadlines
      What’s With You Lately
      Life Worth Missing
      Famous
      Deadlines (Alternate Acoustic)
      Hollywood (Acoustic)

      Teens of Denial is the thirteenth album in Car Seat Headrest’s (aka 23-year-old Will Toledo) oeuvre, second on Matador, and first to be recorded in a proper studio with a full band and producer (Steve Fisk).

      On Denial, Toledo moves from bedroom pop to something approaching classic-rock grandeur and huge (if detailed and personal) narrative ambitions, with nods to the Cars, Pavement, Jonathan Richman, Wire, and William Onyeabor. By turns tender and caustic, empathetic and solipsistic, literary and vernacular, profound and profane, self-loathing and self-aggrandizing, he conjures a specifically 21st century mindset, a product of information overload, the loneliness it can foster, and the escape music can provide.

      STAFF COMMENTS

      Barry says: Boisterous and catchy college-rock anthems with a nod to melancholic folk, skate-punk and everything in between. Teens of Denial is a further expansion of singer-songwriter Will Toledo's already extensive back catalogue. Exciting and heartfelt, and another fantastic outing for Car Seat Headrest.

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Fill In The Blank
      2. Vincent
      3. Destroyed By Hippie Powers
      4. (Joe Gets Kicked Out Of School For Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn't A Problem)
      5. Just What I Needed/Not Just What I Needed
      6. Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales
      7. 1937 State Park
      8. Unforgiving Girl (She's Not An)
      9. Cosmic Hero
      10. The Ballad Of The Costa Concordia
      11. Connect The Dots (The Saga Of Frank Sinatra)
      12. Joe Goes To School 

      Car Seat Headrest

      Teens Of Style

        Matador Records are thrilled to announce the signing of Car Seat Headrest and the release of ‘Teens Of Style’, with ‘Teens Of Denial’ to follow soon after in 2016.

        This prolific artist (also known as Will Toledo) comes to Matador having already crafted an 11-album catalogue of staggering depth, all self-released digitally, gaining him an obsessive following and over 25,000 downloads - all without the muscle of a manager, label, agent, or publicist - until now.

        Car Seat Headrest began in 2010 in Will Toledo’s hometown of Leesburg, Virginia. Needing a place of solitude (and soundproofing) where he could record vocals undisturbed, a 17-year-old Toledo set up shop in the family car. Toledo’s catalogue is sharp, literary and culturally omnivorous as it touches upon youth and death, love and depression, drunken parties and 2nd Century theologian. Ever surprising, his lyrical imagery ranges from playful to sexually frank to sorrowful, often within the same song.

        After relocating to the Seattle suburbs in 2014, Toledo assembled a line up with bassist Ethan Ives and drummer Andrew Katz. ‘Teens Of Style’ is the first Car Seat Headrest album recorded with a full band and the sound is vibrant and powerful with a wide stylistic range.

        On ‘Teens Of Style’ Toledo has taken material from the first three years of the band’s existence and reworked it to generate some of the most realized arrangements to date. Drawing material from ‘3’ (2010), ‘My Back Is Killing Me Baby’ (2011) and ‘Monomania’ (2012), ‘Teens Of Style’ provides a concise overview of the band’s many sonic and emotional facets, with the songs ranging from electronic psychedelia to punky anthems to melancholic acoustic numbers.

        The longest track on ‘Teens Of Style’, ‘Times To Die’ is just under seven minutes, applying breakbeat cut-ups and ‘Low Rider’ horns to a groove-driven neo-psych jam with lyrics about Judaism, Hinduism and the record business. Similarly, ‘Maud Gone’ is a wistful 60s-inspired pop number paying homage to Yeats’ unrequited love, while the intricate party track ‘Los Borrachos’ borrows its title from the Diego Velasquez painting.

        Car Seat Headrest’s conceptual ambition and stunning songwriting has been apparent since its early days of laptop recording, the scale of Toledo’s vision going far beyond the constricting ‘lo-fi’ term. Now on his Matador Records debut we witness Toledo presenting his intricate ideas with more clarity and refinement than ever, delivering an enthralling collection of songs destined for wide acclaim.

        “Toledo’s commitment to giving listeners a direct line to his inner monologue is the kind of thing that inspires hardcore fanhood - the ability to get lost in Toledo’s work is the entire point.” - Pitchfork

        “Crazy impressive - catchy, thoughtful, and inventive” - Brooklyn Vegan

        “A major new talent… his music is beguiling and easy to get lost in” - NME

        TRACK LISTING

        Sunburned Shirts
        The Drum
        Something Soon
        No Passion
        Times To Die
        Psst, Teenagers, Take Off your Clo
        Strangers
        Maud Gone
        Los Borrachos (I Don't Have Any Hope Left, But the Weather Is Nice)
        Bad Role Models, Old Idols Exhumed (psst, teenagers, Put Your clothes Back O)
        Oh! Starving


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