P.O. Box 1235 Chapel Hill, NC 27514 USA Phone: 919.688.9969 x125 www.mergerecords.com

Track Listing: 8. Intermission (Pt. 2) 1. The Dark Is Singing Songs 9. Kolyada #3 (Sleepy Time Down South) 10. Playing “Evening” 2. Saw and Calliope Organ on Wire 11. Go Home Again 3. S’ Alive (Pt. 1) 12. S’ Alive to Be Known 4. The Big Beautiful Shops (It’s Said (May We Starve) That It Could Be Anyone) 13. Untitled 5. Spare the Dark Streets 14. Takeshi and Elijah 6. To All Who Say Goodnight 7. Intermission (Pt. 1) MRG368 Mary’s Voice, The Music Tapes’ third full-length album, is the warmest and most accessible invitation yet into Julian Koster’s

world—the culmination of a vision he has been realizing for over a decade.

That vision began taking shape in the ’90s, during which time Koster The Music Tapes also became a key member of Neutral Milk Hotel and a contributor to The Olivia Tremor Control and other legendary members of the Mary’s Voice enormously influential Elephant 6 Collective. Since then, Koster (along with long-time collaborator Robbie Cucchiaro on horns) has pushed the boundaries of what audiences have come to expect from an “indie rock” band—staging unique caroling and lullaby tours, performing alongside mechanical contraptions like the 7-Foot-Tall Metronome, and displaying virtuosity on both the singing saw and orchestral banjo.

LP Mary’s Voice, the follow-up to 2008’s acclaimed Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes, is part one of a planned two-part album and inaugurates a newly active phase in The Music Tapes’ evolution—with plans to tour the world in a circus tent later this year and an NPR radio serial in the works. Recorded with The Music Tapes’ signature method of using CD recording machines of both past (early 1900s, ’30s, ’40s, ’60s) and pres- ent to achieve a timeless sound, the album is, in Koster’s own words, “a holiday from what is so often mistakenly called the ‘real world’… In music, time can disappear the way it does in long summer evenings when 2013 June 25 we’re allowed to go out and play as kids, or afterwards, when exhausted, we dream.” vinyl is non-returnable

• Julian Koster is a key member of Neutral Milk Hotel Box Lot: CD 30 / LP 20 • 2013 June tour dates in the UK, Brussels, France & Spain Packaging: CD is 4-panel digipak with booklet • BBC6 and BBC Scotland sessions to be confirmed LP is die-cut pop-up jacket with printed inner sleeve + download coupon • Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes rated 7.9 on Pitchfork File Under: Alternative • LPs include deluxe pop-up jacket and coupon for full Export: World excluding North America, download Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan & Korea