POPTONES | NEWS

LATEST NEWS

The Singleman Affair ....

26/09/06

The Singleman Affair has been recording and demo’ing for you --- the first demos into Poptones office sound very much like Fred Neil and Paul Simon harmonising with each other ... and Dan promises things are going to get alot more turkish orientated…

He’s got a 7inch single coming out --- 500 limited edition only of Oh To Say and Leaving a Mark. And with a digital download only of Elaine (his lost soundtrack song to the Graduate)...

And that’s not all...we’ve got videos especially prepared by The Singleman Affair in promotion of the 7inch. Check it out below --- Leaving a Mark and Oh To Say

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6ID_gWxR1M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3TriZrejxk

The Singleman Affair Live in Chicago!

18/09/06

The reclusive Singleman Affair makes a rare appearance in Chicago-town with his friends from the Race. Its at a great little art gallery in chicago as part
of the around the coyote art festival. The details are below! And remember—The Singleman Affair is releasing a 500 only limited edition 7inch of Oh To Say/Leaving a Mark out on the 16th of October. And his debut album ‘Let’s Kill The Summer’ is out now. For details of the show please click below.

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Review the new Singleman Affair single...!

11/09/06

The Singleman Affair (real name: Dan Schneider), creates psychedelic new folk music, drenched in reverb, spacious sounds, sitar, guitar, and a breathy voice. In other words, he makes music a lot like Six Organs of Admittance. But while the opening track to his album Let’s Kill The Summer might sound like something that would not be out of place on the latest Ben Chasney record, the rest of the album offers something a little bit unique. Schneider recorded the album with a goal of using space to create a haze for the listener, to create a psychedelic sound that is found not in guitar wankery, but microphone wankery. He owes a lot of his recording techniques to Skip Spence, the genius/schizo who recorded “OAR” almost 40 years ago. The track included here is the single, released on Poptones, but is not necessarily my favorite track from the album, though it may be the most immediately accessible. His music does transport you to a lot of drug-induced folk music, putting everything around you at a stand still and letting yourself soak into the music. Enjoy.

Leaving a Mark/Oh To Say is released on the 16th of October. You can order his debut album ‘Let’s Kill The Summer’ by clicking here.

The Singleman Affair in Microphones in the Trees MP3 blog...

31/08/06

Songs of Green Pheasant, The Clientele, The Big Huge, A Taste of Ra, Fred Neil, Skip Spence, Leonard Cohen, The Handsome Family… sítar, panderetas, melodías cristalinas, silbidos a lo Morricone, habitaciones de hotel, ciudades de paso, road movies...The Singleman Affair me recuerdan a tantas cosas. a aquel primer disco de los españoles Grupo Salvaje, si se hubieran mudado al campo, en ‘Baby you’ve been on my mind’, a Forever Changes en ‘Sun in Your Eyes’, a los Beachwood Sparks más silvestres...Dan Schneider es un maestro a la hora de hacer canciones como ‘Dragonflies to Find’, tan emocionantes y perfectas, soleadas como ‘Little Sister’ o ‘Elaine’, campestres y divertidas como ‘Good to be with You again’, y en todas ellas suena tan seguro y familiar que Let’s kill the summer parece cualquier cosa menos un debut.

The Singleman Affair New Single!

25/08/06

The Singleman Affair
‘Oh To Say’/ ‘Leaving A Mark’/ ‘Elaine’
Debut 7” Single & Download
Poptones, 16th October 2006

“A luminous psych folk delight [that] sounds like it might have been recorded in 1968.” Time Out ****

“Full of sitar, delicate guitar lines and introspective echo box vocals. A drowsy classic to sink your mind into.” Dazed & Confused

“An album that’s curiously easy to treasure. More like this please” NME 8/10

“Distilled from John Martyn, Tim Buckley [and] Donovan, the production sounds like a study in 1960’s production techniques.” Big Issue***

“Within these reverb-drenched, acoustic guitar lines Schneider also locates a bewitching, sinister tone.” Q***

“A truly unexpected gem.” Mojo****

The Singleman Affair in the NME....

23/08/06

The Singleman Affair
Let’s Kill The Summer
8/10

‘Heat Fatigue hits Chicago’

The Poptones label’s transformation from House of the Grot into something infinitely cooler continues with The Singleman Affair, otherwise known as Chicageon Dan Schneider and his downbeat blend of ‘60 folkness and shoegazing drones. Yes, like much of this kind of thing, Schneider occassionally sounds like a manic-depressive Sufjan Stevens sitting cross-legged in a field full of dragonflies in about 1969. But the Far Eastern spin of ‘Is Madras Morning’ and the way that ‘Dragonflies To Find’ recalls Leonard Cohen at his most lugubrious make ‘Let’s Kill The Summer’ an album that’s curiously easy to treasure. More like this please.

The Singleman Affair Reviewed in the Entertainer!

18/08/06

Despite spending nearly a decade in Chicago band Pedal Steel Transmission, it wasn’t until Dan Schneider started the solo project The Singleman Affair that he got the attention of U.K. label Poptones and released his debut, Let’s Kill The Summer, overseas. With its lush ’60s folk pop core and psychedelic garnishing via sitar and wurlitzer, Schneider seems torn between melting our hearts and expanding our minds. Ultimately, that’s what makes this record work. (http://www.cardboardsangria.com)

To get your own copy of his album please click here.

Angry Ape reports on forthcoming The Singleman Affair single...

16/08/06

With his amazing new album just now, The Singleman Affair will also be releasing a new single in October.

A limited edition 7” of just 500 copies will be made available by the Poptones label on October 2nd, containing the tracks Leaving A Mark and Oh To Say. A download version will also include the bonus song Elaine.

Both songs appear on the beautiful Let’s Kill The Summer album and you can also enjoy a free MP3 from the release!

7” Track Listing:

A. Leaving A Mark, B. Oh To Say

Dazed and Approved...

14/08/06

Dazed and confused reviews the latest Singleman Affair opus ‘Let’s Kill The Summer’

Growing up listening to Skip Spence and Tim Buckley, Dan Schneider - the single man in this affair - took their psyche folk, pumped it full of sitar, delicate guitar lines and introspective echo box vocals. The result? A drowsy classic to sink your mind into.

To get your own copy please click here

entertainmentmanchester.com loves the Singleman Affair..

14/08/06

If ever there was an album to be listened to sitting under a tree on a hazy summer afternoon, then surely this is it. The Singleman Affair is Dan Schneider, and he has created a collection of songs so laidback and trippy that they should probably get arrested for smoking something illegal. Clearly influenced by 60s psychedelia, it starts off with Is Madras Morning Is, which has the kind of nonsensical title you’d have expected to find attached to a Love (RIP Arthur Lee) song, as well as a hefty dose of sitar amongst the instrumentation. It’s very quiet and reflective-sounding, but if you were expecting Dragonflies To Find to be any more raucous, you’d be disappointed, with Schneider’s Scott Walkeresque vocals barely rising above the mellow acoustic music.

NEWS RSS

Be updated every time we post more news. Simply grab the News RSS Feed.

RECENT

Have Sitar Will Travel

10/08/06

Have Sitar, Will Travel
Dan Schneider’s been plugging away for years in Pedal Steel Transmission and Hummingbiird, but it was two solo tracks he recorded at home that bought him a ticket to Europe.

Shortly before Christmas, Dan Schneider got a call from someone claiming to be Paul Brown from the UK label Poptones. “Out of the blue there’s a guy on the phone with a thick Canadian accent saying, ‘Dan, we just love your songs and we can’t stop listening to them. We want to sign you and put a record out as soon as possible. Would you be interested?’ To me, it just didn’t seem real. I figured it had to be one of my buddies calling up and playing a really cruel joke.”

Schneider wasn’t just being pessimistic. The Singleman Affair, his 60s-style psych-folk home-recording project, had released just two tracks, both on indie compilations. He’d never played a show abroad. Why would someone from across the Atlantic offer him a record deal?

Analogue Catalogue Recommends The Singleman Affair

08/08/06

The first in an occasional series, in which we acknowledge that other people apart from us release records begins with the latest release from our friends at the Poptones Recording Corporation. ‘Let’s Kill The Summer’ is the mesmeric debut album from Chicago resident Dan Schneider aka The Singleman Affair.

At a time when you can’t chuck a rock without hitting a ‘psych-folk’ artist, comes a record that is actually pretty damn good. Despite taking the 60s acid-folk route and having that warm analogue glow that we love so dearly here at ACAT HQ, this is a beautiful album that refuses to be tied to any time, scene or place. You know those albums that just seem to appear out of nowhere, that leave you scratching your head wondering where it came from and who made it? ‘Let’s Kill The Summer’ is one of those records.

Just as Skip Spence’s 1969 classic ‘Oar’ soundtracked the death of the hippy dream (maaaannnnn), here’s hoping that ‘Let’s Kill The Summer’ heralds the end of the recent upsurge in nu-folk (urgh) because lets face it, people are going to have a hard time making a better record than this.

‘Let’s Kill The Summer’ can be bought online from the excellent Boomkat.com or Amazon if you want.

The Singleman Affair - New song!

07/08/06

Those find folks at Market Frenzy have provided Poptones with an film clip of the Singleman Affair performing a brand new song for his next album on Poptones. To watch the clip (its the second one down from the top) please go to Market-Frenzy.com. And remember you can order your copy for £8.99 by clicking here.

Boomkat loves the Singleman Affair

07/08/06

Lately it seems as if just about everyone is jumping onto the folk bandwagon, you can hardly open a mainstream music magazine without stumbling upon someone banging on about a folk re-issue or another, or a classic folk artist re-discovered – you know what I’m on about. Well, here’s a folky record to give the cynical among you goosebumps. Taking a 60s acid-folk route, Schneider is unafraid of sounding retro, even to the point of mimicking old recording techniques with crumbling analogue all the way and a warm fuzz. The overall sound of this sort of music is almost as important as the songs themselves, and the hissing tape sound on ‘Let’s Kill the Summer’ is absolutely crucial to the listening experience.

The Singleman Affair remembers Arthur Lee

07/08/06

I really had a hard time finding anything of substance that would give any sort of credit to this man and artistic genius. I mean how do you find words and statements that even come close to what he is? It seems so banal, as if to “break the matter off with a smile” or something someone would have written sometime, somewhere.

From the instant I first heard Love, I remember being obsessed with the man’s voice...there was such a beautiful sadness in it, something fragile and graceful and haunting and sad all at the same time. It just blindsided me, it made me numb and quiet.

The Singleman Affair - Let's Kill The Summer - Out On Monday

04/08/06

Artist: The Singleman Affair
Title: Let’s Kill The Summer
Release Date: 07 August 2006
To get your copy please click here.
Do folk dream of opium sheep?

When Poptones signed the Singleman Affair they knew nothing about the band. Only of the songs. A sitar-little drone that was included on the Two Million Tongues Festival compilation alongside No Neck Blues Band, Josephine Foster, Pearls and Brass and Jack Rose.

They knew the song was pretty ace. And they knew the reference of the name ‘The Singleman Affair’ was a reference to the classic movie ‘The Graduate’ starring Dustin Hoffman.