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Medals (ex Jaguar Club) will be releasing their debut album 'Dancing In Ceremony' on March 29th.
'Dancing In Ceremony' is the debut album from former Jaguar Club members Will Popadic (vocals/guitar) and Yoi Fujita (bass) and their new band Medals.
The album began life as a new Jaguar Club record, threatened to become a dancefloor banger inspired by 90's techno giants, and ended up somewhere uniquely in between.
Acoustic strumming, scattered beats, analog synthesizers, harmonica, and washes of processed guitars sit comfortably alongside Fujita's trademark bass hooks and Popadic's distinctive voice. The result is a diverse but coherent pop album.
The Jaguar Club's final album, 2009's 'And We Wake Up Slowly' collected universally positive reviews, spent several weeks in the CMJ top 200, and allowed the band to tour throughout the US. When The Jaguar Club dissolved in the summer of 2010 Popadic and Fujita found themselves sitting on a batch of half finished new songs they were truly excited about. Deciding a band could be found when needed they isolated themselves in their makeshift studio in DUMBO Brooklyn and threw themselves into the recording process. They worked quickly, keeping first takes, teaching themselves to program drums and to craft synth sounds. Some additional recording was done with Nick Stumpf of the French Kicks at his studio The Love Boat, conveniently located around the corner. Longtime collaborator Kevin McMahon (The Walkmen, Titus Andronicus, Frightened Rabbit) mixed and mastered the album at Marcata Recording in New Paltz NY.
Finding the right live band proved easier than expected when longtime friend Nadia Brittingham was drafted to play keyboards. Medals made their live debut in January of 2011. With the members split between Brooklyn and the small seaside town in Massachusetts that Popadic now calls home, extensive touring is planned for the spring and summer months. - AntiMusic
Medals (ex Jaguar Club) will be releasing their debut album 'Dancing In Ceremony' on March 29th.
'Dancing In Ceremony' is the debut album from former Jaguar Club members Will Popadic (vocals/guitar) and Yoi Fujita (bass) and their new band Medals.
The album began life as a new Jaguar Club record, threatened to become a dancefloor banger inspired by 90's techno giants, and ended up somewhere uniquely in between.
Acoustic strumming, scattered beats, analog synthesizers, harmonica, and washes of processed guitars sit comfortably alongside Fujita's trademark bass hooks and Popadic's distinctive voice. The result is a diverse but coherent pop album.
The Jaguar Club's final album, 2009's 'And We Wake Up Slowly' collected universally positive reviews, spent several weeks in the CMJ top 200, and allowed the band to tour throughout the US. When The Jaguar Club dissolved in the summer of 2010 Popadic and Fujita found themselves sitting on a batch of half finished new songs they were truly excited about. Deciding a band could be found when needed they isolated themselves in their makeshift studio in DUMBO Brooklyn and threw themselves into the recording process. They worked quickly, keeping first takes, teaching themselves to program drums and to craft synth sounds. Some additional recording was done with Nick Stumpf of the French Kicks at his studio The Love Boat, conveniently located around the corner. Longtime collaborator Kevin McMahon (The Walkmen, Titus Andronicus, Frightened Rabbit) mixed and mastered the album at Marcata Recording in New Paltz NY.
Finding the right live band proved easier than expected when longtime friend Nadia Brittingham was drafted to play keyboards. Medals made their live debut in January of 2011. With the members split between Brooklyn and the small seaside town in Massachusetts that Popadic now calls home, extensive touring is planned for the spring and summer months. - AntiMusic
Medals, with their album "Dancing in Ceremony", are reinventing indie pop. The album began as a new Jaguar Club record (former Jaguar Club members Will Popadic and Yoi Fujita are now Medals) and was inspired by the two’s mutual love for 90s electronica and Blur’s later works. Dancing in Ceremony settled itself somewhere between being a dance floor record and one inspired by the techno giants of the 90s. The album, most of which was recorded in one 10-hour session with Nick Stumpf (of French Kicks), is full of acoustic strumming, bass hooks, distinctive lyrics and scattered beats. Live, Medals is composed of Popadic singing, playing guitar, triggering samples and playing harmonica; Fujita playing bass and playing some keyboards; and longtime friend Nadia Brittingham playing keyboards, singing and playing drums. As they write in their bio, "We’d like to think we are fun but serious, loud and good." Couldn’t have put it better myself. - Leah Tribbett - The Deli
Medals, with their album "Dancing in Ceremony", are reinventing indie pop. The album began as a new Jaguar Club record (former Jaguar Club members Will Popadic and Yoi Fujita are now Medals) and was inspired by the two’s mutual love for 90s electronica and Blur’s later works. Dancing in Ceremony settled itself somewhere between being a dance floor record and one inspired by the techno giants of the 90s. The album, most of which was recorded in one 10-hour session with Nick Stumpf (of French Kicks), is full of acoustic strumming, bass hooks, distinctive lyrics and scattered beats. Live, Medals is composed of Popadic singing, playing guitar, triggering samples and playing harmonica; Fujita playing bass and playing some keyboards; and longtime friend Nadia Brittingham playing keyboards, singing and playing drums. As they write in their bio, "We’d like to think we are fun but serious, loud and good." Couldn’t have put it better myself. - Leah Tribbett - The Deli
Discography
Long Distance EP - out Aug 13, 2013
Dancing In Ceremony album - March 29th, 2011
Turn To Gold single - March 1st, 2011
Photos
Bio
Medals came into existence as a new collaboration between vocalist/guitarist Will Popadic and bassist Yoichiro Fujita following the demise of their Brooklyn-based band Jaguar Club. Their debut LP “Dancing in Ceremony” was released in March of 2011. Nadia Brittingham, a college friend of Fujita, joined them on synthesizers for their live act.
Recordings for the new album (due Fall 2013) were completed as the band members traveled between New York City and Boston, where Popadic now resides. It is also the first full collaboration between Popadic, Fujita and Brittingham. Being physically distanced forced the band to write songs in completely new ways. Whereas 'Dancing In Ceremony' was the transitional sound of a rock band re-discovering electronic sounds and incorporating them into a world of guitars, the new songs were born as electronic sound experiments and only later crafted into pop songs. Popadic accrued a slew of new samplers, synthesizers, and toys and built a recording studio in his basement. Here, the band members' individual ideas were combined, refined and recorded as a group. It is equal parts experimental and pop, distant and intimate. The results were mixed by longtime collaborator Kevin McMahon (Real Estate, The Walkmen, Widowspeake, etc) in a barn in Upstate New York. The first of these new sounds will be released as the 'Long Distance' EP in August 2013.
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