Shakey Graves, The Wild Reeds

$25.

press release: Shakey Graves new EP, released September 21, features live performances of the tracks "Cops and Robbers" and "Counting Sheep" from his NPR Night Owl session that occurred in his hometown of Austin at SXSW earlier this year. The session was filmed at the historic Saengerrunde Hall.

Shakey Graves' new album, Can't Wake Up (Dualtone), has received praise for veering from the inevitable to the revelatory; its thirteen songs teeming with jarring musical and thematic collisions and thrillingly seamless intersections, gnarly psychological hornswoggles and ecstatic resolutions. Central to the prevailing sense of disorientation are the lead vocals, none of which is purely solo. Instead, each lead performance is shadowed by a queasy harmony or slightly out-of-sync unison part, giving the sense-especially on headphones-that these voices are emanating from inside the listener's head.

"Armed with new instruments and a lifetime of dreams, he forgoes his boot-stomping, cheeky folk for a sound that fluctuates between finely-tuned rock and full-band pop," comments NPR's Nina Corcoran. "Alejandro Rose-Garcia (aka Shakey Graves) pulls it off in large part due to his storytelling prowess; these songs would be welcoming, even enthralling, in any style."

[Shakey Graves] has evolved from a campfire storyteller into a songwriter armed with a full band, and the rich instrumentation clouds around his lyrics like Broadway set designs."

- Nina Corcoran, NPR

"Rose-Garcia takes listeners deep on a trip inside his psyche with this genre-melding fifth effort."

- Jess Huddleston, CBC

"Can't Wake Up completes his metamorphosis into an exceptional songwriter whose songs manifest into cinematic novellas...Don't sleep on Shakey Graves' rebirth."

- Alejandra Ramirez, Austin Chronicle

"You can hear the change in direction loud and clear as Graves puts away the six-string and breaks out the electric guitar."

- Elissa Fertig, Baeble