Folks,

I’m full of emotion typing this, but Heirship Records is coming to an end. It’s been a wild ride and I’m grateful to all the artists who’ve trusted me with their art, and all the music supporters in Champaign-Urbana and around the world who’ve listened and purchased media from us.

The light at the end of the tunnel is a 2xLP masterpiece coming out FRIDAY, December 14th on Heirship, the label’s final (and finest?) release. It’s an album that has lived in my heart for many years and will finally see the light of day here at the end of the year, as the label comes to a close.

Please mark your calendars for that release date, and stay tuned for more information about that album and that artist. More soon!

Sincerely,

-isaac.

LISTEN TO “BRAIN TIRED”

STREAM THE LEAD SINGLE “AGAIN AGAIN” AT PASTE MAGAZINE

Photo credit – Lisa Gatzke

Urbana indie rock/dream pop trio has announced their new album, Crash The Day, out 6/8 on Heirship Records.

It will be available on CD, Digital, and 180 gram vinyl via Bandcamp.

RSVP to their Record Release Show June 9th at Cowboy Monkey: https://www.facebook.com/events/2017605581893642

PRE-ORDER (LP/CD/DIGITAL)

STREAM THE LEAD SINGLE “SEAMRIPPER”

Photo credit – Brittany Sowacke

Chicago-based band Grandkids has announced their new album, This Guitars, out 12/16 on Heirship Records. It will be available on CD, Digital, and a Limited Edition of 25 vinyl test pressing LPs with custom screenprinted jackets by Urbana artist Steve Schaberg.

PRE-ORDER (LP/CD/DIGITAL)

Grandkids is a band of four people, but only one floor tom. Originally formed in Urbana, Illinois the group transplanted to Chicago where the city’s varied music scenes pushed their sound in eclectic directions. At times sharp and energized, at others tender, their sophomore album, This Guitars, finds Grandkids expressing their many voices in an attempt at coherence.

Grandkids is:
Adam Gorcowski (bass and cello).
Vivian McConnell (guitar and vocals)
Evan Metz (guitar and vocals)
Phillip Sudderberg (drums and vocals)

Hip-Hop duo Mother Nature have been featured in a piece on NPR’s website.

Their debut LP is available on CD and Vinyl at their upcoming performance at The Pygmalion Festival this Friday at The Accord outdoor stages, opening up for Vince Staples.
Also of interest to Champaign-Urbana Music Lovers, that evening’s entertainment also features the first live performance by Poster children in the better half of a decade.

Purchase the Mother Nature vinyl LP and/or CD at Bandcamp, and stream it in its entirety for FREE:

The mini-LP ‘PASSENGER’ by Euriah is out now on CD/LP/Digital.

Also available is ‘PASSENGER [ACOUSTIC]’, a companion album recorded solo by Euriah’s Eric Christian Stanley—available on Digital and Cassette:

Heirship Records will be releasing new music from Teenage Ghosts next month! Out on August 12th, Revelations will be the first new release from the band in 5 years and is available here for pre-order right now digitally and on fire red cassette! Check em out!

To celebrate, we will also be reissuing the band’s first release, Dreams, available for pre-order (digital remaster and on ghost white cassette) here!

If you want to go all out both tapes will be available as a bundle, as well, on the Revelations album page.

Impose debuted the first single from Revelations, “Apocalypse Times” today. Head over to their site to experience it in all its fuzzed out glory.

www.teenageghosts.bandcamp.com
www.facebook.com/teenageghosts

Photo credit: Fred Segovich

A message from TOTAL ASSHOLE:

http://kck.st/292ZsXw

AHOY LIFE-TRAVELERS! Assholes have returned on the two year anniversary of our founding and the one year anniversary of our breaking to bless you with some teeth-shattering rock and roll boogie woogie. Deep in the dungeons of our twisted minds and labyrinthine abodes, we have assaulted microphones with electrifying screeches and wails for a whole year and a half until the replicant waveforms made us tremble with angsty delight.

For your consumption pleasure, we now announce the production of the asshole manifesto, the TOTAL ASSHOLE™ record that your shelf has been missing for so long that you scream to the Rock Gods of Chaos at night with cries for unholy nourishment. Heirship Records has finally given this legendary collection of recordings a home on the waxy channels so that miniature x-wings can finally fly deep in the mountainous black grooves of this earth-shattering sound and remind people that in order to truly love anything, you must first learn to utterly despise everything.

Link to our “K.S.” page is above, where you can GIMME DAT LEAFY GREEN CABBAGE and we’ll GIYOU BABY MAMAS AND BABY PAPAS THE HONEYED LYRICAL SUNDROPS OF ASSHOLE RECORDINGS!!

Four-piece indie/emo group Euriah have launched a pre-order via Kickstarter for their new record, entitled Passenger. The album was recorded and mixed by Seth Engel at Earth Analog in Tolono and Minbal in Chicago in early 2016. The record features guest appearances by Emily Otnes of Tara Terra and Adam Gorcowksi of Grandkids.

This sophomore effort finds the C-U band going deeper and getting darker, exploring themes of addiction and helplessness. Passenger will be available on CD, digital download, and a very limited amount of vinyl LPs—as well as a special cassette edition of the album performed acoustically, featuring Evan Opitz of The Phantom Broadcast.

Stream the single “Hesitation (Whirlwind)” and pre-order Passenger:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heirshiprecords/euriah-passenger-pre-order

Passenger, by Euriah
1. Passenger
2. Hesitation (Whirlwind)
3. Is It Too Late?
4. Losing
5. Ingrained
6. Pattern

We are excited to announce that Kurt Bielema, Urbana solo artist, has joined the Heirship family.

Kurt’s blend of indie, pop, and rock music draws from folk traditions over the past 50 years. Often fingerpicking with an infectious rhythm and sensitive melodies, Bielema’s strength is sincerity that never verges on the saccharine. Straightforward yet poetic, the songs have a very quaint and charming quality to them—they don’t feel too huge, but they touch on timeless emotions and ideas.

Kurt’s debut full-length will be announce soon, and is expected to release sometime this summer. Look for his Artist page on Facebook and a Bandcamp page soon, but for now you can follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @singlestereo and check out his music at http://www.soundcloud.com/bielema.

It is a true delight to announce that Heirship Records will be working with Mother Nature to release their eponymous debut this Friday, April 1. This record label’s intention is to document the music scene here in Champaign-Urbana, and a crucial part of the past year in CU has been the formation of the due of Klevah and T.R.U.T.H—each stars in their own right, but truly together they are greater than the sum of their parts. Shaking up Pygmalion Festival in 2015 and making waves in the press including Huffington Post, these artists are powerful voices that are needed here in our community, and actually, nationally as well. The EP will be available digitally on Bandcamp, on CD, and a *very* limited number of LPs.

Catch them THIS FRIDAY at 8:30 PM at The Accord in downtown Champaign with abnormous, BOYCUT, Chasin’ Treezz, JEFF K%NZ, and Heirship alumnus Gr8Sky.
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/1161335850561226/

We are excited to announce that Euriah have joined the Heirship family. Their excellent debut EP floored me, and they’re one of the most consistently impressive live bands in the area.

Eric Stanley isn’t from C-U, but his music fits right in our twin cities. The impassioned storytelling, the emotive release, with dynamic song structures and bombastic catharsis, his songs feel right at home in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Intertwining guitar lines strewn atop a pummeling rhythm section bring to life angst, celebration, yearning, and confession. This music shimmers and shakes; it digs in and reaches out. This winter they will record at Matt Talbott’s Earth Analog Studio as well as Minbal Studio in Chicago.

Their sophomore EP is due out Spring 2016, produced and engineered by Seth Engel. The six-song EP promises to be a testament to the band’s ability to express emotion with great power and nuance.

Euriah perform at The Pygmalion Festival one week from today, FRIDAY September 25, 2015 with Beach Slang, White Reaper, and Single Player at the Channing-Murray Foundation at 9:00 PM. Cover is $12 at the door, or FREE entry with Pygmalion Festival wristband. RSVP at the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1659706527580730/

FOLLOW EURIAH ONLINE:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Bandcamp

Local screenprinters Weiskamp have helped us create a limited run of shirts celebrating the label and its music. Half the pressing is American Apparel ringer tees; the other half are Canvas unisex baseball raglans.

Shirts can be purchased HERE and supporters will receive an email with download codes for ALL 20 Heirship Records:

10/31/11 HSR01: Evil Tents — Night Air on the Midway
04/24/12 HSR02: Withershins — Silver Cities
03/19/13 HSR03: Terminus Victor — Prevention vs Intervention
08/27/13 HSR04: Grandkids — Timeshare
07/30/13 HSR05: Jay Moses — #TheGenius
09/26/13 HSR06: Various Artists — Crashing the Heirship, Volume I
11/02/13 HSR07: Swords — Depth
05/15/14 HSR08: Sky — Gr8Sky
07/11/14 HSR09: The Chemicals — MONO
08/12/14 HSR10: Withershins — Mt Fuji in Blue
10/18/14 HSR11: Hot Cops! — Jubilee
01/17/15 HSR12: Dr Responsible — Dryads
03/18/15 HSR419: Resinater — CDXIX
04/18/15 HSR13: ACKER — Sea Songs
05/23/15 HSR14: Motes — Keep It In The Dark
02/27/15 HSR15: Terminus Victor — Under Surveillance
03/28/15 HSR16: The Chemicals — The Chemicals
04/17/15 HSR17: The Chemicals — A New Language
04/18/15 HSR18: Various Artists — Crashing the Heirship, Volume II
??/??/15 HSR19: Marathon — Sanctuary

Heirship Records regretfully announces the signing of some immature degenerates who spend more time pranking each other than learning how to strum a power chord. TOTAL ASSHOLE recorded a full album at Perennial Sound Studio in Champaign this January, with plans to release “whenever”.  The LP will be accompanied by a full line of track-by-track music videos, which will apparently be “wicked cool.”

“Total Asshole” will headline (a prerequisite they impose on every single show they play) their one-year “band” anniversary show Sunday, June 28 at Error Records, accompanied by Krelboyne, Durango, and I Actually. Frozen pizza will be undercooked and thrown at attendees, so arrive early and wait for that to show up much later than promised.

June 28 Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/454875171353666

Check out these assholes live in-studio recording the album single, “Double Parked”:

Our beloved Motes have a pre-order up for ‘Keep It in the Dark,’ their debut full-length album. The LP was recorded by Colin Althaus of Tara Terra at Earth Analog Studio in Tolono, IL in June 2014. The record release party will be Saturday, May 23 at Mike N Molly’s featuring labelmates Withershins, and shoegazers Blue Unit from Milwaukee (featuring members of the mighty Brief Candles).
‘Keep It in the Dark’ will be available on audiophile 180g vinyl, CD, and digitally via Bandcamp.

Stream the singles ‘Great Lake’ and ‘Freeway’ and pre-order the album here:

Marathon was once the solo project of Urbana resident Brandon Beachum—now it has grown into a full band. For the recording of this piece, the group came together to form a “guitarkestra”: bass guitar, two drummers on full kits, six guitar players, and a vibraphone. The resulting piece of music is an aural and emotional endurance test.

Rewards for supporting the project include a digital downloads of the album, the album on vinyl LP, a limited edition DVD produced by local filmographers, and a zine entitled “The Marathon Review,” including notes on the conception of the piece, as well as reflections from all the performers.

If you would like to support Marathon, but cannot contribute monetarily, please share the link via social media: http://kck.st/1OCc7eR

It is with great pride and excitement, as well as a heavy heart, that we announce the third—and most likely final—album by Champaign stalwarts The Chemicals. After a decade of making this music, founding member and drummer Andrew Davidson will be leaving C-U. Davidson has performed in countless other local bands (most notably The Blackouts, The Living Blue, Tractor Kings, and New Ruins).

This new album, “A New Language,” finds The Chemicals coming full-circle. “The Chemicals” displayed the raw energy of youth and booze, whereas “MONO” boasted a maturation—at least musically. “A New Language” is a ramshackle hodgepodge of wizened songwriting and shambolic angst. We don’t want to close the book on this one, but if we have to, we’re glad it’s with this.

PRE-ORDER “A NEW LANGUAGE” BY THE CHEMICALS AND DOWNLOAD/STREAM THE SINGLE “MAN MADE”:

Continuing the Heirship Reissue Series, we are happy to share the debut release from The Chemicals! Their self-titled album is similar to MONO in that it could be considered a long EP or a short LP; however, the sound is quite starkly different. Whereas MONO shows some maturity in the sense that folk and slower tempos seep into the songwriting, The Chemicals is an overall rowdy affair. The year was 2006; we were nearing the end of Bush’s reign and after half a decade of the war on terror there really wasn’t anything for disillusioned youth to do but slack off and get fucked up. Justin Gee’s vocals truly soar on these tracks, and the familiar wail of Jonny Chemical’s leads saturates the recordings. Stream the album in full at Bandcamp, and if you purchase it—you’ll get never-before-released bonus tracks that actually outnumber the official album tracks.

Long live The Chemicals!

Heirship Records is proud to announce its second volume of CRASHING THE HEIRSHIP. Volume I was released at Pygmalion of 2013. It stands as a fascinating snapshot of the Champaign-Urbana scene at the time; indeed, many of the artists featured on the release are now defunct. In this second volume, two Heirship Records artists who have since moved away are included on the cassette; however the tracks they’ve submitted are from their time here in Champaign-Urbana. In fact, the purpose of the compilation itself is one of discovery—every single recording on this tape is unreleased. Some songs are demos of tunes the twin cities already know; some were recorded specifically for this project.

Here is the link to the compilation:
https://heirshiprecords.bandcamp.com/album/crashing-the-heirship-volume-ii

Whereas volume one of Crashing the Heirship was sequenced as more of a mixtape, a chance to give those visiting C-U an idea of what it is we do here, this second volume is actually programmed in a very specific order—chronologically. These songs will be published as streams during the pre-order phase starting tomorrow, Wednesday March 25, 2015 and culminating in the full release on Record Store Day, Saturday April 18, 2015. Heirship will stream a track per day, slowly revealing these previously-unreleased recordings. Each day we will strive to tell the story of these songs, these recordings.

Here is the list of artists (in chronological order) included on the compilation:

Grandkids
Dr Responsible
Single Player
The Fights
Bookmobile!
Swords
The Superior State
We The Animals
Withershins
Terminus Victor
Penny Horses
Marathon
CURB SERVICE
ZXO
Motes
Total Asshole
TheGr8Thinkaz
Euriah
Windmills
BOYCUT
Heel Turn
Tara Terra
The Chemicals
Elsinore
ACKER

Many of these artists are signed to Heirship—some even have forthcoming releases: The Chemicals release “A New Language” CDLP in April; Motes release their debut LP “Keep it in the Dark” in May; Marathon releases its Guitarkestra piece “Sanctuary” in July.

On the release day, 100 cassettes will be released into the world. The lion’s share, 75 cassettes, will be given to the artists involved to distribute as they see fit; 25 copies are the label’s to sell online in the pre-order, or at Exile on Main St if any remain.

In tandem with the announcement of this compilation, the label will have a sale in celebration of all Heirship Records—the discount code “CRASH25” will get supporters 25% off ALL Heirship releases.

In 2005, Terminus Victor released their second album, “Under Surveillance” on Innocent Words Records.

It was the height of their powers as an industrial rock duo utilizing a drum machine to achieve brutal live performances—and with the help of producer/engineer Matt Talbott of then-named Great Western Record Recorders (now Earth Analog), some mighty recordings. This album has a strong continuity with Heirship’s third release, Prevention vs Intervention—both in terms of sound and vibe, but also quite directly in the PvI features a track called “Hopelessly Rehabilitated,” which is a sequel of sorts to the vignette track on Under Surveillance, “Hopelessly Domesticated.” As fate would have it, the track has underneath the song itself a found recording of vocalist/bassist Scott Kimble speaking with Terry Wathen at a show—this was when Terminus Victor was indeed still a duo—and Wathen of course eventually became the band’s live drummer.

To celebrate this reissue of T Vic’s sophomore effort, we present to you a cover of the fourth song on the album, “A Scream in the Park,” performed by Isaac Arms and produced by CURB SERVICE, for the buzz Magazine COVERING OUR TRACKS B-Sides released today: