Pearly Gate Music
Bella Union are delighted to announce the signing of Pearly Gate Music, which is the musical outpouring of Zach Tillman (brother of Fleet Foxes drummer and singer/songwriter in his on right Josh Tillman). Zach’s music has a self professed ‘slacker’ vibe, drawing inspiration from bands like The velvet Underground, Pavement and Neutral Milk Hotel, but like these aforementioned bands he has the ability to create real beauty here too. Zach’s self titled debut album will be released on Bella Union on Monday 3rd May.
Here is what Zach had to say…
Pearly Gate Music is Zach Tillman. Zach Tillman is from Maryland, but now he lives in Seattle. After high school and nearly a decade of trying to be a decent, hard-working proletariat (“for goodness’ sake”, Zach’s dad might say) he’s taken up permanent residency on deadbeat street and what better way to spend time there than home recording? and since there’s too much music on this planet anyway, he’s figured what’s the hurt in making a little more. He’s bought a casio keyboard and eats food and sings songs into his laptop. Sometimes he even plays acoustic guitar!
In 2009, Zach was offered a junior songwriting position at Bella Union and the stars aligned! Money for nothing and my chicks for free! See dad, I told you I could make it!
But wait, here come my deadbeat friends!
“Oh, hello, deadbeat friends! Want to head over to Kory’s and make an album? We can eat pizza there!”
“Sounds great!” says Josh, “I’ll bring some drums!”
“I don’t know,” says Joe, “can I use my beautiful fender precision bass guitar?”
“Of course you can!”
“Well then, OK! lets do it!”
“What about me?” Colin interjects from the couch.
“Oh, I thought you were sleeping, and I only thought that because you are such a deadbeat, but c’mon! grab your guitar and let’s go!”
Recording at Kory’s proved to be fruitful… fruitful in a deadbeat, “good enough” kind of way which is just fine for Zach (“you’ll never make it with that kind of attitude” sheesh…), who really likes that fuzzy, non-deliberate kind of sound played so loud your eardrums scream. The record turned out like a quilt. A quilt made by zach who doesn’t know the first thing about quilting. But aren’t those the best kinds?
This is Pearly Great Music; bedroom and garage music. Only listen to Pearly Gate Music with headphones and at a volume that is sure to get those holy rings a-blastin’. Really, Zach just hopes Steve Malkmus might hear this somehow and smile down from his great sofa in the sky and to have everything finally make sense.
“I’m not dead,” says Steve Malkmus “and this stuff is terrible.”
“I love you too, Steve. I love you too.”
