{"title":"Runner","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"like-dying-stars-were-reaching-out-2","title":"Like Dying Stars, We're Reaching Out","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor the last five years, Los Angeles-based musician Noah Weinman has \nbeen Runnner, and for much of those five years, Runnner has been \nworking. Working on his 2021 collection album, \u003ci\u003eAlways Repeating\u003c\/i\u003e; working\n as a producer on the Skullcrusher records; and, of course, working \ntowards his debut full-length, \u003ci\u003eLike Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out\u003c\/i\u003e. \nFrom LA to Ohio and the Northeast and back, he’s been deep in the craft \nof sound. This is music made at home, using anything and everything: \ncell phones and handheld tape recorders, the hum of an a\/c unit, \nvoicemails from friends. Rubbing cardboard together, stretching acoustic\n sounds out to near liquid, or stacking delay pedals at random to \nscramble the smoothness of a song can make something known into \nsomething unknown–something ordinary into something cosmic. These are \nsongs where the edges have been left deliberately rough because \nperfection invites predictability, and imperfection imbalances, and \nthose imbalances ask the listener to listen again, and again. And in \nthat listening, the sound can become earnest, can ask a question, can \nhold a conversation. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I was sifting through my demos trying to decide what songs would go \non the album, and I sort of started to notice this theme about the \nlimits of language,” explains Weinman. “You’re trying to articulate \nsomething to someone, and it either doesn’t come out right or you end up\n not saying anything at all. It’s a pattern I see in my life, just \nhaving a hard time expressing myself to the people I’m close with.” So \nit’s no surprise that from a young age, Noah was drawn to other modes of\n expression: first studying trumpet and jazz, then falling into guitars,\n banjo, pianos and synths, and along with them discovering a love for \nstitching together songs and recordings. “It wasn’t until I got out of \nthe studio environment and started recording at home that it became \nsomething I really love doing,” he says. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eL\u003ci\u003eike Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out \u003c\/i\u003eis the result of years of \nwriting, recording, and tinkering in Weinman’s home, a lovingly crafted \npatchwork of organic instrumentation and otherworldly digital \nmanipulation. The unexpected sounds and lush production elevate \nWeinman’s already impressive skill for melody and warm vocals, always \npivoting between sparse intimacy and sweeping grandeur at the right \nmoments. “I think I just want to try to make sounds that are a little \noriginal, that you couldn’t easily identify,” he explains. “But I get \nthere by keeping my options pretty limited. I only have one input, so I \ndon’t record  things in stereo; I only have about three microphones and a\n few instruments, and I try not to use MIDI. I keep the ingredient list \nshort, but that pushes me to be more creative in the genesis of certain \nsounds.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis musical approach is reflected in Runnner’s lyrics as well, where\n the familiar is made unfamiliar, and then familiar again. With humor \nand heart, Weinman sifts through isolation and anxiety in the everyday: \nruining the rice, buying shampoo, the way boredom and loneliness are \ntangled up together. And from these fragments, he makes something new, \nbut also something already known and felt at once. “A lot of the songs \nhave this narrative arc of rising tension that just leads to me not \nsaying or doing anything,” he says. “It’s like there’s a signal loss \nbetween thought and speech.” Tracks like “I Only Sing About Food,” \n“Raincoat,” or “Chess With Friends” explore these different mental and \nsometimes even physical barriers to communication, while skittering drum\n beats and scrappy acoustics guide the listener through Weinman’s \ncrowded thoughts. On mid-album standout “Running In Place At The Edge of\n The Map,” Weinman likens his catatonic self on the couch to a video \ngame avatar stuck at the end of its digital space with nowhere left to \ngo–tying the image to our desperate attempts to be who we want to be, \ndespite knowing that our attempts will fall short.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOften Like \u003ci\u003eDying Stars, We’re Reaching Out\u003c\/i\u003e sounds like life caught \ninside a moment, unsure of what comes next, but there is hope and \nlightness here too. The album’s final track “A Map For Your Birthday” \ncloses with the lines “like dying stars, we’re reaching out \/ so much i \ncan’t say \/ but you nodded anyway.” Despite our inability to be what we \nwant to be, to know where we are going, feel we belong, to be present, \nand to present ourselves fully and completely to the world, Runnner \noffers that perhaps it’s this longing to know one another, to understand\n each other when we’re incoherent or when the words just don’t come, \nthat just might connect us. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Run For Cover Records","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50505143222603,"sku":"2007138","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/5cf97c917e4210c5686d33740f2bdc48.1000x1000x1_1b082338_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727813186"},{"product_id":"a-welcome-kind-of-weakness","title":"A Welcome Kind of Weakness","description":"\u003cp\u003eRunnner’s sophomore full-length,\u003cem\u003e A Welcome Kind of Weakness,\u003c\/em\u003e emerged from a simultaneous tear in songwriter Noah Weinman’s body and life. Written during the months spent bedridden and healing from a torn achilles and the drastic upheaval of a breakup, the 11 songs on this record are Weinman’s most bracing, inviting the perceived vulnerability of the album’s title willingly. But at the same time, these songs are Runnner’s most present, defiant and self-assured, a reminder of the resolve that can come from gracefully accepting submission. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLongtime fans of Weinman’s likely fell for his signature homespun indie rock, recorded almost exclusively in bedrooms and home studios, where his poignant and self-deprecating lyrics float over beds of banjos, guitars and reverberant horns crescendoing to cathartic peaks. But on A Welcome Kind of Weakness, Weinman soars for the first time in high fidelity. Runnner’s first studio record, it recalls the larger-than-life highs of the early aughts rock that Weinman  grew up on, bands like Coldplay, Radiohead, and Snow Patrol with their pristine vocal presence, scintillating guitar riffs, and astral synth sparkle. This is rock music in its most delicious form, music that gave Weinman something to look forward to when he could finally play live again. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor fans of \u003cspan style=\"caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration: none; display: inline !important; float: none;\"\u003eNoah Kahan, Sun June, Field Medic, Hovvdy, Pinegrove\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut as high as the sonic highs may be on \u003cem\u003eA Welcome Kind of Weakness\u003c\/em\u003e, we also see Weinman struggling gracefully with the questions that emerge from moments of physical and emotional undoing. As he sings about spackling holes in the house he shared with his ex and reckoning with a long span of physical futility, we’re reminded, too, of all the spectrums of experience we endure. We are all perpetually pulled between polls—weakness\/resolve, nostalgia\/presence, powerlessness\/control—but it takes a certain bravery to sit in the murky middle long enough to write about it. And in his willingness to bear witness to that transitory space, Weinman seems to reassure us: You may think you won’t run again, but, given time, you might.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Run For Cover Records","offers":[{"title":"LP - Claritin Blue","offer_id":51856935092555,"sku":"R5926-2060","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":51856935059787,"sku":"R5926-6826","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Runner-AWelcomeKindOfWeaknesscopy.jpg?v=1747833242"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/fr\/collections\/runner.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}