HTRK - Marry Me Tonight
Release date: 2009
Labels: BlastFirstPetite, Ghostly International
references
fiction
Burns, Charles. Black Hole. Fantagraphics, 1995-2005.
non-fiction
HA: Howard Arkley. Monash University Gallery exhibition catalogue, 1991.
films
Les Mepris. Dir. Jean-Luc Godard. 1963.
Swimming Pool. Dir. Francois Ozon. 2003.
music
bumrocks.com
Can. Soundtracks. Liberty, 1970.
Einsturzende Neubauten. Silence is Sexy. Mute, 2000.
Funkadelic. Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow. Westbound, 1970.
Fred Wesley and the JB’s. Doing it to Death. People, 1963.
Suicide. Suicide. Red Star, 1977.
Various. Lost in Translation OST. Emperor Norton, 2003.
press release, 2015
Like all three HTRK albums, 2009's Marry Me Tonight is singular in sound and circumstance. It's the only album the outfit recorded from start to finish as a trio, and it's the only HTRK record that bears the co-production stamp of Rowland S. Howard. Breathy, caustic and rife with contradiction, Marry Me Tonight took the raw material recorded on 2005's Nostalgia and transformed it into a pop record—pop that buckled and warped beneath the glare of Howard, fellow producer Lindsay Gravina and the HTRK trio: Jonnine Standish, Nigel Yang and Sean Stewart. Howard died at the end of 2009; Stewart died the year after. Things would never be the same.
Marry Me Tonight, which originally came out on Blast First Petite digitally and on CD, will receive its first full vinyl pressing in 2015 through Ghostly International and Mistletone Records. The album will land on April 28th accompanied by a 20-page booklet of photos and liner notes written by people who were around at the time of its recording and touring—Conrad Standish, producer Lindsay Gravina, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, Angus Andrew of Liars, Danielle De Picciotto, Genevieve McGuckin—and others for whom the record holds a special significance, like Jim Haynes and Regis (real name Karl O'Connor). There will be two versions, one pressed on translucent magenta vinyl and another in standard black.
"HTRK possess an originality and mystery worthy of obsession and scrutiny," writes Zinner in his liner notes, "for their beautiful and damaged sound is truly, and thankfully, their own."
Produced by Rowland S. Howard and Lindsay Gravina. Mixed and mastered by Lindsay Gravina at Birdland.