Until June
Jul 16, 2012
Until June is busting out all over again for Seattle born brothers Josh (piano, vocals) and Dan Ballard (guitar); and Daniel Dempsey (drums). The first single from the alternative pop rock group's second full-length album "What Went Wrong," is a key line from another track, "Spark" ... Never let that spark die that's in you - that captures the enduring spirit of the trio as they embark on an exciting new phase of their career with upstart indie label Madison Line Records.
Five years after they first emerged with their international hit single "Sleepless", the Los Angeles-based band is back with more selections for fans to explore. "Sleepless" created a firestorm in Europe, becoming a #1 hit single for 28 weeks and a #1 video in Greece; the single also hit #4 in Norway and #7 in Finland. The band's success led to two U.S. tours and two tours of Southeast Asia, including performances in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam and Hong Kong.
Until June recorded Young & Foolish (due August 21st ) at Dempsey's East L.A. studio, and produced the album themselves. Once the tracks were recorded, they brought in Grammy Award winning mixer Kevin Killen (U2, Peter Gabriel, Shakira, Sugarland, Elvis Costello) to help them achieve the atmospheric blend of Josh Ballard's falsetto-inflected vocals underneath Dan's guitars. Sonically, their new sound is what Dan Ballard calls "atmospheric performances rather than part-based performance."
Josh explains: "Our first two albums showed our great love of pop music, but they didn't reflect the influences of more sonically progressive bands like Mew and Radiohead, that are our favorites."
Daniel Dempsey adds, "It took some experimenting to nail down how we wanted to present these songs. We wanted to create a sense of three-dimensional space and depth, and that often meant using a lot of reverb and more distortion. Ultimately, this creates the effect of mystery, in which the listener is encouraged to follow not only the emotion in the words, but in the sounds as well.
Dan Ballard completes this fascinating train of thought: "We had specific ideas that hardcore pop producers often get nervous about. We had discovered that ending up with vocal heavy mixes makes the overall track lose a certain tension and power. This was definitely the direction we wanted to go in."
Until June plans to tour later this year and those dates will be announced shortly.