PHOSPHORESCENT

Truly great songwriters hit people in a particular way - for some it's the sound of Neutral Milk
Hotel's Jeff Mangum or Palace's Will Oldham. Others hear that extraordinary something in Bob
Dylan or Neil Young - it can't easily be defined and is a power possessed by only the rarest of
songwriters. It is bold to say, but 26-year-old Matthew Houck is one of them. As with the
illustrious names above, behind Houck's songs lies nothing but the raw compulsion to write and
play them, the fateful, joyful yearning to connect - the intuition that making music, for Houck, is
inevitable.

The 26-year-old who now records as Phosphorescent grew up in Alabama, but the Southern
cadence palpable in his songs is just a portion of Houck's story. At age 18, after a short attempt at
college, he dropped out and began living out of his pickup and busking everywhere from New
Orleans to the Southern California beaches for spare change. Eventually Houck began adding
originals into his repertoire of old folk and country covers and started booking himself into bars
and coffee shops around the country. On a random stop at a youth hostel in Austin, TX, a UK
booking agent happened upon one of Houck's sets and bought his home-recorded CD. A month or
so had passed when the booking agent contacted Houck to book a solo tour in the UK - so off he
went into a cascade of praise from the fickle UK press, who hailed his Dylan-inflected folk as a
next big thing. Upon returning to the States, Houck landed in Athens, GA. Turning down offers
from overseas labels and talent agencies, he abandoned the one-man show, and began again as
Phosphorescent.

Houck's Phosphorescent has recorded two frighteningly brilliant works, 2003's

A Hundred Times or

More and 2004's The Weight of Flight EP, both released on the Warm label to quiet but lavish
praise. While they weren't widely heard, those that did tune in felt the spark in Houck's cracked
voice, wondered at the weird and beautiful poetics, sensed the involuntary smile behind the lyrics,
and settled in for the ride.

Now,

Aw Come Aw Wry moves the band's loose, ever-shifting arrangements away from the sparse

and melodic and toward the rowdy and unhinged, at times conjuring a free, revival-tent spirit
awash in homespun orchestrations and brushed with spiritual and psychedelic undertones. Let the
dense and enchanting intimacy of these personal yet universal songs soak in, turn them up and
sing along. You'll find not the sterile, self-consciously literate verses of an English major - this is a
poetry that emanates directly from heartache and joy and lust and the incomparable feeling of
losing and finding yourself again and again. Wrapped in a gauze of surreal imagery, and backed by
an always revolving (and expanding) ensemble of horns, pump organ, piano, pedal steel, fuzzed
guitar, choral voices and percussion, Phosphorescent is entrancing, unruly, cacophonous. Like a
snapshot taken through a moving car's window,

Aw Come Aw Wry is hazy, imprecise, yet intimates

something perfect and possible; it's the only souvenir you've got of a life glimpsed on the way to
the next town.

Aw Come Aw Wry

ARTIST: Phosphorescent

TITLE: Aw Come Aw Aw Wry

LABEL: Misra

CATALOG: MSR30

UPC: 656605503028

RELEASE: June 7 2005

1405 Broadmoor Drive
Austin TX 78723
www.misrarecords.com

>> Word of mouth is spreading fast about Phosphorescent.
They're already a favorite among online web publications and
fanzines.

>> Browse through the Phosphorescent press kit and you
will find mention of Neutral Milk Hotel, Will Oldham, Bright
Eyes, Sparklehorse, Smog and others

>> Phosphorescent have toured extensively already,
performing alongside artists such as Smog, The Decemberists,
Papa-M, Mountain Goats, John Vanderslice, Arab Strap,
Delgados, Joanna Newsom, Shannon Wright, Jolie Holland,
Castanets, The Frames

>>

Aw Come Aw Wry is the first Phosphorescent release with

national press, extensive college radio and retail marketing

Bright Eyes tried making

A Hundred Times Or More, however, only Phosphorescent got it right. Raw and passionate like

Palace's

Viva Last Blues and epic like Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, the album works best when you sing

along at the top of your lungs."-

Ripsawnews.com

"Phosphorescent strips American folk down to a raw nerve and dabs on the swells of distortion and warm synths as needed…it's

a beautiful, sad ride." -

Splendid e-zine.com

"Phosphorescent has a weird, dazzling character all its own. Fragile, unsettling, tore-up, and ultimately tremendously beautiful

in a life-affirming way." -

Stomp & Stammer