Ampeater has delivered another exquisitely written review of some Serious Business. This time up on the golden pedestal is Josh Kaufman’s ROCKETSHIP PARK. This year’s Cakes and Cookies has quietly become a favorite for most of those who’ve come in contact with it’s sweet, melty core. Read here and download the digital 7” combo of “Swan” (“a small masterpiece”) and “See You,” (“Kaufman delights!”) two highlights from the record.
Take it. Love it. Buy it. Play it. Eat it. Digest it. Live it. Touch it. Thank you.
SBR48: ROCKETSHIP PARK: Cakes and Cookies. Hi. This record is sweet. You need to hear it to understand. Just download it. It’s free. You’ll share it if you love it. If you really love it you’ll buy the ridiculous physical manifestation we’ve concocted or you’ll pay some $ on iTunes or Amazon or Bandcamp to support this sweetness. Please. Thank you!
Serious Business Records proudly announces the digital and physical release of ROCKETSHIP PARK’s second album CAKES & COOKIES.
For the next month, we are offering the entire album as a free download from WFMU’s Free Music Archive and on Bandcamp. “Fast Friends” can be downloaded right here.
The record is also available starting today from iTunes, Amazon digital or your favorite digital retailer.
The physical edition of Cakes & Cooki es is a limited 7” single + CD + cookie set. The CD is packaged with a 7” single of “Fast Friends” b/w “Catherine” and “Pistachio.” The first 100 records will be pressed on black and white split vinyl like a black and white cookie. Hand numbered. Letter-pressed. 300 piece pressing. Art by Kara Smith. Each order comes with a delicious homemade cookie or sweet treat from the Kaufman-Nero kitchen. The records will ship on or around July 26, 2011.
PRE-ORDER HERE: http://seriousbusinessrecords.com/releases/show/66-Cakes-and-Cookies
Rocketship Park is masterminded by a multi-instrumentalist, song-man, producer, vocalist, and auteur by the name of Josh Kaufman who also collaborates with Jack and the Pulpits, Dawn Landes, Caithlin De Marrais, Yellowbirds, the National, Josh Ritter, Balthrop, Alabama, Benji Cossa, Higgins, Seb Leon, and too many more to list.
Rocketship Park:
CD tracklist
1. Swan 2. Fast Friends 3. Stuck With Me 4. Pistachio 5. It’s Not You 6. Catherine 7. Crossing the Street 8. Cakes and Cookies 9. Head 10. See You 11. Standing There
7” tracklist
A. Fast Friends
B. Catherine / Pistachio
Cookie tracklist
Chococate, butter, sugar, yummies.
Lyrics, credits, high-res photos can be found here.
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CAKES AND COOKIES
If you’re looking for something to tell you the band in question tours extensively and has enjoyed the good favor of the blogosphere, has pioneered its own micro-genre or commands legions of street-teaming fans, forget it. Rocketship Park is simply a hidden musical diamond in the infinite clutter of the twenty first century. Unless you’ve been directly involved in the growth of this project, there is only one point of entry for you.
Listen to the record!
Once you’ve done this, if you need more information, read further. Rocketship Park is masterminded by a musical auteur by the name of Josh Kaufman. Josh spent many years writing and recording hours and hours of fantastic songs beloved and worshiped by his friends but never officially compiled or released, much less promoted. It wasn’t until 2006 that he mobilized Rocketship Park, an entity designed as a band but ultimately evolving as his solo vehicle. In 2007, with the help of some incredibly talented friends, Josh and his band made Off and Away, the first Rocketship Park record. NPR described how Kaufman “fleshed out smooth, folky songs about life and loss, family and friendship, while harnessing a simple, seemingly effortless beauty.” These songs scored the lives of a loyal and devoted few.
In the intervening years since Off and Away’s release Kaufman has become a busy side-man, a working musician and producer whose unique talents have brought him to the studio and/or the stage with the likes of Dawn Landes, Caithlin de Marrais (of Rainer Maria), the National, Josh Ritter, Yellowbirds, Balthrop Alabama, Benji Cossa, Higgins and too many more to list here. These artists play with Josh because nobody can do what he does. He’s not just a guitar player, a keyboardist, a bassist, a drummer, a producer, an arranger, a singer, a composer, a song-man, a lyricist, or the greatest guy ever, although he is all of these things exquisitely and without peer; Josh is a force of Josh. Nowhere is this force better embodied than on the eleven pop songs that comprise Cakes and Cookies.
Kaufman’s busy touring and recording schedule kept him from finishing the second Rocketship Park record for nearly three years but ultimately allowed him the time to mold an utterly seamless work. Cakes and Cookies resulted from several years of sporadic sessions with Serious Business’ Travis Harrison, engineer Halsey Quemere, and an expanding cast of collaborators including Dawn Landes and the National’s Bryan Devendorf. Kaufman’s pop songs speak multitudes in verse and chorus. To deem his compositions “catchy” would be accurate but would undersell their eloquence and power. He makes beautiful, utterly delightful pop music no one else could ever make.
Listen to the record!
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ROCKETSHIP PARK Facebook /// Tumblr /// Bandcamp /// Serious Business —- 
