*** Welcome to piglix ***

Newtown (EP)

Newtown
The top of a wooden blue house in twilight, against a blue sky. The words "FOLKS NEWTOWN" are written in white against the sky.
EP by Folks
Released February 12, 2014 (2014-02-12)
Recorded 2013
Genre Indie rock, indie pop, shoegazing, electropop
Length 32:56
Language Japanese
Label Ki/oon Music
Producer Folks
Folks chronology
Take Off
(2013)Take Off2013
Newtown
(2014)

Newtown is the first extended play release by the Japanese band Folks, released on February 12, 2014. It was the band's first major label release under Ki/oon Music.

Newtown was recorded in Sapporo at Hit Studio and Geimori Studio in 2013. The album hass four of the five songs on Take Off, along with three new compositions. Fumito Iwai is the main songwriter and vocalist for the album, writing every track except "River", which was written and sung by Katsutoshi Iwai. "Good-bye, Friends" was composed by all members of Folks, with lyrics written by Fumito Iwai. Their self-produced 2012 extended play Take Off was produced and arranged by Fumito Iwai alone. After performing the album live for a year, it began to feel like their own album as well and not just Fumito Iwai's. On Newtown, all the members contributed to the arrangement and production. The arrangements of Take Off songs were changed after the band performed them in front of live audiences. Fumito Iwai had never considered how songs would sound live, so experimented by changed their percussion balance and tempo, and created live arrangements for them.

Work on Newtown started several months after their first live concert in April 2013, as the members created ideas and discussed what they wanted to do together as Folks. The style of French indie rock band Phoenix's album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009), influenced thm greatly and they sought to use some of the techniques Phoenix used.

"Replica", a song about the end of summer in Hokkaido, was written in summer 2012 by Fumito Iwai. It was the first song he worked on after leaving Galileo Galilei, and expressed the sort of music he wanted to create. The first song recorded for the Newtown sessions was "Forever"."Everything Is Alone" was described as having an "updated funk sound" by Fumito Iwai, and was a mix of everything the band members wanted to express in a song. They had difficulty in arranging and tuning the drums, as they had not worked with live drums in a recording before.

"Gaga" from Take Off was re-titled "You're Right" for Newtown. Fumito Iwai felt the main association of the word was the American musician Lady Gaga, and changed it as he felt that too limiting."Two Young" had not been performed live by Folks before Newtown's release, but was written to be performed live. "Good-bye, Friends" was based on a demo Katsutoshi Iwai had made and Noguchi expanded on. However, the song was created by all of the members of the band, discussing and experimenting together.


...
Wikipedia

...