Stream the new Sonny and The Sunsets album via Hype Machine:
STREAM: Talent Night at the Ashram – Hype Machine 
Bizarre? Scrappy? Deranged? Sonny & the Sunsets’ latest record sees them in perhaps their strangest and most lyrically explorative phase yet. A big soup of sonic ideas that wouldn’t normally be glued together, the songs on Talent Night at the Ashram make a large collage that mixes cinematic stories of fringe characters.
Begun as a film project that ultimately failed, each song was originally a short film that, when strung together, formed a feature-length movie. As Sonny Smith was writing the scripts and hiring the actors (even shooting a few of the clips), the scripts began to morph into songs.
Equal parts Fellini and Os Mutantes, Talent Night at the Ashram is cinematic in its storytelling and kaleidoscopic in its mixing and merging of musical genres.
Recording was a communal effort mostly done at Smith’s home on this tape machine with musicians such as Shayde Sartin (The Fresh & Onlys), Garret Goddard (King Tuff), Kelley Stoltz, Rusty Miller, Ian McBrayer, and more. Pairing uniquely off-the-wall stories with an ambitious musical scope, Talent Night at the Ashram finds Smith once again securing his status as one of today’s most arrestingly inventive songwriters.
Catch them live:
2/17 – Portland, OR – The Doug Fir Lounge
2/18 – Vancouver, BC – Fox Cabaret
2/19 – Seattle, WA – Sunset Tavern
2/21 – San Francisco, CA – The Chapel
2/27 – Los Angeles, CA – Mack Sennett Studios *
* = w/ King Tuff