Press
Donnybrook Writing Academy
Filepp picks up the lo-fi folktronica where Roommate’s Songs the Animals Taught Us left off, and sounds the call for introverts everywhere to return promptly to their rooms.
Pensatos.com | 3 out of 5
...He sings in a voice that sounds honest and exhausted...The drum programming is reminiscent of the skittering beats of Björk’s Vespertine: quietly popping like a dying fire, somehow halfway detached from the rest of the music—hip-hop rhythm as it might spontaneously appear in intergalactic radio static.
Prefixmag.com | 7.5
Filepp seamlessly mixes layers of noise and distortion over melodies and vocals.
Rusty String Deluxe
By cars & trains
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#1 some sort of overture
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#2 the wires from my broken record player
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#3 fake plastic guns
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#4 oh sweet consequences
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#5 beatitudes
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#6 and all of us as well
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#7 painting over it did no good / solitary bird
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#8 further from home
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#9 the sky is clear
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#10 the singing will never cease
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#11 nursing 500 broken fingers
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#12 sometimes falter, sometimes sway
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#13 what comes after
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#14 the needles spinning
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#15 and all of us as well (boy in static remix)
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#16 sometimes falter sometimes sway (meanest man contest remix)
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#17 the names of things and other such thoughts (cover by ceschi)
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#18 sometimes falter sometimes sway (cover by the harvey girls)
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#19 the wires from my broken record player (remix by radical face)
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#20 fake plastic guns (factor remix)
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#21 the sky is clear (cars & trains remix)
Rusty String Deluxe reintroduces Portland, Oregon based multi-instrumentalist cars & trains' first album with new songs and a slew of remixes and covers, available digitally on November 18th through CIS records (bundled with the original CD, by itself, or bundled with a t-shirt), and December 2nd through online digital stores.
With Rusty String, twenty-seven year old Tom Filepp weaved electronic drumming together with woodwinds, banjo, trumpets, strings and glockenspiel, creating an album that sits somewhere between stations on the analog dial, where an old country broadcast breaches into absent-minded waves of static.
The original album consists of handfuls of microscopic crafted worlds, shaped with tiny precision. Songs paint imagery of overgrown grass reaching through cracked sidewalks, hazy suburban childhoods playing not-so-benign games, and self hypnosis. Banjo driven four to the floor stompers yield to spacious instrumentals laden with sampled americana. Bursts of orchestral cacophony and found sound then break through to reposition the listener.
Several guest spots add to the character of the album, including Boy In Static from Mush Records on viola, and a vocal collaboration with Sole from anticon. records.
Rusty String evokes early Morr Music releases by bands like Tarwater, intersecting with folk-oriented electronic groups like Tunng. Found sound and distorted tape samples create urban lullaby landscapes. Undaunted, meloncholic drums and timid textures are reminicent of cloudDEAD or Tujiko Noriko.
LITTLE SONG
The deluxe edition also includes new and more personal material from the new EP Little Song. Simple guitar based compositions pare back from the more densely orchestrated approach of the Rusty String LP, while layers of decaying feedback, sparse glockenspiel and tape samples weave a dark and dense tapestry of sound. Deep brooding vocals sit atop songs with deceptive timing, subtle electronic stutters, and thunderous and organic drumming. Songs jump from the paired down folk-electronic mix of previous albums, mixed with an eclectic songwriting sensibility that brings The Microphones to mind.
REMIXES/COVERS
Rusty String Deluxe includes a synth heavy remix of "...And all of us, as well" by Boy In Static, a remix by Factor (Fake Four), Meanest Man Contest, and Radical Face, and covers by Ceschi and Portland, Oregon locals The Harvey Girls.
PACKAGING OPTIONS
The deluxe edition comes with the ability to choose your packaging. You can buy just digital, or these other combinations with digital bundled for free:
DIGITAL + ORIGINAL RUSTY STRING CD / $10
DIGITAL + RUSTY STRING DELUXE CDR / $9
DIGITAL + T-SHIRT / $16
DIGITAL + ORIGINAL RUSTY STRING CD + T-SHIRT / $24
DIGITAL + RUSTY STRING DELUXE CDR + T-SHIRT / $23
Note that the Rusty String Deluxe CDR does not include the first track off of Rusty String, "Some Sort of Overture".
T-shirts are red 100% cotton American Apparel, available in S,M,L,XL.
New Stuff
