Gigantic Music (The Walkmen, Harlem Shakes) is pleased to announce the long-awaited release of ARMS (Todd Goldstein, guitarist for Harlem Shakes)' full-length debut, Kids Aflame, in the US! Previously only available on import through Melodic Records in the UK, the US version of Kids Aflame, complete with bonus tracks, is out this week digitally through Gigantic Music! In celebration of Kids Aflame's release, Todd is giving away a free mp3 Download for the song "Tiger Tamer" off the record (linked above.) After several perfomances at CMJ last week, ARMS will also be playing a CD release show in NYC at Pianos on Thursday, November 12th.
To people with a passing interest in such things, Todd Goldstein is the guitarist in the Brooklyn indie-pop band Harlem Shakes. To those who listen closely, though, Todd Goldstein is ARMS, a persona he's been crafting since 2004. As ARMS, Goldstein takes up a decidedly slower, sweeter, sloppier endeavor, working alone and singing in a sad, idiosyncratic baritone. By most definitions of the well-worn term, Kids Aflame is a lo-fi album-Goldstein cobbled the record together over three years, holing up with a single microphone and a laptop in a series of rickety bedroom recording spaces. And yet, the songs speak to something grander than lo-fi's usual emotional vocabulary, harnessing elements of shoegaze and classic country,
For all of the labels that could apply to ARMS, Goldstein's mission is simple: to build music that keeps lonely listeners company and guides them safely through the night.
"A wild and refreshingly noisy ride." -NME
"Bedroom-crafted gems that range from Juno-ready ukulele jams to spazzy freak outs." - SPIN.com "25 Must-Hear Artists from the CMJ Festival"
"a one-man pop confectionary machine created by Todd Goldstein... ARMS' debut has already been warmly embraced in the UK, but now those in need of swoon-appropriate melancholy-pop can finally get their paws on this little gem." - Interview Magazine
"...quite impressive" - Huffington Post
"A fine debut album matching both the romantic streak of Conor Oberst and multi-instrumental sophistication of Sufjan Stevens" --Q Magazine (**** 'Recommended')
"...understated and intricately crafted folk bound by unpretentious harmonies, tambourines and a chorus of finger-snapping. Over the course of the album Goldstein develops his deeply textured landscape, adding handclaps, palm pats and other unorthodox percussion to his homegrown sonics while creating a signature sound that should launch his solo career." - CMJ
"New York indie rock vet Todd Goldstein pops out a solo project that... refuses to settle on one sound...an effervescent affair with a proper dose of gravity...to which we say: Amen." - Black Book
"You could dig through a whole month's worth of fuzzy, home-recorded pop and not find a record as sweetly weird, as intelligently eccentric as this one. (Some of us have.) 'Kids Aflame' is the good stuff, as loosely played as it is meticulously plotted." --Dusted Magazine
http://www.armsarms.com
http://www.myspace.com/armsongs
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