New album available worldwide from Pravda Records
The Flat Five is a Chicago-based pop vocal super-group — Kelly Hogan, Nora O’Connor, Scott Ligon, Casey McDonough, Alex Hall — made of five in-demand musicians who individually spend much of their time touring and recording with bands like Neko Case, NRBQ, The Decemberists, Andrew Bird, Mavis Staples, Iron and Wine, Jakob Dylan, Robbie Fulks, Alejandro Escovedo, The New Pornographers, J.D. McPherson and many other heavy hitters. These five folks stay very, very busy. Yet for the past ten years, these shameless harmony junkies came together, like a moth to a porchlight, to make music as The Flat Five. Purely for the love of singing together. For the mother-effing fun of it.
The Flat Five returns…
“Another World” available now from Pravda Records.
Another World took just over a year to complete from start to finish, as band members had to steal recording time from their respective busy schedules performing and touring with other projects. This is the way it’s been since the group began as a “musical snowball” in the mid-aughts.
The charms of this band are manifest. These guys are all about vocal harmony — five hardcore vocal buzz junkies — and they share a vast range of influences from The Free Design to The Three Degrees to Captain Beefheart and a restless desire to explore a song from the inside out: to see just how far out it’ll go. This sophomore album showcases The Flat Five’s trademark keen musicianship and their slightly subversive sense of humor. It’s marked by the playful wide-eyed sweetness that colors all their music, tempered with their appreciation for how freaking good it feels to listen to a beautiful bummer on repeat sometimes. Like Charles Schultz said: “Happiness is a Sad Song.”
The Reviews Are In…
“The Flat Five could sing the phone book and it would sound like art.”
“...it is impossible to leave any Flat Five number in a funk. These little vignettes, in all their oddball glory, feel like just the ticket.”
“They’re all so great.”