Click Here to Download the song Four Days Straight by Scattered Trees

For Scattered Trees, Sympathy is a labor of love that almost didn't happen. The band grew up together in the outskirts of Chicago, playing music together in various groups over the years. They became a family in more ways than one, with some of the members sharing last names -albeit for different reasons. Scattered Trees became a staple of Chicago clubs, but as time passed, the band's members were drawn to various parts of the country. Scattered Trees as a band looked all but over. And then, tragedy struck. Lead singer Nate Eiesland's father passed away, and while mourning, Nate picked up his guitar again and started penning a record dedicated to his memory. Those songs became Sympathy.

The album is a focused, deeply personal collection of songs that finds Scattered Trees experimenting with lush multi-part harmonies, constructing dynamic builds, and exploring the intricacies of love and loss. Opening with "Bury the Floors," Nate sings "It's the house that I built you to fall / We started to walk then we stood up to crawl / So bury the floors and burn down the walls / to find ourselves by morning." Driving rock epics like "Four Days Straight" rub shoulders with melancholic elegies like "Where You Came From." The album's title track starts with a stripped-down plaintive mandolin, ultimately fading into a slow-burning orchestral groove. Melting into "Five Minutes," Scattered Trees continues the build until the track bursts forth. The band rounds out the record with the mournful acoustic closer "On Your Side," a fitting tribute for a deeply heartfelt and therapeutic album.

Santah formed while students at the University of Illinois, with their feet planted firmly in the dirty ground and their heads in the clouds. Luckily, before they grew up for good, Stanton McConnell (guitar/vocals), Ste- ven Plock (drums), Otto Stuparitz (bass), and Tommy Trafton (keyboards) took their blend of summery pop and atmospheric folk-rock to the late Jay Bennett’s Pieholden Studios, where the band found a home amidst the studio’s legacy of psychedelic Americana. The resulting White Noise Bed is a rambunctious re-imagining of ‘70s pop rock -- often sunny and sometimes shady. After finishing the record last May, Vivian McConnell (guitar/vocals/Stan’s sister) joined the group, and the quintet set out to tour the country. They have per- formed at festivals such as CMJ, SXSW, 35 Conferette, and the Pygmalion Music Festival; and have shared the stage with the likes of Surfer Blood, Cults, Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s, Company of Thieves, Young the Giant, Pomegranates, David Vandervelde, and Wave Machines. Santah is currently recording new material and anticipating the release of White Noise Bed, out this summer on No Sleep Records.

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