Family of the Year - Stupidland

A couple of weeks back we posted the perfect end of summer lullaby from Family of the Year. Now the band has released its debut music video for Stupidland, a song taken from the album Songbook. The sound Family of the Year is road-trip nostalgic, full of wonderful harmonies and classic song structures that have that rare characteristic of being both instantly memorable and long lasting.

The band have self-released their album and you can buy it on a name your own price basis for the digital download, or order a physical copy on CD for $15 (that’s about £9.65 for those in the UK). Go on – treat yourself – it’s nearly Christmas after all - you can order it by clicking on the band link in the paragraph above.

“The video utilizes a stop-motion technique called pixilation where you basically use people (in this case, the members of Family of the Year) to create animation one frame at a time (like claymation with humans),” the director Christopher J Ewing explained to Breaking More Waves earlier. One question we’d love to know the answer to though is why the Welsh flag in the background?

FAMILY OF THE YEAR: Stupidland from Christopher j Ewing on Vimeo.

Family of the Year - Summer Girl

The Summer Girl EP by Family of the Year was actually released a couple of weeks back, but in true disorganised blogger style we managed to completely pass it by. However there’s no danger with a song like this of actually missing the boat in terms of a listening experience, because it’s a timeless mini-classic. With gentle Lennon-esque piano chords and warm melancholy harmonies Summer Girl is in equal parts sad and beautiful.

A confession – by the end of our first listen there was a little tear in our eye.

Family of the Year are Joe and Sebastian Keefe, James Buckey and Christina Schroeter from California. When you hear the song you’ll realise that they probably couldn’t really be from anywhere else. The only disappointment is that this song should have really been released mid-September, but we’re just happy it’s been released at all. You can order the whole EP here. For those who, like us, are UK based, you can catch Family of the Year at the Lexington in London next February – that’s a thought to get you through the cold winter months.

Time to cuddle up and love the beauty and reminisce about the summer.

Summer Girl by Family of the Year by CRC Music