Overachievers they may be, but if “A Better Life” is any indication, here’s hoping this is the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship for Supersmall.
Elmore Magazine had the exclusive on our track “A Better Life” from our upcoming album Silent Moon. Album release date has been set for January 22nd, 2016.
Click HERE to read the article and hear the song.
Colin was lucky to chat with Jaime Pond of Anglonerd Magazine recently regarding his comedy and music. If like us, you’re a total anglophile we highly recommend checking out the magazine for yourself (and not just for the interview). It’s filled with everything you miss from Irish & UK television.
Last month, I visited Irish bar Ryan’s Daughter in New York City to attend the renowned storytelling series Stoops to Nuts, as I sometimes do, and was delighted by the music of indie rock duo Supersmall, whose debut album Silent Moon comes out February 2016. One half of Supersmall is Irish comedian and storyteller Colin Dempsey, who, in addition to delighting us with his tunes, told–for the first time on stage–the story of owning a car from hell that resulted in a broken hand and, in a round about way, broken ribs. After the demon vehicle kept him away from the steering wheel for ten years, Dempsey now drives in his home of New York City, which, he says, is like driving in Mad Max but with drivers who are more reckless.
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“There was some anxiety due to writer’s block, not being able to finish a song or three, and a healthy dose of self-doubt here and there.”
We sat down with RJ from Vents Magazine for an interview. You can read it by clicking HERE.
Kind words from AudioFuzz about our single Riot. Click HERE to read the article.
“Supersmall is composed of singer-songwriter, Colin Dempsey, and drummer, Daniela Schiller. Dempsey is an Irish writer and storyteller based in New York. He has performed his unique blend of indie-rock music in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and most recently, the US. Schiller is a musician, storyteller and Neuroscientist, who leads the Schiller Lab of Affective Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Together, they make beautiful dreamy pop music in the same vein as The Mountain Goats and a more straight-forward version of Neutral Milk Hotel with stripped down production. There is nothing at all small about Supersmall, they are a large sounding folk/pop group. Beautiful vocals, beautiful arrangements.” – AudioFuzz
‘Riot’ gets some attention over at Independent Clauses November Acoustic Tracks
We done it! With Ross Otto joining us on bass, we played our new album along with some old tunes to a full house at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 3. We worked really hard on this record and pushed ourselves a little out of our comfort zone to achieve something very different from the first that we are utterly proud of. We gave ourselves two years to do it, and we finished pretty close to the finish line. You need to do this when you have other commitments (day jobs, babies, other band commitments, lives in general). I remember writing the last two lines to A Better Life in my car in the studio car lot the day we recorded it. Tom, our producer jokes about how highly strung I was during some of the recording. I was. Two songs, Siren and Riot were finished in the studio while Take A Day Off was plucked from a solo record I was working on at a different studio. Anyway, now it’s finished. Although we physically gave away the album to everyone who attended, the digital release will be sometime in the new year. Thanks again to all who came out to see our show, as we begin promoting this one we have already begun writing the next. And so the cycle continues, the musical adventures continue…
All photos taken by the talented Thomas Pryor
Congrats to Daniela on publishing the following paper: A Map for Social Navigation in the Human Brain
The artwork in the paper is by the very talented Taylor Williams who also creates all Supersmall’s artwork.
Tonight I spent a few hours back at Moon Lab Studios to finish the vocals on what will be the last track of the album. I had gone to Moon Labs to record a solo single a while ago but after spending a lot of time on it, I felt it was god enough to include on the Supersmall album. This is the only track Daniela did not play on. Lane (owner/producer/engineer) put me in contact with two jazz musicians to play drums and bass and the overall feel of the song is very different. It will be the closing track on the album. Anyway, I guess I wrote all this to say that Silent Moon is now officially finished, done, over, no more recording. We master the tracks and then when the artwork is finished, we go on sale.
Colin, signing out, July 1st, 2015 😉
I spent three days last week at the studio mixing the record now that all the recording has been done. It’s a long, slow but interesting process (of which the producer does 99.99% of the work – credit where it.s due). During the mixing of ‘Riot’ I felt it needed a guitar solo and was able to record it on what is now my latest obsession, a Gibson Memphis ES-330. We removed some backing vocals on ‘Free From Harm’ (also known as the yacht rock song) and made some minor adjustments here and there but it was mostly re-amping previous recordings. It sounded great and I’m sitting with them for a week or so to let them sink in. Tomorrow I return to Moon Lab Studios to finish the vocals on ‘Take The Day Off’ and then they’ll all be sent to get mastered and viola! We have our next record/first album. Much respect to Tom our producer, he’s an infinite supply of patience and energy. After touring the country opening for Neko Case, his first gig back was mixing our indie rock record. Daniela couldn’t make the sessions herself but hey, that’s what WhatsApp is for 😉
Below are some random pics of the days spent mixing.
Well this update is a little on the late side, a full week late in fact. After recording I had a hectic week and tonight is the only chance I’ve had to sit down and write. Anyway, day 3…
Jeremy, a piano player friend of our Producer Tom lives close to me in Queens, so I picked him up in the car early Sunday morning and we drove to the studio together. He’s from Atlanta, Georgia but spent a lot of time in Athens. I of course nerded out being the huge R.E.M. fan that I am. Yes he met them, yes they’re all awesome.
As soon as we arrived we began putting keyboards on almost all the songs so we could return during the mixing stage and edit what we need. First up was ‘Home’, a fast-moving tune not unlike ‘This Other World’, then some Rhodes Organ was put on what is becoming my favorite tune ‘A Better Life’ (also known as the Belle and Sebastian song).
Some subtle strings were then laid down over the bridge of ‘Free From Harm’. This song is the one we’ve been referring to as ‘Yacht Rock’ due to its early 80’s, fun melodic vibe if you’re been looking at our tweets and Instagrams.
‘Silent Moon’ got some beautiful touches from the grand piano and a little Wurlitzer too. Like cheese, the Wurlitzer goes good on everything. Background strings also were used to fill it out a little.
‘Between The Sun and Candlelight’ got some grand piano chording which really helped the choruses. There is a lot of guitar on this track and it’s the one song that has morphed into something very different from what it started out as. It’s always interesting to see that happen.
‘Siren’ needs little or nothing but we put a faint background fill throughout which really suits it. This is a very complicated guitar part but to be honest it’s Daniela’s drumming which really rounds out the sound.
‘Riot’ which is just me on guitar remained untouched. I done many takes of this song and in some my voice in stronger while the guitar is weak and then in others the guitar is strong and my voice is wreak. I think this is to do with the fact that the song itself has changed constantly in tempo, key and lyrics. To be honest, I was still tweaking it until about two weeks before recording. I’m very proud of it, the version we done is as close as I could get to what was in my head although the tempo picks up a little at the end. Click Track? Yeah we don’t use that.
This Wednesday night we have a trumpet player coming in for the choruses of ‘A Better Life’ and then we need to figure if ‘Riot’ actually needs anything. Cello? Violin? Maybe it’s fine the way it is. Jeremy left early and I stayed back to give the songs a final listen and pack up. On the way home I stopped off at an Irish bar just a mile or so south of the GWB that I had passed on previous nights. something about it intrigued me, it was just a dive in the middle of nowhere really. I parked the car, walked inside and Like any local, everyone turned around and greeted me. I had a beer and watched part of a baseball game along with everyone else. It felt good to have all the work behind me. It took two years to get this Album together, many songs written and discarded, but we have Eight songs that we are very proud of and I’m looking forward to promoting it and playing live again.
Listening back to the rough takes it’s hard to imagine that Daniela was seven months pregnant while she was banging on the drums. She really rocks out on ‘Between The Sun And Candlelight’ so keep that in mind when you hear it.
I worked on a new song this morning and felt good about it, maybe it’s gonna be the first song on the next record 😉
– Colin
Supersmall 