Motion Picture Soundtrack Departure EP September 7th on End Game

Based in Canterbury, at the heart of the garden of England, Motion Picture Soundtrack deftly weave engaging lyrics and powerful moving melodies into their deep dark rock tapestry. At times gentle, at others fiercely driven, the result is uplifting, yet realistic, euphoric and beautiful.

Presented here on this short 3 track EP is the perfect introduction to a band that haven’t rushed themselves into putting out release after release. Instead, they’ve spent 18 months with Hugh Jones (Echo and the Bunnymen, I am Kloot) and Dan Austin (Doves, Massive Attack, Oceansize) perfecting their forthcoming debut album, ‘The Shapes We Fear Are Of Our Own’. Recorded in Copenhagen, London & the U.S, with Paul Schroeder (The Stone Roses, The Verve), Cenzo Townshend (Editors, Bloc Party, Klaxons) & Bob Ludwig (RATM, Radiohead, Tool…) the band’s sonic theatrics have been perfectly committed to record.

Lead single Departure conjures thoughts of a band pursuing an engaging, modern take on the 80s shoegaze of such luminaries My Bloody Valentine, with just enough soaring melody to compliment any distorted guitars. As the track’s brasher chorus erupts in the wake of tumbling piano keys, Motion Picture Soundtrack assert themselves as not only masters of the crescendo but excellent at uniting thoughtful tender moments with out and out crushing rock. The manifesto is to create music that is big enough to move mountains but that can equally speak with a hushed intimacy. It’s intricate, but under the band’s complete control, and made to seem effortless.

2009 sees the band fulfilling the promise of that first XFM review. The sonic swirling of their sound draws a definitive line between the patient, brooding and stylistic MPS, a band with real staying power, and the countless fly by night acts that clog up much of the community. With people across the UK taking a deeper interest in their work and an ever-increasing number of fans discovering the power of the live show, they are truly a band to connect with. The coming year could well be theirs.

‘One to watch out for’ XFM

‘Utterly glorious throughout…Listen to it. Wallow in it. Bathe in it. This is gorgeous stuff’ BBC Introducing

‘A band that should definitely be heard’ Kerrang! Radio

} Facebook { Myspace } Website {

At the age of 18, Samuel moved to New York and started the band Rosewood Thieves. Their EP, “From the Decker House,” was released in the summer of 2006 on V2 Records. Aside from co-writing Rosewood Thieves’ material, Samuel had a handful of songs that he’d written by himself, which became the acoustic EP “No Mission.”

Feeling rather inspired in his evolved songwriting skin, Samuel picked up and moved to LA. He spent a year in the studio recording a new set of tunes that extended upon the style he’d uncovered on the EP and put together a band to perform the live, which he called “The Only Ones”. While the resulting material certainly embodies the original ideas he conceived on the EP, it’s clear that the studio time and formation of a backing ensemble allowed Samuel to fill in the outlines he delivers on the EP. The resulting full-length, New Dawn, is fully evolved. The album showcases the complexities of writing simply—in short, its hard to write a tight song that tells a ripe story, but at the mere age of 22, Samuel Markus achieves this.

New Dawn presents folk-based tunes with pop-realm accessibility. Within each song are familiar folk stories, delivered with near-dangerous catchiness. These tunes remain in the heads of their listeners, but their intelligent and narrative content makes them welcome additions to cerebral playlists. From a kid just past his teenage years, this is pretty darn impressive.

LA-based musician and filmmaker Samuel will be releasing his full-length album New Dawn via digital distribution on September 30th, with a physical version arriving early next year.

The stage is an instrumental junkyard cluttered by sousaphone, accordion, piano, violin, a bouzouki, an upright bass, percussion, trumpet, drums and a Theremin.

In one corner, a woman sets aside the upright bass to pick up a brass tuba adorned with glowing red lights. She left a traveling Civil War recreationist band to find a home here.

The drummer stands up behind his kit and lifts a trumpet to his mouth. Raised by Lithuanian polka musicians, he skipped out on a treatment center in Mexico to right himself in the study of mariachi horns. Here, he exorcises demons of a punk past and dreams ahead to Mexico.

A slight, black-suited man stands beside a waiting accordion, cradling a violin called ‘Juan Pablo.’ A trained classicist, he abandoned academia to find life and play for the people.

A grandchild of an arranged marriage between a Sicilian and a Gypsy, the singer holds an electric guitar in one hand and with the other draws invisible lines in the air, manipulating a vintage Theremin’s ghostly call. For the past decade, from his days busking in New York and Chicago to the years he has spent crisscrossing the world with these three classically trained musicians, he has been developing and refining the sound that is DeVotchKa.

It wasn’t too long ago that a weary band hauling a violin, a tuba, an accordion, and trumpets into rock club were told they must be in the wrong place; when a band fusing musical elements from across the globe needed to fight to be considered a rock band instead of being marked by the dubious ‘world music’ tag.

A decade ago, DeVotchKa drove an overstuffed tour van onto a very different musical landscape. Ten years later, it seems the world has caught up with them.

In that time, DeVotchKa put out three increasingly celebrated self-released records (SuperMelodrama; 2000, Una Volta; 2003, Hot It Ends; 2004). On the road almost constantly, their first break came as the pit orchestra for a touring burlesque troupe. Word of mouth spread about the DeVotchKa live experience, tales of trumpeters appearing out of the crowd and braying from balconies; of the band climbing offstage and playing in the center of the audience; of beautiful trapeze aerialists suspended from theatre ceilings; of audiences driven to tears and then dancing in the space of a song.

In 2005, a moment of serendipity rewarded eight years of the band’s hard work. After months of searching, two first-time filmmakers heard the sound of their movie on a Sunday morning Los Angeles radio broadcast, the DeVotchKa song “You Love Me.” Jonathan Davton and Valerie Faris hired DeVotchKa to score their first film, Little Miss Sunshine. Already established as one of the most exciting underground bands in the country, fittingly it is the story of a van full of dysfunctional underdogs that introduced DeVotchKa’s music to a worldwide audience.

The music in Little Miss Sunshine was adapted from existing DeVotchKa songs from How It Ends and Una Volta, in addition to new music written by Nick Urata and co. for the film. Little Miss Sunshine won a Best Picture nomination and took home a clutch of Academy Awards. Throughout the telecast, the Academy Awards Orchestra played Ennio Morricon and music from the unsigned band from Denver. The DeVotchKa-driven Little Muss Sunshine soundtrack also received a Grammy nomination.

In 2006, the band released Curse Your Little Heart, an EP on mostly covers featuring the band’s take on songs by Sinatra, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Velvet Underground. The EP drew great reviews, the Village Voice called it ‘The Stuff of Instant Sonic Obsessions,” and a sold-out tour followed.

In 2007, the band finally answered demand and released How It Ends in Europe on the acclaimed Anti-Records. In the summer of that year, DeVotchKa returned to Tucson’s Wavelab studio to record their first full-length record in four years. The band realigned with producer Craig Schumacher (Calexico, M. Ward, Neko Case) who left his sonic stamp on the band’s How It Ends and Una Volta. The resulting record is very much DeVotchKa – somewhere out of time, certainly out of place, and somehow it makes perfect sense.

“It’s a rare group that can make you wistful while wielding a caravans worth of instruments like a theremin, accordian, and sousaphone.” – Entertainment Weekly

“A sultry brew of Gypsy, Mexican, and pop ingredients that’s adorably silly and unexpectedly moving.” - Spin

“…juxtaposing the hard war visuals against a beautiful song, but this time with a more contemporary artist, DeVotchka.” – Brooklyn Vegan

“Their songs have a weight beyond the bell and whistles, retaining your interest once the shock of new sounds and the novelty of genre-hopping is gone.” – Alternative Press