Hard Copy - 12 Shots of Nature LP

Hard Copy - 12 Shots of Nature LP (Feel It/USA)

First pressing of 500 Black Vinyl shrinkwrapped with riso insert, download code, and hype sticker.

Last summer I managed to catch Hard Copy perform live and they left me in awe. They were openers on a show, totally new to me, and as all small cities seem to work, I knew a few members, but had no idea they knew each other, no less played in a band totally unlike anything happening in our city at the time. Sam, owner of Feel It ended up signing them (because he has great taste - duh), and a year later a test pressing was sent to me to check out (because Sam is also thoughtful). I wasn't asked to write an album bio by the band or the record label, but I wrote some thoughts down and sent them off to Sam because I really think this record is brave and intensely interesting. Some records tickle the brain, and 12 Shots of Nature does this to me. My email to Sam became the official album description you will read below.

They Say:

"Groundbreaking bands typically don't function as stars hanging in the night sky for all to gaze upon. Rare talent functions more accurately like tectonic plates, mutating their surroundings deep underground by bulldozing the pre existing turf. These kinds of musicians who regenerate and evolve our world by forging new creative languages that future artists will liberally borrow from and build upon. Richmond, Virginia may seem like a surprising location for seismic catalysts, but Hard Copy now joins an elite list of RVA bands moving sound in unexpected and earth shaking directions. Destruction! Invention! Rebirth!

Once upon a time there was Honor Role who deconstructed midwest hardcore and carved out a path for what eventually would become mathrock. Combining empathy wrapped in anger, a following generation would use this template to birth post-hardcore and a 2nd wave emotional music. A bit later came Labradford who were atmospheric scientists creating pulsating soundscapes bathed in drone. Their music was so devastatingly unique that Kranky willed themselves into existence to release their debut for which this historic label was built upon and continues to lead the way in experimental music. I can't help but to include Hard Copy among this kind of revelatory innovation. They are subtle shapeshifters of synth driven post-punk. At their core, we find unorthodox art rock for which Talking Heads and Pere Ubu belong, but it is stretched taut like taffy into trance-inducing, long form motorik musings. Singular vocals act as a secondary percussion. Bass lines double as a metronome heartbeat. Guitars zigzag inside a monochromatic prism. Linnear drums hammer the band's abstract narrative into a carefully crafted double-helix staircase spiraling up into ambitious avant-garde territory. Cantankerous poetry minus the Mancunian snarl of Mark E Smith behaves as a modern day deadbeat descendant making good. In short, making very very good.

RIYL the kind of bands who have no interest in grabbing a spotlight and are more likely to kick out the bulb to avoid it completely." -Tracy Wilson (Courtesy Desk)