We are very excited to be welcoming Richmond. VA's finest, Downhaul, to the Self Aware Records family!!

100 Clear with Blue Splatter (SELF AWARE EXCLUSIVE)
100 Translucent Purple (LANDLAND EXCLUSIVE)
300 Coke Bottle Clear

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There’s just something about beginnings. Fresh starts, new experiences, a certain simplicity
or lack of baggage.

It’s all very romantic, but what happens next? Downhaul’s new full-length, How To Begin, exists in that question: in the moments where the inevitability of change must intersect with the accumulations of the past. And fittingly it’s a sonic shift, a confident embrace of direct and hooky songcraft that somehow still feels of a piece with the intricacies that have made Downhaul so uniquely compelling. It’s the kind of musical evolution that sounds natural and easy but is achieved through years of honed skill and creativity–and it’s the band’s finest work to date.

Since forming in 2016, Downhaul–made up of vocalist/guitarist Gordon Phillips, drummer
Andrew Seymour, guitarist Robbie Ludvigsen, and new bassist Chandler Brooks–have been
intent on steadily growing their sound. Like new blooms springing from strong roots, each
release has built on the last, taking the band from the scrappy emo of 2019’s Before You Fall Asleep, to the sprawling post-rock of 2021’s PROOF, and then the conceptual alternative of 2023’s Squall.
But when it came to writing How To Begin, the band found that the best way to build on their past work was to be willing to leave some of it behind. “On our last couple releases I felt like we’d really leaned into making the most of the studio and I felt like we’d achieved that version of the band.

So this time I wanted to make something that really just focused on the songs,” explains Phillips. “When I was writing, I tried to hold the songs to ‘The Campfire Test,’ which is basically the idea that a song works
if it’s good when you play it alone on acoustic guitar, without the rest of the band or anything ornate you might do in the studio.” Take one listen to How To Begin and you’ll know these songs hold up to any test, campfire or
not.

During the writing process, Downhaul focused on streamlining each track, boiling away any
potential excess and developing the songs using the streamlined urgency of their live setup.
The band then decamped to Go West Recording with Mitch Clem (Young Scum,
Blush Face, Big Baby) where they sought to capture that immediacy, avoiding heavy overdubs and allowing
the tightness earned from years of shows to shine through. The recordings were then mixed by
Matt Schimelfenig (Spirit of The Beehive, Golden Apples, Slaughter Beach, Dog) at The Bunk
and the album was complete. “We really wanted to just hear the sound of our band setting up in
a room and playing the songs,” said Phillips. “We used the same gear we use live, we didn’t
stress over perfection, and we kept it moving.”

The result is Downhaul’s most flat out accessible output yet, drawing on the energy of their early
work and the grandeur of their middle period, but applying it to a lean 25 minutes of crunchy
chords and warm melodies. The songs on How To Begin blend the loquacious catchiness of songwriters like John K. Samson or Blake Schwarzenbach with the vitality and idiosyncrasies of bands like Piebald or The Wrens. Opener “Blue Flame” kicks off with a concise pair of drum hits introducing the band’s new a pproach as they launch into Ludvigsen’s chiming guitar leads and build to one of the biggest choruses Phillips has ever penned. The song is followed by the juxtaposed moods of “Off and On” and “Solstice,” the former a sub-two-minute jangly punk song, and the latter a laidback cut of lush alternative that somehow threads the needle between Built To Spill at their most swooning and The Promise Ring circa Very Emergency.

This ability to connect disparate indie rock wavelengths is one of Downhaul’s greatest strengths.
Longtime fans will be pleased to hear traces of PROOF’s emo-inflected gravity in tracks like the
winding “Cold in the Morning” or the euphoric build-and-release of “Branch,” while “Sinker” and
“Sleep In The Sunroom” meld the uptempo exuberance of the band’s early EPs to alt-country-
tinged guitar licks and anthemic choruses bolstered by Brooks’ harmonies. The various
elements and influences become a unified whole, all part of the familiar-but-ineffable Downhaul
sound.

Phillips’ distinctive voice and conversational lyricism remain at the center of Downhaul’s appeal,
bridging the sonic swings with his grounded explorations of the moment in life where youth is
squarely in the rearview but adulthood still feels like a strange fit. “I think a lot of the record is
about trying to find peace and fulfillment in whatever existence we make for ourselves,” he says.
Phillips’ wordy-yet-hooky lines wring poignance from the daily minutiae of life, muse on the
unpredictable dynamics of friendships and relationships, and intertwine imagery and emotion
with ease–often making observations that somehow feel at once casual, intimate, specific, and
universal, all with a healthy dose of wry humor for good measure. On “Tired of Trying” he
describes the singular mix of daring and delusion required to follow your creative passions as an
adult, managing to knead lyrics like “woke me up just to ask some sh*t about enzymes / so I’m
wracking my brain for slant rhymes / it’s all just pretend, fences to mend, letters to send back to
when we were both so convinced it would work” into a melody that’s sure to be shouted back at
future shows. “We’ve been doing this band for a while now and as we get older, it can be hard
to find time for almost anything outside work, family, and just keeping life on track,” Phillips
says. “But I think that’s probably when we need this kind of outlet the most.”

How To Begin is not the work of a new band, but it does feel like the start of something. A
record that manages to be welcoming and unencumbered by anything but the desire to write the
best songs possible–that also feels like a bold progression when viewed within the
greater context of Downhaul’s catalog. It’s a subtle and satisfying change of shape, like a summer
shadow stretching across the backyard over the course of a perfect afternoon. And when the
album ends, you’ll be ready for it to begin again.

The album drops on September 20th, 2024. Preorders will begin shipping on or around the release date. Vinyl colors may vary from the mockups.