Austinist Show Preview and Giveaway: Shearwater at the Parish

Image from Vidiot’s Flickr Page

Shearwater at The Parish
Thursday, May 29
The Parish Room (214 East Sixth Street)
$12-14, All Ages, Doors at 8pm
[info] | [tickets]

For almost ten years, Shearwater have made huge strides as a progressive folk project that began with sparse, humble origins and which has since blossomed into something altogether more intense, uplifting and strikingly different. They’ve also made Austin proud through a continued career of challenging and strikingly original material - not to mention the fact that they've given the seabird that inspired their name some much-needed attention.

The progression of Shearwater continues to wind and bend with time: original founder Will Sheff of Okkervil River has for the last few years not been a part of the band, and lead singer Jonathan Meiburg recently parted ways with Sheff’s project to concentrate on Shearwater. Though their partnership was fruitful, the shift makes sense as Meiburg’s ambitions grew and moved further and further away from their unpolished but still enjoyable 1999 debut, The Dissolving Room.

After signing to Matador records and re-releasing their watershed Palo Santo album, the band went to work on Rook, which hits the streets next week. To celebrate the release, the band will play a show at The Parish on Thursday wherein they will exorcise their new album in its entirety complete with orchestrated accompaniment, including a harp and strings, and the visual accompaniment of on-screen projections. The Parish also promises “a separate set of older songs” following Rook. Other than a show in Manhattan that featured opener Michael Gira (lucky Yanks!), this is the only planned Shearwater performance to feature the whole orchestral shebang. The band will also have a limited 7" featuring the song "Rooks" and the live Talk Talk cover "The Rainbow" for your purchasing pleasure.

Shearwater is currently on tour, and they'll be gone again before you know it. After the jump, enter to win tickets to this special performance.

Shearwater: [website] [myspace]