Optical Atlas

Courtesy Shout Factory/Majordomo, here’s the new video from Miles Kurosky, “Dog in the Burning Building.” The former Beulah frontman’s debut solo album, The Desert of Shallow Effects, is available now (early!) from the label’s website.

Folks, this sounds like vintage Beulah to me. It’s very, very good.

It’s been known – for years – that Beulah frontman Miles Kurosky was assembling, post band breakup, a solo debut album, but earlier this year (while this website was caught napping) a title, release date, and tour dates have been announced.  And while you have to wait until March 9th to get ahold of The Desert of Shallow Effects (via Majordomo Records), a promo-style EP by the same name is available now on iTunes.  Think of it as an appetizer.  Below you can find a track listing, live dates, and the full press release highlighting the main course. For more info, head over to the Miles Kurosky website, or if you’re headed out to see him live, make a song request at his Facebook page.

The Desert of Shallow Effects,
by Miles Kurosky

1. Notes From The Polish Underground
2. An Apple For An Apple
3. Dead Language Blues
4. I Can’t Swim
5. She Was My Dresden
6. Pink Lips, Black Lungs
7. The World Won’t Last The Night
8. Housewives And Their Knives
9. Dog In The Burning Building
10. West Memphis Skyline

03.16.10 – Dallas, TX @ The Cavern
03.17-19.10 – Austin, TX (SXSW)
03.20.10 – Houston, TX – Rudyards
03.22.10 – Nashville, TN – The Basement
03.24.10 – Washington, DC – DC 9
03.25.10 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
03.26.10 – New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
03.27.10 – Allston, MA – Great Scott
03.29.10 – Pittsburgh, PA – Brillobox
03.30.10 – Columbus, OH – The Basement
04.01.10 – Chicago, IL – Schubas
04.02.10 – Minneapolis, MN – 400 Bar
04.03.10 – Omaha, NE – The Waiting Room
04.05.10 – Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
04.07.10 – Los Angeles, CA – The Echo
04.08.10 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom Of The Hill
04.09.10 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
04.10.10 – Seattle, WA – The Tractor

Miles Kurosky, former lead singer and songwriter of indie rock heroes Beulah, has announced that his first solo album, titled The Desert of Shallow Effects, will be released March 9 on Majordomo Records, an imprint of Shout! Factory.  Produced by Kurosky and engineered by former Beulah member Eli Crews (Deerhoof, Why?), The Desert of Shallow Effects is a meticulously crafted, ambitious gem, utilizing a cast of more than two dozen musicians (among them several ex-Beulah members) playing a vast array of instruments. The album release will be followed by a national tour.

For Kurosky, the six years since the demise of the San Francisco-based band have been the best and worst of times. Miles married a woman he met during the final Beulah tour, wrote the most personal and sophisticated music of his career, and recorded his first-ever solo album, The Desert of Shallow Effects. Along the way Miles suffered from severe shoulder problems that made playing the guitar impossible and required two reconstructive surgeries. Then, just as he was recuperating, he began to suffer from kidney problems that also required hospital time.

Painful as the hiatus may have been for the artist, fans of Kurosky’s previous work with Beulah finally have something to celebrate. Although it took all of those years for Kurosky to regain his physical strength, he slowly but willfully managed to put together The Desert of Shallow Effects. In some ways the album is a continuation from where Kurosky left off in his career, but at the same time it heralds a giant leap into the new and untried.

“When I wrote lyrics before, for Beulah, they were of an esoteric nature, but this time, I wanted them to read like stories,” says Kurosky of the compositions that populate The Desert of Shallow Effects. The album’s title itself comes from a quote by the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Its 10 tracks are rich and intricate, panoramic and cinematic, yet undeniably intimate and deeply revealing. Viewed as a unified entity they tell where Kurosky has been and where he is today, but they do so in a way that is never contrived or precious.

The critically praised San Francisco–based Beulah was formed in 1996 by Miles Kurosky and Bill Swan. The band released four albums and was very influential in the indie-rock world, gaining fans with their contemplative lyrics and catchy, ’60s-influenced melodies. Beulah toured with Cake, Wilco, Guided By Voices, Of Montreal, and The Apples in Stereo, and were by all accounts on their way up in the rock world, dubbed “the best band you’ve never heard.” They appeared on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, made Magnet magazine’s list of Lost Classics and The Onion A.V. Club’s Hall of Fame, and their album When Your Heartstrings Break recently came in at #37 on Amazon’s 100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums of all time.

However, nearly ten years into their career, Beulah decided to go their separate ways in 2004, after a final tour in support of Yoko, their most highly-praised album, as documented in the film “A Good Band Is Easy To Kill.” Beulah left behind an important musical legacy which Miles Kurosky will continue, beginning with The Desert of Shallow Effects.

We’ve been waiting for Beulah frontman Miles Kurosky’s solo debut for a while now, after being teased by a MySpace page and a new song last year.  Pitchfork has finally announced that the album has found a home with Shout Factory subsidiary Majordomo Records.  Expect the new album in March 2010.  More info to come.  Thanks to Sundance Kid for the link.

We’ve known for a while that Beulah’s Miles Kurosky is working on a solo album.  A MySpace page popped up a while back, and Miles posted a new song there, as well as some unused remixes Beulah did of Yoko Ono’s “Let Me Count the Ways.”

Then a lot of silence.

Or so we thought.  Apparently in January of this year animator Fran Krause of The Kraus Brothers posted on his blog that he was working on a video for one of the songs off Miles’ upcoming album, one “which is about a dog in a burning building.”  And I wouldn’t have known about this at all except that Nomad just discovered it and posted a link on the Townhall (thanks, Nomad).  Click here for Fran Krause’s whole piece, including images from the video.  He also points out that Miles worked on the soundtrack for The Upstate Four.

But whither this new Miles Kurosky album?  We’re still waiting…