Pitchfork: Half-Handed Cloud Prepares New Album

He's an Illinoisemaker, an Asthmatic Kitty recording artist, and recent EP collaborator with Sufjan Stevens, but dammit, John Ringhofer is his own singin', songwritin' machine. And that machine is called Half-Handed Cloud. His brand of Old Testament pop on speed will soon get another chance to rise above the Sufjan shadow, as Asthmatic Kitty plans to release HHC's fourth album, Halos & Lassos, on March 7.

Ringhofer plans to tour middle America with Asthmatic Kitty labelmate Liz Janes and experimental collective Create(!) in late March/early April, but details are not yet available, as Ringhofer is out gallivanting with the Sufjan tour (which plays New York's Lincoln Center on January 14).

It seems that Sufjan's verbosity has partly rubbed off on Half-Handed Cloud's Halos & Lassos song titles-- or do we have a chicken-and-the-egg thing going on here?:

01 Earth Outside of Ghost Will Only Be Quicksand
02 Tongues That Possess the Earth Instead
03 Foot on the Brake
04 Suit of Clouds to Ride the Skies
05 Praise Awaits You
06 Rise to the Heavens on Evaporation
07 A Picnic Few Want to Attend
08 In You Now, But Still Below
09 Eyes Peeled
10 You Wouldn't Embarrass Me, Would You?
11 You've Been Faithful to Us Clouds
12 Skip the Rope
13 Celebrating Hearts Aligned
14 They're Bad, But We're Worse
15 A Bed That Breathes With Him
16 Feed Your Sheep a Burning Lamp
17 Rainbow = Warbow
18 A Tree Replanted Back in Eden
19 Place Your Wind Against My Sails

In the spirit of Christmas cheer, two rare Half-Hounded Cloud tracks have been made available for free on the website of the record label Sounds Are Active. The clumsily-titled "Asian Meteorologists Predicted the Heavens to Snow Down a Child a Child to Us (Plant a Fir Tree)" and "The * That Moved Around the Night" are part of a Christmas compilation entitled Krismus Karuls and credited to Nichole and the Dreamcatchers + Various Artists, which was released in 2003 on Konstrictor Productions in an extremely limited edition of 30. The comp, now free for the downloadin', also features music from Liz Janes (disguised as Mary Hamhocks) and Create (!), as well as seven songs by a 12-year-old named Nichole. Does she sound like Daniel Smith of the Danielson Famile? You'll just have to download to find out.

* Pitchfork Review: Half-handed Cloud: Learning About Your Scale