Penzias and Wilson announced the release of their debut single, “Rescue the Fly“, a cover of Empty Ensemble’s 弦楽四重奏曲其の一六番. The single is split with a remix of the original track and arrives March 26, 2021.

“Rescue the Fly” first appeared as a solo piano piece on NaSoPiAlMo 2006, an album recorded as part of National Solo Album Month. The pieces on the album were arranged for string quartet and became Empty Ensemble’s debut album. (NaSoPiAlMo 2006 is available as an exclusive for Empty Ensemble subscribers.)

Unlike the other tracks on the album, the sixth string quartet song hewed closer to pop music than classical music. So Penzias and Wilson gave it the full band treatment it deserved.

Penzias and Wilson is not a duo. In fact, it’s just another alias, as explained in the band’s bio:

What kind of music would a duo named “Penzias and Wilson” play? Not the scientists themselves, mind you. Just a pair of musicians, one named Penzias, the other Wilson.

That’s the question.

This project may not necessarily be the answer.

Eponymous 4 announced the release of two cover albums arriving Oct. 30, 2020. Shinkyoku Moratorium Nihongohan takes a karaoke approach to Japanese indie rock and pop music from the early 2000s. Shinkyoku Moratorium Eigoban imagines a series of songs covered by other artists — a post-rock Roberta Flack, a post-punk Bruce Robison, Janet Jackson as grunge.

The albums are preceded by two singles. “Hurt So Bad”, originally by Linda Ronstadt, arrives on Sept. 4, while “Be My Last” by Utada Hikaru arrives on Oct. 2.

UPDATE: Shinkyoku Moratorium Eigoban has been rescheduled for a Dec. 4, 2020 release.

Observant Records was born out of impatience.

When I was growing up, I thought the only way to get my music heard by people other than me was to get signed to a record label. As active as the Hawaiian music scene may be, I knew my kind of writing would not play well in Honolulu clubs or radio.

So I waited till I graduated from college and moved to the Mainland to get a lay of the land. By the time that happened, creating your music in your own home became a viable option. As technology improved and an independent infrastructure became more accessible, the record label system seemed more trouble than it was worth.

I wanted to make music on my own and distribute it on my own. And I didn’t care that it didn’t sound entirely professional just yet. I wanted it out there now.

A stimulus check from the federal government kickstarted Observant Records, which I formed on my birthday in 2008.

enigmatics was the first release, and I optimistically pressed 100 copies. I still have 86 of them in my closet.

The label turned 10 years old in 2018, even though it hasn’t be entirely active all that time. But it’s a long-enough duration to produce an archive, one that seems worthy of retrospection.

Bandcamp made subscriptions available to artists, which I haven’t found occasion to use — till now. I’ll be making available the old Work Release Program releases, early versions of the albums now available. I might even find a few infant demos and studio experiments. These releases will be subscriber exclusives.

Visit the Bandcamp pages of Eponymous 4 and Empty Ensemble to subscribe and to access these new old recordings.

The next Eponymous 4 album, Travis, comes out on March 30, 2018, and the first single from the album, “August“, arrives on Aug. 4.

Eponymous 4 announced the release of a new album. Originally scheduled for a September 2017 release, the album will now come out in 2018. Titled Travis, the album deals in part with the theme of escape and overcoming obstacles that prevent it. Here’s the track listing:

1. Prelude: The Travis Lament
2. Timekeeper
3. August
4. I Want to Follow
5. Another Fiction
6. ||: :|| (Repeat Signs)
7. 世界の終わり (Sekai no Owari)
8. Surplus
9. The Man Who Stopped the World From Falling
10. West
11. Interlude: The Travis Reel
12. Useless