"Megafaun don't just catalog American musical languages, they breed them", writes Pitchfork in a preview of the band's new album "Gather, Form & Fly".

Megafaun are part of that rare crop of young artists driven by an unquenchable thirst for a wide range of sounds and styles. While very much at ease with several strains of American folk music, they're masterfully reinventing tradition by infusing it with radically alien elements, inspired by anything from free jazz to 50s experimental electronics. They've performed over 250 shows in the US since '07, and have done live collaborations with new Crammed labelmates Akron/Family, with minimalist composer Arnold Dreyblatt & more.

Gather, Form & Fly can be described as an ode to death, love, musical history (from blues to musique concrète), community, tradition, melody and experimentation. Or, more simply, as a magnificent album of melodic folk music, strong and original.

The band's spirit of exploration informed the making of the album, self-recorded in three bedrooms, a kitchen, a yoga studio, a living room, a basement, and in a forbidden university piano studio that they had to break into to find an in-tune piano. In act of further embracing the new, Megafaun brought in Chris Stamey (from The dBs, Holsapple-Stamey, et al) to help mix and guide Gather, Form & Fly, adding another dimension to the superb result.

Those who have been lucky to experience Megafaun's music on stages, under trees, in galleries, on floors, in headphones, and car radios over the past three years will not be disappointed … and many more will soon be conquered by their broad stylistic and emotional palette. This album reveals sounds and words that have been, somewhat silently, with the listeners all along. There are moments, present in every song, that will turn heads towards speakers, turn eyes towards the sky, and turn conventional notions of music on their sides, if just for one shimmering and genuine moment.   


Some press quotes:
 
"Bon Ivers former bandmates' first UK release - and they're brilliant too!" (Mojo - ****)

"Megafaun's roots are familiar; the bloom is uniquely theirs" (Rolling Stone - ****)

"An intriguing and heartfelt album" (Pitchfork - 8.1)

"A stunning leap forward for a great young band. Megafaun has given us one of the best records of 2009" (Pop Matters - 4/5)

"Exhilarating, a tapestry of sound collages and a freedom with form which creates a richly textured whole... A record which drinks deeply from the well of the past but could only have been made today." (Drowned In Sound - 8/10)