Gospel Music - How To Get To Heaven from Jacksonville, FL

Limited Edition LP (1500 worldwide) + download code.
+ Extensive US and European tours this year.
+ Debut album on Kill Rock Stars by Owen Holmes, bassist of Black Kid.
How do you get to Heaven from Jacksonville, Florida? Beats the hell out of us, but Owen Holmes, aka Gospel Music, has an idea. The indie-pop
songwriter's debut LP takes its title — and its cover art — from a turn-or-burn evangelical tract he used to hand out as a Southern Baptist teenager. While
his fundamentalist worldview started showing cracks around the time he found out there are 400,000 species of beetles, his Bible Belt upbringing made an
indelible impression, even if the gospel he's now spreading is one of the dive bar, the faltering romance, the boiled peanut.
The last time we heard from Gospel Music — on 2010's duettes EP — Holmes was collaborating with members of The Magnetic Fields, Camera Obscura
and other likeminded artists, creating a sound critics compared to Jonathan Richman, Silver Jews and The Vaselines. On How To Get To Heaven From
Jacksonville, FL, he further develops his homespun lo-fi, layering toy piano, organ and banjo over jangly guitars, bouncy basslines and minimalist drums.
His playful, conversational baritone sits squarely between that of David Berman and Lou Reed, while lots of syrupy female vocals, this time from his
Jacksonville friend Madeline Long, provide the perfect foil.
"Fans of lo-fi pop would be hard-pressed not to be won over by his lyrical specificity, melodic infectiousness, and vocal collaborators.” — Pitchfork

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