Posted in Whathaveyou on September 19th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Italian heavy four-piece My Home on Trees are set to take part next month in the Swiss fest Up in Smoke 2017 alongside Saint Vitus, Orange Goblin, Brant Bjork, Graveyard and a formidable slew of others. That appearance will be part of a five-date string of shows serving as the wrap-up for the touring cycle for their debut, How I Reached Home (review here), released in 2015 via Heavy Psych Sounds. The plan? Go back and make another record, it would seem. My Home on Trees have an eye toward a 2018 release for what will be their second full-length, but as regards much more than that, they’re playing it pretty close to the chest. That is, no word of where they’re at in terms of writing or whatnot.
That’ll come with time. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to think they might have the record done by Spring 2018 and out sometime over the summer, though of course that depends as well on label schedule, if they’ll be with Heavy Psych Sounds again, comets smashing into earth and numerous other unforeseeable potential contingencies. In any case, drummer Marcello Modica offers an update below, which you’ll see is joined by the live dates.
Goes like this:
“The Italian female fronted My Home on Trees will come back in october for a small tour around Germany and Switzerland, playing the last 4 shows in Europe before to enter in studio to record their second lenght. The stoner-doom band from Milano had a first album realeased by Heavy Psych Sounds Records in september 2015, when they started this 42 shows tour with a release party in Milano with Karma To Burn and they’ll finish on next month at Up in Smoke Festival in Pratteln, Switzerland, sharing the stage with Saint Vitus, Orange Goblin, Church of Misery, Windhand and many more. No news about the new album yet, except they’ll start to record at the begin of new year. They won’t be around for some time so don’t miss the chance to see one of these last shows.” — Marcello Modica
My Home on Trees live: 10.04 Keller Klub Stuttgart DE 10.05 Huhnermanhattan Club Halle DE 10.06 MTS Oldenburg DE 10.07 Up in Smoke Fest Pratteln CH 10.08 Immerhin Wurzburg DE
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 13th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Up in Smoke 2017 continues to make a compelling case for travel plans by adding the likes of Lowrider, Church of Misery, My Home on Trees, Jack Slamer and The Necromancers to its was-already-formidable bill featuring Graveyard, Saint Vitus, Brant Bjork, Orange Goblin, Toner Low, Stoned Jesus, Beastmaker, on and on. Seriously, I don’t even know why I feel like I need to write an intro for this post. Just look at the list of names in the poster. Isn’t that really all you need to know about the entire thing? What more is there to say? If you can get there, get there. Duh.
Honestly, just look at this thing. Can you believe this shit happens like every weekend in Europe this Fall, going from country to country, badass lineup to badass lineup? It’s wild. Fucking Lowrider are showing up.
Check it out and be jealous:
Here we go! We are thrilled to add 5 more bands to this year’s UP in SMOKE indoor festival in Z7 line-up!
Lowrider (Exclusive CH show) Church of Misery Official (Exclusive CH show) MY HOME ON TREES Jack Slamer The Necromancers
This 5th edition of the festival features now 20 bands!
Get your tickets on https://www.upinsmoke.de/tickets as soon as you can (they are selling fast) or share this post (public) to try to win another 2-day pass (probably the last for this year)!
IMPORTANT: the daily split of bands, the daytickets and the address to reserve your sleep-over/breakfast will be announced on August 1. Stay Tuned!
Located Pratteln, in Switzerland’s best rock venue, Z7 Konzertfabrik, only a few kilometres from the German and French borders, Up In Smoke is an indoor festival for fans of Heavy Rock – Doom – Psych – Stoner… easily reachable by plane via the Euro-Airport (Basel/Muhouse) or by public transportations (train, bus) via Basel Main Station. There are plenty of affordable Hotels and Hostels located in Basel and for “budget savers” we are also offering to sleep over + breakfast (Coffee and bread rolls) in the venue for a small fee!
How does this work? After the last concert of the day, we ask everybody to step out of the venue for a few minutes. During that time, the venue and toilets are cleaned and the floor covered with a plastic sheet. (people have to bring their sleeping bags and air mattresses)
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 8th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Italian outfits My Home on Trees and Woodwall have teamed up to tour in October/November around Europe. The run, which includes nine dates spread throughout Switzerland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria, will be supporting the Heavy Psych Sounds release of My Home on Trees‘ debut album, How I Reached Home (review here), as well as Woodwall‘s 2013 full-length, WoodEmpire, which is set to receive a follow-up in the form of a new EP any day now.
From the PR wire:
MartianArt Driving & Booking is proud to present the second European Tour for the Italian Heavy Fuzzers My Home on Trees & Woodwall:
THE GREEN FUZZ CONSPIRACY TOUR 2016
They’re gonna hit Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France, Belgium and Netherlands for 9 gigs in 10 days in 6 different Lands. Spread the word and see you on the road. Check the dates (Poster Art by Eeviac):
27.10 CH Kreuzlingen, HorstKlub 28.10 F Paris, Espace B 29.10 B LA Louviere, Cafè des Arts 30.10 NL Amsterdam, The Cave Club 31.11 D Hamburg, Gruner Jaeger 1.11 D Leipzig, Plaque 3.11 D Dresden, OstPol 4.11 A Graz, Sub 5.11 CH Ins, Schuxenhaus
MY HOME ON TREES
The dream about living into the wild inspired on 2012 “My Home on Trees”, young band from Milano, influenced by 70’s gods as Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer and 90’s sons as Kyuss and Fu Manchu as well. Occult stoner rock from a dark forest, heavy riffs and psychedelic grooves. A storm of fuzz meeting a powerful female voice.They shared the stage with bands like Ufomammut, Karma to Burn, Greenleaf, Toner Low, My Sleeping Karma, The Midnight Ghost Train, Mars Red Sky.
WOODWALL
Always inspired by the psychedelic stoner rock, they started a long path over the years, with some demos and small recordings, during this time they have the opportunity to test and tread the stage with some of the greatest exponents of the italian and other International stoner & metal bands as Ufomammut, Ornaments, Morkobot, Isaak, Years of No Light, Los Natas, Mars Red Sky, Motorpsycho.
They might lead off with the creepy and cold impression of “Winter,” but by the end of their How I Reached Home debut LP, Milano four-piece My Home on Trees owe much more to warmth than freeze. In particular, to warmth of tone. The Italian outfit effectively blur the line between heavy rock, psychedelia and doom, leaning toward faster, post-Kyuss desert push on side B’s “Arrow” before sliding fluidly into the slower, trippier “Resume.” As their first release for Italian imprint Heavy Psych Sounds, itfinds My Home on Trees — the lineup of vocalist Laura Mancini, guitarist Marco Bertucci, bassist Giovanni Mastrapasqua and drummer Marcello Modica — carving an identity for themselves of largely familiar genre elements, but hardly wearing out their welcome across the record’s seven tracks/36 vinyl-primed minutes.
It’s worth noting that the first half of the album rounds out with two minutes from Orson Welles‘ War of the Worlds, seemingly as a complement to the sample at the beginning of “Winter” from the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road wherein a boy asks his father how many people he thinks are still alive and the answer comes back, “In the world? Not very many.” How or if this is actually intended to tie the songs together — the “Winter” in question could just as easily be nuclear, I guess — I couldn’t say, but they start at a rush after that sample and seem aware enough of the expectation of their audience to throw an immediate curve in by slowing “Winter” circa its midpoint and adding a growling, semi-spoken guest appearance from The Midnight Ghost Train‘s Steve Moss, who adds a lurker atmosphere to the track that immediately widens the context for the rest of the material that follows.
The effect is that How I Reached Home throws you for a loop before it’s hardly begun, and it’s a crucial effect when it comes to listening to the rest of the album, because as “I Forgot Everything” stomps its way through its intro to make way for the first verse topped by Mancini‘s bluesy vocals, one doesn’t necessarily know what’s coming next. As to the answer — it’s a barrage of big, hairy riffery and choice groove, the songs maintaining catchy vibes and rough-edged psychedelic flourish of effects and subtle melodic intricacy delivered at varying speed. Starting out with a sparse bassline and ethereal, far-back vocal, “Don’t Panic” teases otherworldliness but winds up steeped in Vista Chino-esque fuzz, playing out at a comfortable middling pace for the first half before shifting into a slowdown that only enhances the nod later on, Bertucci and Mastrapasqua constructing a wall of fuzz that they proceed to tear down once the shuffling chorus returns, setting up the last fadeout into “War of the Worlds.”
And once again, that seems to be drawn right from the 1938 Orson Welles broadcast. I’m not sure if that’s in the public domain or what (if it is, it’s a treasure), but its inclusion on How I Reached Home is somewhat curious both in the context of the The Road sample earlier and the album in general, leaving one to wonder what exactly the apocalypse at hand might be and if “Don’t Panic” is the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy-style advice on how to deal with it. If the record has a front-to-back narrative — it certainly has a front-to-back flow, but that’s different — I don’t know about it, but there’s a thematic leaning in the first half that, in light of the opener, seems to delight in the confusion it’s creating. I, for one, enjoy that.
With “War of the Worlds” rounding out side A, it’s up to the three cuts on side B — “Arrow,” “Resume” and “My Home on Trees” — to further expand the album’s scope. As noted, “Arrow” is the most purely Kyussian of the inclusions here, a heads-down “Green Machine”-winking riff that makes the most of Mastrapasqua‘s bass tone and finds Mancini doing a decent John Garcia from deep in that swell of fuzz, Modica‘s snare cutting through to punctuate the rush. It’s also the shortest song on How I Reached Home (“War of the Worlds” aside), but not by much at 4:52, and one might account for the difference in pacing alone. The more active feel suits the band well and feeds smoothly into the laid-back opening of “Resume,” which picks up with harmonica, bigger riffing and a sustained shout before the wave recedes into more open, patient roll. If that’s My Home on Trees weirding out, then I’m all in favor.
Being their debut — following a self-titled demo in 2013 — it’s encouraging to find them so ready to break the rules they’ve established, and the eponymous “My Home on Trees” continues the thread, effectively summarizing across a near-eight-minute span what’s come before it in trading thrust for nod and tossing in some airy spaciousness in Bertucci‘s post-midsection lead while also toying with a more linear instrumental structure behind Mancini‘s verses. They end big and groove, which feels about right, and the last remaining element to fadeout is the fuzzed guitar — only too fitting since that’s been what has led the way through so much of the material. That’s not to take anything away from the prowess of the rhythm section or the potential vocal powerhouse up front. Rather, these aspects combine with that underlying drive toward the bizarre to make How I Reached Home a satisfying first album that establishes firm ground under the band’s feet and shows them as quick to depart from there to more individual territory.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 14th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Milan-based heavy rockers My Home on Trees will release their Heavy Psych Sounds label debut, How I Reached Home, on Sept. 25. and to herald the album’s arrival, the four-piece have newly posted a video fro the track “Winter.” Cinematic and eerie, they must have filmed it a while back, unless they have access to a soundstage with a pretty realistic snow and river set, but all the better for their thinking ahead, since the strange puppetmaster and masked woods-dwelling oddities suit the track well, the song also featuring a guest appearance from The Midnight Ghost Train‘s Steve Moss on vocals from about the midpoint on.
The song itself runs about five and a half minutes, but even so, the amount of ground My Home on Trees manage to cover in that time is impressive. Of course, part of that is the tradeoff on vocals between Laura Marta Mancini and Moss, but the atmosphere shifts accordingly from swinging upbeat blues rock to more dirge-style rumbling. Fans of The Midnight Ghost Train will find Moss‘ performance interesting — I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sing over anything but his own furious riffing — but “Winter” stands on its own in making an impression, and how indicative its scope is of How I Reached Home overall will be something worth finding out when the album arrives.
Shortly after that happens, My Home on Trees will embark on a round of European shows with Doctor Cyclops, and you can find those tour dates under the video below. Please enjoy:
My Home on Trees, “Winter” official video
Doctor Cyclops and My Home on Trees will tour Central Europe from october 30th till november 7th, crossing 6 lands in 9 days. Doctor Cyclops just recorded new album in Uk with Mr. James Atkinson from Gentleman Pistols, My Home on Trees are going to release (september 25th) debut album on Heavy Psych Sounds Records (Release Party in Milano with Karma To Burn on 26th), here is the new video for “Winter”, featuring Steve Moss, The Midnight Ghost Train.
Doctor Cyclops and My Home on Trees on tour: 30.10.15 bahnhof, montagnana (i) 31.10.15 cmk, koper (slo) 2.11.15 rockhouse, salzburg (a) 3.11.15 rockmusik, himlar (d) 4.11.15 gaswerk, winterthur (ch) 5.11.15 mudd club, strasbourg (f) 6.11.15 coq d’or, olten (ch) 7.11.15 baranoff, thun (ch)
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 5th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Milano four-piece My Home on Trees are the latest acquisition for Heavy Psych Sounds, the Italian label that has recently picked up bands like Old Man Lizard, Ape Machine and Cosmic Wheels for releases while also working with Fatso Jetson and Farflung for a split and reissuing the out-of-print debut from Sgt. Sunshine. Gabriele Fiori, who runs the label and plays guitar and sings in Black Rainbows and Killer Boogie, is on a bit of a tear, and My Home on Trees will have their label debut out in September as part of that.
Their second overall, How I Reached Home will be the follow-up to their 2013 self-titled debut, and a European tour is reportedly in the works for November, as Heavy Psych Sounds confirmed in the announcement of the band’s signing, which you can find below, delivered as though by magic from the PR wire:
HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS Records is stoked to announce the signing of another awesome band *** MY HOME ON TREES ***
The freak dream about living on trees into the wild inspired on 2012 “My Home on Trees”, young band from Milano, influenced by 70’s gods as Black Sabbath or Jefferson Airplane and 90’s sons as Kyuss and Fu Manchu as well. Occult stoner rock from a dark forest, heavy riffs and psychedelic grooves. A storm of fuzz meeting powerful female voice, for fans of Jex Toth and Blues Pills. They shared the stage with Greenleaf and Toner Low, My Sleeping Karma and Mars Red Sky.
Debut album on Heavy Psych Sounds Records, with special guest as Steve Moss from The Midnight Ghost Train.
Artwork by Steuso.
“HOW I REACHED HOME” will be released in September in two coloured vinyl versions, cd, digital.
