HERMIT THRUSHES

AGENT: YIANNI

AVAILABILITY: GENERALLY AVAILABLE FOR OFFERS / UPCOMING SHOWS

TOOLS: MAKE AN OFFER / PROMO MATERIALS

BAND SITES:  OFFICIAL BAND WEBSITE

LABEL:  JOYFUL NOISE RECORDINGS (US) / SINGLE GIRL, MARRIED GIRL (US)

FREE MP3: Snowflake Heart

HOMETOWN:  Philadelphia, PA

DISCOGRAPHY:

2009 - SLIGHT FOUNTAIN CD/LP

2008 - BENAKI CD

BIO:

Hermit Thrushes are a strange, ambitious power that only the east coast could have birthed. Cryptic lyrics in English and Greek sit comfortably overtop angular guitar parts, melodic bass lines and fine-tuned drumming. Standard rock instruments are supplemented by melodic doublings on trumpet, spare glockenspiel lines, noisy organ chords and drums filled with metal.

In the Fall of 2006, Yianni Kourmadas (guitar, vocals) embarked upon an extended trip to Greece. Far removed from family and friends, he wrote and recorded a handful of songs on a guitar he trash-picked in Athens and collected hours of field recordings. The songs and sounds he captured reflected happiness, curiosity and loneliness. When he returned to his home in Philadelphia, a small group of friends assembled to perform and record these songs. After three months of playing together, the recordings (both the basement recordings of the young band and the recordings made in Greece) would become the first Hermit Thrushes album, Benaki (named after the museum in Athens that Yianni had spent entire days perusing and obsessing over).

In just two years, Hermit Thrushes have completed two albums, a 7" record, a cassette tape, four national tours, dozens of weekend tours, a series of radio interviews and in-studio sessions, and they have performed at various festivals including the 2008 CMJ Marathon in New York City.

Their stage show has been the subject of controversy and frequently features cross-dressings, rainbow outfits, outrageous acrobatics and high kicks.

 

REVIEWS:

Tucking freaky pop inside knotty indie rock, Hermit Thrushes are best known for their live shows, during which they swap mean-spirited banter with each other, wear color-coded outfits and brandish a trumpet when needed... Hermit Thrushes offer more proof that our city's newest generation of indie bands can colorfully defy genres while happily erupting all over the place.

-Philadelphia Weekly

Hermit Thrushes were the highlight [of the evening], cross-dressing in Technicolor as they bounced their thrash-folk asses around

-Impose Magazine

This is the new wave of interesting 'pop' that we keep getting. Restores my hope in humanity and indie rocker/popsters in that its not a regurgitation of the Shins or Death Cab, it actually has unpredictable choruses, hooks and themes, rhythms, but still qualify as pop in the use of melodies and singing. This is the future folks, plain and simple.

-KZSU Zookeeper

This is a whole ensemble which loves to play together but somewhere during playtime they get way carried away and start throwing things throughout the room and everything popcorns for a while. It's where this is the new psychedelic and rainbow is the new black.

-Collective Family

Hermit Thrushes are one of those bands you really need to see live. [...] Known for their outlandish costumes, scrappy banter, and raucous on-stage antics, this Philadelphia fivesome definitely understands that chaos is an art form.

-uwishunu.com

Enough can't be said about the mad angular psych-folk sounds of Philly's Hermit Thrushes or its brilliant bristling recent CD Benaki.

-City Paper (Philadelphia)

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