(Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat)
After a series of performances at Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, the highly anticipated release of their new Carpark Records album, Foil Deer, and putting out two new music videos in April and May, Massachusetts-based band Speedy Ortiz don’t appear to be slowing down. This week, the band shared the demo of their song “Basketball,” which will appear on the Carpark Records compilation release Sweet Sixteen.
The demo of “Basketball” is a clear yet low-fi acoustic recording. Despite being not perfectly polished, the song’s beauty is found in its simplicity, as the guitar arrangement puts the focus squarely on the lyrics and the vocal talents of Speedy Ortiz frontwoman Sadie Dupuis.
Click on the embedded Soundcloud stream, below, to check out the different flavors that the acoustic version brings to “Basketball,” which was originally released as a full band recording on Speedy Ortiz’s 2012 EP Sports.
Sweet Sixteen is a limited edition 12 inch picture disc that contains “nine exclusive, full-length songs and 19 locked grooves by artists from all across the Carpark catalog,” according to a press release. The compilation album was put together to celebrate the 16th anniversary of the record company, and thematically relates to basketball.
Apart from Speedy Ortiz’s contribution, what other Carpark artists are involved?
There are jams from Young Magic and Skylar Spence that will get a party started, groovy three-point tunes from the likes of Montag, Ear Pwr, Memory Tapes, and Dog Bite. And, the record also features new Carpark artists like Chandos, along with veteran label favorite So Takahashi, and many more.
Sweet Sixteen is a limited edition release with only 600 physical copies available, and it will be released on July 24th. The label’s website notes that for those who decide to pre-order the picture disc will ship on or before the release date.
This unique 16th anniversary release costs $16 U.S. to pre-order with all of the proceeds going to Little Kids Rock, a non-profit, which is “dedicated to ensuring that all public school children have the opportunity to unlock their inner music makers” by investing in music education programs for underserved students around the United States.
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