Name: Another Age
Brand: Robert Earl Thomas

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

CT272lp

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2018-02-16

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Secre­tly

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

817949014186

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Total Cap

1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

CT272cd

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817949014193

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1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Robert Earl Thomas 

Genre US

Rock-Pop

Label US

Captured Tracks

Beginning in a Brooklyn basement in 2008, Captured Tracks has gone on to change the face of music across America. One of the most prolific and consistent independent labels has produced huge artists from <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/artist/mac-demarco">Mac DeMarco</a> to <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/artist/diiv">DIIV</a> to <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/artist/wild-nothing">Wild Nothing</a> alongside other acts like <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/artist/perfect-pussy">Perfect Pussy</a>, <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/artist/eztv">EZTV</a>, <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/artist/reptaliens">Reptaliens</a> and <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/artist/mourn">Mourn</a> whilst reissuing influential British artists like <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/artist/monochrome-set">The Monochrome Set</a> and <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/artist/cleaners-from-venus">Cleaners From Venus</a>. The bands may differ but they share a pop sensibility - even if it is clouded by the influences they bear - that can only be the result of label boss Mike Sniper's taste for it.

Previous to Captured Tracks, Sniper ran a power pop label. You can never accuse Widowspeak or Beach Fossils of being power pop, but they are not adverse to an infectious hook or a clean, sweet sound. The <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/b-boys-live-at-rough-trade">B Boys</a> certainly know how to turn on the pop with last year's fantastic album Dada, full to the brim with color and energy.

But Sniper wants a broad church. Grunge revisionist, Chastity is a perfect example - as well as Gift Wrap, Wax Chattels and Matteo Vallicelli. Captured Tracks is no sub-genre label, it is the fruit of the passion and perseverance of a global collective of music lovers.

Happy 10 year anniversary - How have you been celebrating this significant occasion? On a beach in Tahiti, visiting all the sites that inspired Gauguin, sipping on tropical drinks and eating extremely fresh seafood. Not really, actually I do not know if I've celebrated at all. I'm a bad celebrator. Can you describe the music scene in Brooklyn in 2008? How has it changed since then? The year 2008 was pretty pivotal. It was at the nadir of the "Loft Pop" DiY scene (Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls, caUSE co-MOTION!, Woods, et al.). Todd P. was booking Market Hotel, 285 Kent might have been around then, Glasslands, Monster Island and all those other spaces were there. Out of town bands like The Oh Sees, Grass Widow, Abe Vigoda would draw really well and everyone from the above bands and scenes would be there. Simultaneously, the Wierd Records scene was also going nuts and you had Martial Canterel, Led Er Est and touring acts like Nite Jewel would draw heavy at that. Blank Dogs, my band, was kinda straddling both of those scenes. It was just super active and successful, no one was the top dog, it was all very much "all in it together." Everyone was supportive and bought each other's records, supported each other at shows and places like Pitchfork and Fader actually gave a shit. Can you imagine?! So, yeah, we came out of that as a label, just behind Woodsist and Sacred Bones. Being an artist yourself, did that shape how you ran the label? Did it shape who you signed? Sure, I mean, I think less about myself being in bands and more about understanding the distribution, touring and press circuits before I started. It certainly helped I was friends with John Dwyer, Jeremy Earl, etc., so I could put their records out right from the get go, sorta fly-by-night handshake deals, nothing serious. I only started to really sign bands in 2009, that's when I signed Wild Nothing and Beach Fossils. I definitely wanted bands to arrive to me with their sound down pat, ready to work hard and an understanding of their audience and their aesthetic, still do! For those new to the label, could you give 5 records that have helped define Captured Tracks? Hard one, but I think you have to put Wild Nothing Nocturne, DIIV Oshin, Beach Fossils Beach Fossils and Mac DeMarco Salad Days on there. After that it's pretty hard. The Soft Moon's debut, Widowspeak's debut, Craft Spells Idle Labor, the Perfect Pussy record... man, I dunno if I could pick a 5th and final. With a roster like yours (Wild Nothing, The Soft Moon, Beach Fossils, Mac DeMarco, DIIV, Craft Spells, B Boys, Molly Burch), what is one of your most memorable artist discovery moments? Wax Chattels live in Auckland, NZ. Signed them (in all but paperwork) the next day at brunch. It was that fast. If you see them live you'll see why. Re-issues are a core aspect of Captured Tracks - how do you decide on the records you re-introduce us listeners to? I try to reissue stuff that is really in need of a reissue as it is unavailable on a lot of formats, but also fits into the culture of the label. Older music and newer music living together. Sometimes it's something like Luna which has this large built-in audience, and other times it's Saada Bonaire or Bona Dish, which has a cult following that I feel our audience would respond to and enjoy. You’ve been a label for ten years now, what is one goal you have for the next ten years? Exist. Not be crushed by the horrible world.

Label Focus - Captured Tracks

There are a million songs dressed in white t-shirts and American denim, songs that drift through open spaces in some busted sedan, over lost highways that become tributaries to eventual static, crawling traffic and stifling density. There are a million more songs about being wild and green in the cities and outside them: a song about love for every person on this earth. Another Age, the debut album from Robert Earl Thomas, avoids inhabiting these clichés even as it embraces their personal influence: this is an album about small moments with big emotional footprints, told humbly and honestly. Thomas is not new to making records. A founding member of Brooklyn-based indie outfit Widowspeak, he’s previously lent his talents as a lead guitarist to that band as well as the experimental pop group Vensaire. He began writing and home-recording songs two years ago, gradually and purposefully in moments of solitude between tours, between stints working in a Seattle woodshop and at a hotel in the Catskills, and during weeks couch-surfing back and forth across Brooklyn. For Another Age, Thomas combined these intricately layered demos with tracks from a two-week studio session in the winter of 2016 at Marcata Recording in New Paltz, NY with producer Kevin McMahon (Swans, Real Estate, Widowspeak). It’s a debut that plays the part without succumbing to it, more pastel romantic comedy than sepia historic drama. There are stylistic nods to Springsteen and Dire Straits, Arthur Russell’s more folk-leaning output, the various collaborations of Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. But Thomas seems intent on conveying his specific take on these things over emulating them; you get the impression that he’s just as inspired by karaoke renditions of I’m On Fire or Romeo and Juliet as he is by the originals. And the stories he tells are full of intimate moments and observations: a walk home from a lover’s apartment, a long night drive back upstate, a quiet Wednesday morning existential crisis; musings as to the significance of a Winona Ryder portrait on the wall of a stranger’s bedroom; the sense of discovery that comes with being young in a city with a new person, and the sense of loss when that novelty is gone. Another Age is indoor music at its most expansive, rock and roll held at arm’s length.