Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School

Matthew Friedberger is one half of the brother and sister duo The Fiery Furnaces. After 3 years of work, he has completed his first solo release, a double album titled Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School, which will hit stores on August 8, 2006 - it's also the first release on the newly formed label 859 Recordings run by Keith Wood in upstate New York. The first disc, Winter Women, clocking in at one hour, showcases Friedberger's strength as a songwriter, and features some of the most accessible pop songs he's ever written, including the infectious "Ruth versus Richard" and the 60s-tinged "Up the River". Women is intended to be a summer record, full of memorable, catchy and un-ironic pop songs. The second disc, Holy Ghost Language School, is more experimental - a 46 minute sonic novel with the requisite backwards guitars and strange samples which makes Matt's work so original. It veers closer to some of the Furnaces' more experimental outings, but it's not outright noise, the album as a whole is bound by a strange sense of structure. Matt wrote and arranged all the music, played all the instruments (except for some drumming from John McEntire from Tortoise on a few tracks), and sings all the songs. The record was co-produced by Bill Skibbe at Key Club Recording at Benton Harbor, Michigan in March of this year.