Leverage Models share video feat. Sharon Van Etten. Debut LP out now via Hometapes.

Leverage Models share video for "Sweep," feat. Sharon Van Etten

NYC dreamscape featuring Van Etten, shot entirely on iPhone

Leverage Models play Mercury Lounge Friday Nov. 1

Click here or on the image below to view the "Sweep" video

8.2 - Pitchfork
"...a propulsive but ponderous 10-track wonder that hits all of the pleasure centers—that is, you will dance and sing—while offering a supple-enough sound to become something of a headphone symphony. ...recalls the sprawl of Neu! abuts a span of seductive Prince-like winks. You could spend a month mapping the parts written into these three-minute tunes and still find something new on the next listen..."
- Grayson Haver Currin

 

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In the wake of critical acclaim and multiple NYC shows surrounding the release of their self-titled debut album on Hometapes, today Leverage Models released the brand new video for "Sweep." Starring Sharon Van Etten, who is also featured as a guest vocalist on the track, the video takes us on a journey through the city -- from the street to the subway to the beach -- and into the unbuttoned world of Leverage Models. Check it out on VEVO today and see Leverage Models at Mercury Lounge this Friday. Between the striking new LP (featuring the art of Peter Ravn -- see the image below) and the band's explosive live show, the "Sweep" video stands as your perfect invitation. And it was shot entirely on an iPhone. More from the co-directors Rob Hatch-Miller andPuloma Basu:

"We were thrilled when Shannon Fields asked us about collaborating on a Leverage Models video. When he sent us the song "Sweep" we were immediately excited by the cinematic and dreamlike quality of the track. We met with him and decided on two main elements right away: the narrative would be loosely related to the mysterious Peter Ravn painting of twins on the album cover, and we'd shoot the video on an iPhone. The twin idea appealed to us because Rob is a twin and we thought it would be fun to look at the depiction of twins in films like The Shining and Gummo for inspiration. Shooting on an iPhone was a gimmick born out of economic necessity--there was literally no budget--but it ended up being crucially important to the visual aesthetic of the video. We used an adapter kit that allows you to attach a DSLR lens onto the phone and it gave the footage a really unique, film-like look. We were really happy that Sharon Van Etten made time to shoot with us because her part of the song is so beautiful, eerie and distinct from the rest of it. We couldn't be more proud of how all the elements came together and how well the visuals the complement the music."

This month saw the release of Leverage Models’ self-titled album, the full-length debut of Shannon Fields’ new band, on Portland's Hometapes (Bear in Heaven, Matthew E. White, Megafaun, AU, All Tiny Creatures). Brought to life at multiple shows this summer (including performances with legendary band Medicine and appearances Hopscotch Fest and Pop Montreal), as well as a multimedia stream on Pitchfork Advance, the new Leverage Models album is now available on CD, LP, and in digital stores. With thirteen performers in addition to Fields, Leverage Models is a monument to Fields' songwriting, wizard-like direction, and commitment to collaboration. Among the lengthy roll call of contributors is Sharon Van Etten, lending her voice to “Sweep.” The full list of performers is available below, including members of LCD Soundsystem, Yeasayer, and more.

Tracks cleared to post:
"Sweep (feat. Sharon Van Etten)"
"Cooperative Extensions"


Leverage Models Leverage Models cover art by Peter Ravn
 

Shannon Fields was raised on the undersides of both rural and urban Missouri. Born to Pentecostal evangelists, he spent as much time singing in improvisatory tongues during marathon worship services as he did catching crawdads and chiggers in the creek behind his house and getting the shit beat out of him by mulletted 6th graders with equally troubled home lives. Following this, time spent in a residential youth treatment center in Kansas, and a brief romance with academia (linguistics and philosophy of mind) in Great Britain, he moved to Brooklyn and started his own cult in the form of the Brooklyn electro-acoustic, freely improvising folk collective, Stars Like Fleas (gaining some notice for their own confusing, ecstatic song services, and playing to large confused crowds at art museums around the globe before spectacularly imploding). In addition to writing corporate research papers and performing technology risk management audits by day, Shannon worked as a producer for others, curated events, created sound installations, composed ramshackle outsider musical works for large untrained choirs, and toured with the Fleas and as a member of Helado Negro.

In the wake of Stars Like Fleas' hiatus, Shannon left Brooklyn, took up residence on a small farm in upstate New York where he learned how to take care of horses and began work on what would become Leverage Models, figuring he could maybe broker a peace between himself and pure entertainment, pleasure, health.

 

Shannon's songs follow deeply broken human and animal characters set in miniature and lost countries where corporate jargon, self-loathing, fear of color, and a handful of relationships based on sexual and financial subjugation grow limbs and faces and walk around glowing in hay-lofts at night. Leverage Models music, however, privileges immediate pleasure, dancing, and unhinged joy. A live band with large Latin percussion ensemble, horns, synthesizers, drum machines, and guitars has been tearing themselves to pieces this spring in NYC in service of adrenalin and joy.

Over the past year or so, Leverage Models made two exploratory cassettes, chasing unloved sounds and testing out musical identities. On October 1st, Hometapes will release the debut Leverage Models LP. The record features several life rafts full of noteworthy contributors from across the musical map and makes new sculptures out of the the warped shadows of bands like ABC, Scritti Politti, The Dream, Hall & Oates, This Heat, The Associates, Happy Mondays, Japan, Usher, Robert Wyatt, A Certain Ratio, Material, Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam, Durutti Column, Throbbing Gristle, The Glove, etc.

Click here to view the video for "Cooperative Extensions"

"This is world beats turned into booty-shaking dirtiness, topped off with Shannon Fields’ roof-shaking falsetto" - Deli Magazine [Artists on the Rise]
"head-scratchingly brilliant" - Brad Laner (Medicine, M83), Dangerous Minds
"seriously layered, ornate, and frenzied electronic transmissions…excellent" - The Onion A.V. Club
"Rapturous bursts of bright horn-fuelled funk-pop…Great" - The Guardian UK [New Band of the Day feature]
"A lullaby sung by the sea with the subdued hysterics of of Scritti Politti…will drench you in unspecified yearning & leave you reaching for the repeat button" - Gill Mills, New Music Matters (UK)

Leverage Models at Music Hall of Williamsburg by Andrew Carlson

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Artist -  Leverage Models

Album - Leverage Models
Release Date - October 1, 2013

Label -  Hometapes

 

01. Cooperative Extensions
02. The Chance to Go
03. Night Falls on the General Assembly
04. The Least of Your Brothers
05. Out in the Open (Proposaitional Representations) 
06. Too Cold for Magic
07. Sweep (feat. Sharon Van Etten)
08. Stay Close
09. Hunting Safety
10. A Slow Marriage

Album contributors:
Kelly Pratt (trumpet)
Beirut, Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, David Byrne/St Vincent, Bright Moments
Jon Natchez (saxophones)
Beirut, Yellow Ostrich, The Antlers, Okkervill River, David Byrne/St Vincent, Stars Like Fleas, Spoon, Phoshorescent, Akron/Family, Stephin Merritt
Jason Trammell (percussion)
Sinkane, Yeasayer, Helado Negro
Sharon Van Etten (voice)
Sharon Van Etten
Jim Altieri (violin)
Pearl & The Beard, Corey Dargel, Wet Ink Ensemble, John Luther Adams
Trevor Dunn (bass)
Melvins, Fantomas, Mr. Bungle, John Zorn, Tomahawk, Sean Lennon
Jeff Gretz (drums, percussion)
Zao
Max Jaffe (drums)
Normal Love, Asphalt Orchestra, Afuche, In One Wind, killerBOB
Anthony LaMarca (Simmons drums, percussion)
St. Vincent, Dean & Britta, JBM, Spoon
Nick Jenkins (voice)
Future Wife
Laura Ortman (violin)
The Dust Dive, National Braid, The Coast Orchestra, Stars Like Fleas
Kevin Thaxton (bass)
Grand Mal, Turner Cody, Sasha Bell, Todd Deatherage
David Scanlon (guitar)
Pet Bottle Ningen (Tzadik), killerBOB
D. James Goodwin (recording, mixing, signal processing)
Shakira, Devo, Scary Mansion, Bobby, Duane Pitre
Chris Athens (mastering)
Lil Wayne, J Cole, Rick Ross, Pet Shop Boys, Nicki Minaj, Wiz Khalifa, Nas, The Dream, Usher, Willie Nelson, Kelis, Young Jeezy

Shannon Fields founded, ran, wrote for, and produced Stars Like Fleas. He has performed live and/or recorded with Helado Negro, OMBRE (with Julianna Barwick), Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto), Duane Pitre, Chris Schlarb, Future Wife (as producer), Sam Amidon/Doveman, and host of improvisors.