SHR – 012 THE ORCHARD

 Spy Hop Productions latest superstar band, The Orchard, has spent the last ten months locked away in a frenzied creative state in downtown Salt Lake City creating their debut statement. And finally, it’s here in the form of a full-length album, simply titled, “The Orchard”.

Armed with several multi-instrumentalists and songwriters, this band has created a fresh and distinct sound drawing from pop, hip-hop and classic balladry formats. From the opening Stratocaster jangle of ‘60’s pop inspired “Oh Philia” to the mysterious and breathtaking noir stylings of “Atlas”, The Orchard is an album thick with layers of music and impressive lyrical statements.

For example, in the playful art jam, “Paint”, poet and rapper William Palomo takes the listener all over the world and concludes with the statement,“We’ll fall asleep on soundclouds. Ask the sky where to go. We can fall asleep in Paris, wake up in Tokyo. Walk with me across the universe. We’ll let the paint drip down our hearts, And sweat to the Jazz drum before it all falls apart.”

After spending time with “The Orchard” it may seem this young band is about to crack the world open and relish in what they find. It’s a great perspective that any listener would be privileged to share.

And, shhhhhh, there’s even a secret bonus track included.

Track List:

01. Oh Philia

02. Paint

03. Blur Of Madness

04. Hey Hey

05. Fed

06. Bird Distracted

07. Mic And A Moshpit

08. Pilate

09. Atlas 

SHR – 011 GRAINS OF SALT

Those crazy teenagers at Spy Hop Records have done it again! Just in time for the dog days of Summer, they’ve put together a compilation of young, fierce, eclectic local music. And, this time around, it’s packaged in a limited edition (only 100 made!) hand screenprinted (thanks Copper Palate Press!) case that includes a full color booklet completely designed by the staff of Spy Hop Records! This CD represents the true DIY spirit that once thrived in the underground music world.

Feed your musical ADD with electronic mind melting jams from The Ethical Chemist, rock to the spooky sounds of The Direction, get back to your roots with The Mighty Sequoyah and finally, let Come September relax you in their melodic hammock. And then, start the disc over, because it’s an addictive musical journey that you’ll want to take again and again.

Don’t miss out on this chance to hear what Salt Lake City sounds like to our young artists and superstars of tomorrow!

Track List:

01. J Ray – “Strawberry Leaves”

02. Bonneville Saints – “P B & J”

03. Big Blue Ox -”Til The Cows”

04. The Ethical Chemist VS. Daniel Nehring II – “La Lingua Franca Des Tambours”

05. MCKC – “Baker”

06. The Direction – “Buried Lies”

07. Zack Langi – “You’re All Mine”

08. Spobo & The Sing Alongs – “Low Battery”

09. Skellum – “Scriptures”

10. The Mighty Sequoyah – “Home”

11. Come September – “Fallen For The Day”

SHR – 010 IN RETROSPECT

 Joel Brown is an auspicious 22-year-old University of Utah student who has been writing songs and performing locally since he was fifteen.  At the age of nine, Joel was paralyzed from the chest down in a car accident a few months after moving from Maryland to Utah with his newly divorced mother. These events shaped his life personally, and as an artist. 

“In Retrospect,” his first solo album, is a somber musical wave crested with emboldening highlights that crash upon your soul with a melancholic power. The songs, sometimes sung with a painfully open heart, address growing up in a wheelchair and life without a visible father, among other things. Joel sums up his experiences in the song “In Retrospect,” singing, “In case the past ever comes back, I’ll keep the letters in a sack, hidden in a cabinet one day I’ll open it. While looking back in retrospect I only hear noise.” 

Joel’s dynamic album not only showcases the singer and his guitar but also gives way to lush euphonic arrangements that include the likes of strings, grand piano, drums, bass, and a myriad of harmony vocals. Literally composed from start to finish by the means of staff paper and pen, this lachrymose album is a bud on a soon to blossom tree that is Joel Brown’s career. The album,  it should be noted, was recorded and mastered in its entirety by the students at Spy Hop Records in downtown Salt Lake City. 

Track List:

01. Just Friends 

02. Baby Hungry

03. Ghosts

04. Lullaby

05. Personal Rockstar

06. Veterans Day

07. Pioneers and Pilgrims

08. I Need You

09. Glass

10. Doorbell

11. In Retrospect

SHR – 007 SHR 2010 SAMPLER

The staff of Spy Hop Records proudly presents the second limited edition sampler featuring our current roster of artists! We’ve expanded our musical palette this year to include the incredibly talented 6-piece rock band The Direction and their “Another Song About Nothing Being Original”. I’ll give you three guesses as to what this song is about! This compilation also features our first female singer / songwriter, Eliza Shearon and her catchy original “Hold On”. We’re expecting great things from this young lady in the near future! For you Dub-Hop fans out there we’ve got a great team effort from Malevolent MC and our very own futuristic beat designer, Goldbug. It’s mysterious and it’s called “Aladdin”. And, we’ve got our first taste of Mr. Joel Brown who could very likely take the crown of most heartfelt songster right off the head of Salt Lake’s own Sam Burton. Here they are having a sensitive battle, right on our CD. Who knew? It’s a good thing we’ve got them both right here at Spy Hop Records where we continue to offer you the best in new youth music from Salt Lake City!

Track List:

01. Sam Burton – Don’t Be A Fake 

02. The Direction – Another Song About Nothing Being Original

03. Eliza Shearon – Hold On

04. Malevolent MC – Aladdin

05. Joel Brown – Lullaby

06. Idyll Rigamarole – Four Words

SHR – 006 HALFWAY TO HELL

Orion Chacon-Hurst is a shaggy, unassuming songwriter with a penchant for writing timeless country and psychedelic rockabilly that speaks a potent musical language without having to scream. Orion, a seemingly old soul despite his young age, has already had a decade of musical experience with which to chisel out his own niche in Salt Lake’s growing mountain of musical talent. After becoming discouraged by other musical group ventures, Orion recently focused his songwriting energies and set to work on his own original recordings. He has taken a step back from the modern mainstream scene and immersed himself in the beginnings of American music, delving into an earlier era when music was “three chords and the truth”.

Orion’s interest in the past has proven to be the best choice he could have made musically. Orion demands attention with every song, using his intense talent on the guitar and his low bellow to provide a modern twist on dark, outlaw country similar to Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and other musical greats. He adds his own flair to his work, using intricate instrumentals and blunt libretto to display his fierce and seasoned musical ability.

Orion is truly one of a kind, standing alone in this much abandoned genre that has spawned some of music’s most famous and beloved legends. He comes to Spy Hop Records armed with ambition, a profound love for music, and an artistic endowment that will surprise and hook any audience. “Music is the only thing I’m good at,” says Orion when asked to explain his dedication to the art form. “I’ll follow it wherever it takes me”. With any luck, we’ll all be able to follow Orion as his musical career unfolds before us, and as he, too, launches himself into the realm of the legendary.

Track List:

01. Halfway to Hell

02. Lonesome Road

03. Slam

04. Cry

05. All My Love

06. Nightmare

07. ***

SHR – 008 FROM VII & IV

Upon hearing the first three chords of “The Tools”; the opening track of “From VII & IV”, you can tell you’re in for a wild ride. The guitar charges in, the high-hat keeps time in anticipation, Elan Bartholemew gives Felicia Anderton a little studio direction and like a racehorse, they’re off and running fast through eleven tracks of real Rock and Roll ear candy.

This album is full of wailing guitar solos, classic rock reference and even moments of tranquility. But, the frosting on this multi-layered cake is the strong and flexible vocal style of Felicia, who makes the perfect rock front-woman with the ability to scream like a banshee or softly coo like a dove.

Alongside all of the musical goodness are many descriptive stanzas. In “Digging”, a blissfully reflective respite, Elan and Flea gently sing, “I climb the mountain just to leave you behind / that horrible memory that I kept inside / so I bite my cracked lips and I say my goodbyes / but as you shed your tears I can’t force mine” and the piano reaches a crescendo over cloudy drum rhythms.

The Direction are a young and talented band armed with a lot of guitars, even more ambition, and a slew of well constructed, catchy songs to back it all up. So, do yourself a favor and give this, their first full-length album, a spin, and enjoy the ride!

Track List:

01. The Tools

02. Another Song About Nothing Being Original 03. Void

04. Ignore This

05. Tooth And Nail

06. Phone Tag

07. Beautiful Iris

08. The Officer’s Club

09. Nakuru

10. Digging

11. Perfect Isn’t Happy

SHR – 009 …ALL OF LIFE IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY…

 Idyll Rigamarole is a seven-being powerhouse that utilizes it’s large array of talent to produce animated and charismatic songs. Despite the short time these individuals have played as a group, they have proven their collective craft through bright bursts of creativity in performances all over Salt Lake. And, they have even established a crowd favorite in the smooth sounds of the song “Heart of Darkness”.

With alternating vocalists, eclectic sounds, and the song-writing influence of several band members, audiences are never left with a bland performance. ”…all of life is a foreign country…”, is a pleasant yet deep sounding journey through life and longing from the perspective of a young mind. Though influenced by shades of The Rentals, Arcade Fire, Fiona Apple and the Fruit Bats, this debut is still grounded firmly in the sound of these seven multi-talented individuals. The songs are ever-changing as vocals range from lush velvet tones to urgent squeezed messages while guitars, pianos and vibraphones swirl underneath creating a folky and psychedelic landscape that sticks with the listener like the aftertaste of a new and exotic meal. 

“Music is exactly what I like to do.” says Idyll drummer Braden Tipton. This straight-forward statement perfectly encompasses the enjoyment found in music for all the band members. Luckily for us listeners, this unbridled joy has been captured and is there for the taking every time “…all of life is a foreign country…” is heard! 

Track List:

01. Stationary Nomad

02. Anger

03. Flibbertigibbet

04. Benchmark

05. Atlantis

06. Heart Of Darkness

07. Four Words

08. Kid 

This sampler is a compilation of the artists signed to Spy Hop Records in 2009. Spy Hop Records is a teen-run record label located within Spy Hop Productions at 511 West 200 South in Salt Lake City, Utah. Our goal is to create an independent, artist-driven record label that will serve to produce, distribute, and promote unsigned bands in the Salt Lake area. The songs included on this sampler span a number of different genres, from the stylistic phrasing of hip hop maven Malevolent MC’s “Charm Quark” to the vintage rockabilly sounds of Orion Chacon-Hurst’s “Halfway To Hell” and the emotive musical stylings of Sam Burton’s “Sweater.” The Spy Hop Records 2009 Spring Sampler ushers in a new era of blossoming sounds just in time to melt away the winter frost.

Track List:

01. Charm Quark – Malevolent MC

02. Halfway to Hell -Orion Chacon-Hurst

03. Dies Out – UniverseAll

04. Psuedo Static – Christian Butler

05. Sweater – Sam Burton

06. Swifty – Roe

07. Lights and Sound – Chris Bullock

SHR – 002 DEFINITION

A savvy wordsmith, Malevolent MC brings a unique and intelligent form of hip-hop to the Salt Lake valley. Born in New York City as Ian Sanabria, he relocated to Utah around the age of 2 and developed an early interest in expression. During his formative years in school, a creative writing teacher encouraged Ian to shift his development of slam poetry to the songwriting realm. He took this teacher’s advice and created the alias Malevolent MC, which described his political and social mentality, as well as his habit of attacking tracks with eminent talent and relentless zeal.

Malevolent MC’s commanding, cool voice yields clever verse that can be described as both personal poetry and meaningful commentary. Malevolent pairs his unique breed of idiom with electro-hop beats that push limits, and immerses listeners in a new realm of musical exploration to gather a supportive and interested fan-base. This elaborate alchemist is happy to remain outside of the box, allowing for surprises and delights in every piece of music he creates through avant-garde musicality, impassioned vernacular, and hidden meaning. Malevolent MC is establishing himself as a singular and ever present voice in Salt Lake and remains at the top of his creative game, seeing impossible not as a limit, but as a  dare.

Track List:

01. Who I Be

02. Harlequin

03. Vividity

04. Flowers

05. Manifest

06. Longtime

07. Charm

08. Definition

SHR – 003 GOT SENT UP

Track List:

01. Calling Me Out

02. Got Sent Up

03. (Oh) Baby Please

04. Let’s Drink Some Risky

05. Stay Gone

Both equally passionate about hip-hop in their own unique way, Roe and UniverseAll stand out as having an uncommon gift with words despite their youth. They manage to gracefully bridge the gap between light-hearted lyrical witticisms and sobering life lessons, all the while utilizing an impressive poetic pallet.

UniverseAll (Sam Jackson), who draws from the likes of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, J-Dilla, Gang Starr, Brand Nubian and A Tribe Called Quest for inspiration, is an intellectually switched-on and clearly talented 14 year old who’s lyrical talent is clear within seconds of his getting on the mic. He has a unique style, equal parts old and new school; he raps with intention and maintains a relaxed tone to make listeners comfortably bob their heads in enjoyment.

Roe (Robert Menasco) whom one might initially take to be quiet and soft-spoken, unleashes an impressive array of lyrical ability every time he graces the stage. With clearly unique methods and tongue twisting feats, he shows an endearing personal quality that is most apparent whilst rhyming. Both of these young artists offer a refreshing break in the monotonous hip-hop cloud, and will doubtlessly continue to impress over the course of their musical careers.

Track List:

01. Visitors

02. Gremlins

03. Swifty

04. Mind Pollution

05. Viet Cong

06. Sweet Ending

07. Dies Out

08. Everything

09. Eat & Run

“Fourier” is the first step in the songwriting journey of young songwriters Chris Bullock and Christian Butler. At first listen, these teen-age rockers sound like seasoned veterans from another era. From opening track, “Pseudo Static”, it is apparent that smoky voiced Christian Butler is obsessed with mental illness and insanity. The young songwriter composes lyrics about man-eating rats in “The Gaze” and staring longingly out of the asylum window in “Pontiac.” Chris Bullock, with his emotive tenor, starts out personal in “The Ballad” with lyrics about a father figure then moves to a bitingly sarcastic remark about the music industry in “The Producer”. Overall, “Fourier” is a trip down a progressive and sometimes dark road. It’s quite an impressive first outing for a group of teens who just met a year previous.

Track List:

01. Pseudo Static

02. The Gaze

03. The Ballad

04. Pontiac

05. The Producer