Happy to announce the conclusion of our 2016 cassette subscription series with H A U N T E R’s STARTER / HAUNTER and Eskimeaux’s Year of the Rabbit!

For those unfamiliar, H A U N T E R (fka You Always Knew Me Last Week) is the sample-based electroacoustic music project of drummer/musician Sander Bryce (formerly of I Kill Giants). Fun fact: Sander was one of the first interns ever at Topshelf and we both had no idea what we were doing!

The release of this cassette consists of two separate EPs STARTER, which Bryce initially introduced via Bandcamp in September as “the ‘starter’ to a big meal” and HAUNTER which Bryce describes as:

Haunter is the pain and sorrow of the past, present, and future.
It is a tragedy of the human experience.
We are either the haunter, the haunted, or sometimes both.
Pain can be an endless cycle.
This is my attempt at ending the cycle and starting over.
I hope these songs are the only thing that will haunt the listener.
Enjoy...

Eskimeaux’s Gabby Smith has quickly become one of our favorite songwriters. Her 2015 LP O.K. was a monumental album of beat-driven and poetic bedroom pop that blissfully soars and swells on nearly every track.

Year of the Rabbit (originally released on CD, vinyl and digitally via Double Double Whammy earlier this year) is a collection of songs recorded live Smith and friends, Emily Sprague and Felix Walworth. The record is the first to showcase the sound of Eskimeaux's live band as its primary sonic touchstone, replacing the highly produced and overdubbed sound of Smith's earlier records with a more immediate, naturally produced sound.

Pre-orders for both releases are available now and you can now peruse both the entire monthly series and the artists that comprise it.

• Pre-order HAUNTER / STARTER
• Pre-order Year of the Rabbit

Thank you for listening!