Twenty-plus years of stories, twenty-plus years of perfecting music’s craft, Ski Lodge’s Big Heart is exactly what a debut record should be: the culmination of a creative force’s life on this planet. Andrew Marr, the multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter behind Ski Lodge, has created a deeply personal record that overflows with lush melodies and insatiably catchy choruses. His songs occasionally deal with dark matters—infidelity, painful break-ups, loneliness, disjointed father-son dynamics—but Marr bathes them in a blissful light ripe for sing-alongs.

“I try to write songs honestly, and a lot of the things going on in my head that I struggle with might be deemed ‘dark,’ but I don’t think that means I can’t sing about them in a way that is musically upbeat or poppy,” Marr says, from his home in New York City. It’s a dichotomy that also translates to Marr’s choice for musical moniker. He explains the name Ski Lodge “evoked an image of being warm by a fire, alone or with friends, while outside exists the cold and cruel winter.”

Big Heart, Ski Lodge’s debut full-length, out this summer on Dovecote Records, is Marr’s fullest realization of this hot and cold split. Marr wrote all of the lyrics and music, and played nearly every sound that ended up on the record. However, this was the first time the 26-year-old worked in a professional studio with a producer, the indelible Lewis Pesacov (Best Coast, Fool’s Gold), over several weeks in Los Angeles. The combination of Marr’s intrinsic songwriting and Pesacov’s LA-defining production skills resulted in music with fuller breadth and scope than Ski Lodge’s previous release without losing any of the wry innocence that made 2011’s self-titled debut EP so much fun.

https://soundcloud.com/skilodge/our-love-is-over-now-1/s-3JZ5X

The one exception is the lead single “Just To Be Like You,” which was recorded with the full band in Upstate New York using producer Kevin McMahon (Walkmen, Real Estate). Prefix Mag called the track “sugary sweet pop,” while Pitchfork warned its readers not to “be deceived by the energetic, hopscotching riff” before lauding the single’s dark depths. The song and its accompanying video of cult imagery are an exploration of contrast that fits in perfectly with both the album and Ski Lodge as a whole: deeply affecting and unmistakably danceable.

Tour

02.28 – Brooklyn, NY @ Glasslands %*

03.01 – Philadelphia, PA @ North Star Bar %*

03.02 – Charlottesville, VA @ The Southern $

03.03 – Washington DC @ Sixth & I %*

03.05 – Atlanta, GA // Star Bar %*

03.06 – Charlotte, NC @ The Evening Muse %

03.07 – Savannah, GA @ Savannah Stopover Festival

03.08 – Columbus, GA @ The Foxhole *

03.09 – New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa %

03.12 – SXSW

03.18 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Rhythm Room %

03.19 – San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar %

03.20 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Bootleg %

03.21 – San Francisco, CA @ Milk Bar %

03.23 – Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project %

03.26 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court

03.29 – Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge

04.02 – Wichita, KS @ Lucky’s Everyday

04.04 – Springfield, MO @ Monarch Factory

04.05 – Kansas City, MO @ Middle of the Map Festival

05.10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg #

05.18 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall #

w/

% The Belle Game

# Tennis

* Starlight Girls

$ Surfer Blood

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