New Release From Driveway Ceiling
Originally from Trumbull, Connecticut, and now scattered across the country, indie psych pop quartet Driveway Ceiling brings together trippy sunshine pop, Tropicalia, and art rock on its debut album, Death of the Walden Newspaper Co. Previously released digitally, the record arrives on vinyl and Special Edition CD for the first time on October 30 via Independent Project Records. Its 15 songs unfold across 44 minutes of melodies, harmonies, spoken word interludes, and appearances from the elusive Mr. Walden, a Hearst-like media tycoon whose redemption comes through rhythm and melody. Gathering in a house in Pennsylvania, the band put a Batman towel on the snare drum, pulled their guitar straps up a little too high, and set about making an almost-concept album that connects the psychedelic adventures of the Beatles and the Kinks with the homemade invention of The Apples in Stereo and Elf Power. The result looks both backward and forward, balancing the sounds of the 1960s and 1990s with the restless imagination of four musicians coming of age today.
The album found its way to IPR founder and co-owner Bruce Licher through a chance YouTube recommendation. Listening to another band, Licher was unexpectedly introduced to Driveway Ceiling and became increasingly convinced that he wanted to give Death of the Walden Newspaper Co. a physical release. For the band, whose previous physical ambitions extended to burning CDs to send out with merchandise, the connection began as a simple message from someone who liked their music. It grew into a collaboration with a label whose enthusiasm for adventurous records and distinctive packaging suited the project’s fictional newspaper world. Available on black or opaque forest green vinyl and Special Edition CD, the album gives its story in paper and ink a fitting home beyond the digital realm, reviving the possibilities of the concept album nearly sixty years after the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Kinks’ The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.
“Here it reads as a band that loves too many records to pick one.” — The Big Takeover
“The brilliant, trippy debut that subverts the concept album.” — RabbleRouse News
FCC Warning (AmApAc digital servicing): Track 5
FCC Warning (CD, vinyl, streaming): Tracks 4, 5, 6, 9
Label: Independent Project Records
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