(Indie Pop, Dark Wave, Folktronic) Freak Owls - Nights - 2015, MP3, 320 kbps

Josh Ricchio’s Freak Owls was created in 2010 from an amalgamation of ideas, restlessness, and the desire to lock himself in a room and write after spending the previous 12 years playing and touring in a wide variety of collaborative indie rock bands.
The first two releases ("Taxidermy" and "Orchestrates") pull influences from The Beach Boys, MGMT, Death Cab For Cutie and Yeasayer while textured, over-layering vocal choruses, sparkling acoustics, and Gnarls Barkley-like danceable beats urge the listener to curl up to the songs and sing along at the same time. "…a very personal and uplifting set of smiles and moist eyes, Freak Owls wants to warm the heart and chill the spine."
Both albums were recorded by Ricchio and Eric Sanderson (Augustines, Pela), and were released on Ricchio's own label, Sing Engine Records.
The third release, "Orca City", (co-written with long-time collaborator, Kolby Wade), takes on the soundtrack to an imagined city, much like the group's hometown of New York, built on the back of a Melvillian-like beast. This live concept album sees Ricchio elaborate his sound to even greater intensities and smaller intricacies.
In the years since the release of the debut, and after whittling down the lineup from a 5-piece to a continuously rotating cast of characters, Ricchio's Freak Owls are continuously expanding their unique blend of indie-folk-wave on the road to a majority of the US, as well as having played festivals in England, Canada, and as far away as Latvia. Selling out their first few runs of cd's while placing multiple songs in film and TV, including a number of songwriting nominations such as The John Lennon, SongCircle, and 100% Music Songwriting Competitions.
Freak Owls' newest LP, "Nights", sees Ricchio's influence from the writing styles of Thom Yorke, Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver & Brian Wilson. With a healthy blend of the previous outputs, "Nights" has captured something new here, while cascading vocal harmonies & driving rhythms set against a backdrop of live instrumentation, electronics, toys, & atmospheres.