THE POISON ARROWS

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Chicago's The Poison Arrows return with their third EP, and the second EP as a full band comprised of bassist Patrick Morris, Adam Reach, and Justin Sinkovich.  After Sinkovich released a solo EP entitled Trailer Park as The Poison Arrows in 2004 on File Thirteen; He, Reach, and Morris began playing together. Songs were assembled in their studio The Plaza as the band
formed. A first release was constructed by the three musicians working with prewritten material, individually layering on top of each other's work, then extensive editing and manipulating the sounds, all of which comprised March 2007's File Thirteen EP Straight Into The Drift.

While completing the overdubbing, editing, and mixing of the Straight Into The Drift EP, The Poison Arrows began to write songs together as a band. One of the key principles of the band's playing together was (and still is) to appreciate the moment, and not over analyze a band-mate's compositions, or the band's assemblage of arrangements. After a year had passed, over an album's worth of music materialized.

The Poison Arrows went into Steve Albini's Electrical Audio Studio A with staff engineer and long-time friend Greg Norman to record the basic tracks for about a dozen songs. After completing the basic tracks at Electrical, all of the overdubs were recorded at The Plaza. As they continue to finish mixes of the awaited debut full-length album, the Casual Wave EP was completed. This
four-song EP shows a substantial evolution of The Poison Arrows into a band. All of the main tracks from the EP are played together with no editing. The sounds from Electrical Audio are embraced instead of drastically manipulated like the previous EP, while overdubs follow arrangements that were previously decided upon by live arrangements. The skeleton of the first and title track "Casual Wave" was initially written as the opening movement of a live film score for Year, a film by avant garde filmmaker Michael Betancourt. Betancourt has taken this final incarnation and directed a video for the track that was inspired by his work to begin with.  This title track also shows the band's shift move toward a more synth-centric sound, as currently
Sinkovich splits his time between keyboards and guitars almost evenly at this point on stage on in the studio. The final track "Frozen Human Satellite" was originally composed as an instrumental.  The track was further developed in the studio with friend Bruce Lamont of Yakuza contributing saxophone and Patrick Morris recording his first-ever vocals.

The Poison Arrows have been playing live in the Midwest and East with the likes of Battles, Enon, Indian, Shipping News, School of Language, and many more. Look for them to tour for the release of the Casual Wave EP.