Our new EP was released today for FREE, courtesy of Common Cloud Records.

CLICK & DOWNLOAD HERE FOR FREE

The wonderful people at Daytrotter posted our session today.

Listen & Download @ www.Daytrotter.com

We are releasing a new EP, "Blessed Be, Yours Truly In Spirit & Soul."
We posted a track off of it entitled, "The Witch Was a Preemie, God Bless Her Evil Soul."
Common Cloud will help distribute the new EP, it will be available for free download 1/27/09.
"Blessed Be, Yours Truly In Spirit & Soul" was recorded & produced by Prussia. Mastered by David Ghelfi. Recorded with digital & analog equipment. Cover art photograph taken by Megan Schram, text & design layout by Prussia.

http://www.blessedbeyourstrulyinspiritandsoul.com/

We will also be playing a FREE show to celebrate this release on Saturday, February 7th at The Crofoot (Pontiac, MI) with The Silent Years, Javelins and Wildcatting.

Blessed Be, Yours Truly In Spirit & Soul
Tracklist:
1. Though Super-violent, We Chewed With Our Mouths Shut.
2. So I Born a Murderer, Don't Pray On Me My Love.
3. Placemats Set for Three: My Twin Sister, the Lord, and Me.
4. To a Southern Drawl, I Sing a Lullaby.
5. We Would Need a Place to Hide, Wouldn’t We? Men Who’d Seen Miracles Did.
6. The Witch Was a Preemie, God Bless Her Evil Soul.
7. The Creator Ravages

From Prussia with Love

BY LAURA WITKOWSKI

If you combine youthful vigor with a respect for '60s soul, a tie-dyed tee, and frenetic, tireless energy, you're apt to get Detroit's Prussia. Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly, the band's first full-length release, comes after a year filled with well-attended gigs and an earned distinction as one hell of a frantic and unpredictable live band. That kind of presence can be great onstage but occasionally leads to studio cacophony. A less disciplined band would've fallen prey to such trappings, but Prussia focuses its energy into a highly listenable and sonically adventurous record. The production here includes elements of Lee "Scratch" Perry, Phil Spector and classic Elephant 6, with the musical styles ranging from funk to calypso/reggae to orchestral pop-ish punk. These aren't the kind of eclectic sounds you might expect a bunch of kids in their early 20s to play with any real authority, and yet these 10 songs stand as stark evidence that they have indeed become masters of the various forms.

God and heartbreak are themes on Dear Emily, but not in a creepy evangelical way for the former, nor an emo-sadness wallow for the latter. Rather, Ryan Spencer and the rest of the Prussia boys seem more inclined to view religion and heartbreak as two of life's many paths that, despite the danger and unknowing, need to be explored as part of a well-rounded life. These paths are viewed as no more or no less important necessarily than the one that leaves you gobbling down a handful of peyote on an endless stretch of desert highway with a group of friends at 3 a.m. Whether that's the underlying message of Molly's letter to Emily is anybody's guess. But if Prussia is the messenger, let's hope neither snow nor rain keeps these musical couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

The August 13th issue of Real Detroit Weekly has a review of our new album, "Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly".


With Love

Prussia
Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly
Common Cloud

At one instant, you're at a soda fountain, surrounded by day-glo hues and crew-cuts and glowing jukeboxes. Next thing you know, you taste the scorching air of a Jamaican shantytown and start bobbing to a reggae ballad. Or you could be dancing in the streets to jangly rhythms, with the alluring grooves and hard hooks of R&B or classic '60s pop. There may be a lot of screaming. There may be a lot of crooning. It could be romantic, it could be dark.

Prussia, on their debut full-length, hits pure pop elegance with subtly primal energy, with head-scratching grins and casual shrugs toward any preconceived domains of suburban white indie-rockers. It's tribal pop with a crackly, starry-night classicism.

The local quartet enthusiastically delves into soulful pop and roots reggae, transposing a refreshing timelessness onto this nihilistic technological age, with Morrissey-esque sonnets sung in raspy Drifters-esque high-range vocals and Four Seasons melodic refrains, over bounce-to-groove Jamerson-inspired bass lines, with intricate and inventive percussion spawned from Talking Heads' art-punk take on the Afro-Cuban allure.

With "Indian Girls," a warm-toned guitar sways and strums lazily over tropical clave claps and tambourine jangles, with theremins delicately haunting this song's sleepy-town back alleys. On "Lenin," sun-soaked surf guitars ride a beach shore tide of rhythmic scrapes on guiros in some beautiful, sandy, torch-lit folk lullaby, with a serene sing-along chorus.

The opener, "Plantation Workers (Unite and Takeover)," is a slow-burning groove march, with bassist Bober's hooking boom creating a unique take on the rhythmic chording of roots reggae, allowing their singer, Spencer, to spew an arresting up-and-down vocal melody, an anthemic, weird-Rasta-rant that transitions into a glorious smorgasbord, growing from a distant clacked train-track percussion from their drummer, Remdonek, that churns into a tribal pounded storm. "I Misbehave" is a scruffy troubadour resolution of debating to find God in an ambitious trek around the Rocky Mountains; minimalist bass bounds and a gritty buzz feedback ride shimmering daydream bells. On "Oil," a looped log drumbeat sets a driving, sunny vibe in the most unabashedly soul-pop attributed hook, but features Spencer at his best murky-romantic.

Centerpiece "Supreme Being" may be the quintessential statement for their perfect pop hybrid of aesthetics with crazed, edgy avant-garde waltzing rounds, serenely supplemented with a sunny Western-woozy violin that topples into a rousing machine gun percussive romp culminating in an entrancing chanted chorus. It winds down to a folkier mellowness on side B, but it's still a captivating listen: a diverse sound, filled with melodic hooks and unconventional instrumentation. — JEFF MILO

"Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly" was Released Today on iTunes & Vinyl.

Common Cloud posted this today regarding the new release:

They say if you love something, you should let it go. Well, right now we are in love with Prussia's new record, "Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly" so it is time to make good on an old sayings and let it go. Today, we are proud and excited to officially release Prussia's debut LP!

Pre-orders are being shipped. Local record stores are being stocked. iTunes is ready to give you instant music. And last but not least, the album release show is only a few days away- ready to celebrate things to come and give you the first chance to walk away from a show with "Dear Emily" in all of its 13″ of glory (12″ vinyl + 1″ digital download card?).

As always, in order to avoid sounding like a crazed mother gushing over a finger-painting, we've brought some support of our excitement. Joining our "Dear Emily" parade is the ever-kind Ryan Allen over at Detour Magazine who had this to say:

"Thank God, then, for Detroit's very own Prussia — a welcome breath of fresh air amongst a collection of boring, same-sounding bands content with ripping one another off…if you've got a hankering for something new, constructed without pretense (hell, without a real drum set anywhere, from what we can tell), with one foot firmly planted in the past, and one outstretched towards the future, then we recommend Prussia's Dear Emily…as the soundtrack to your next late night excursion."

Check it out in full at Detour-mag.com and mark your calendar, it's about to get good:

PRUSSIA ALBUM RELEASE SHOW!
Saturday August 16th 8 PM
Pontiac, MI @ The A.C. Rich Building
w/The Silent Years, Ohtis, & the Oscillating Fan Club

PRUSSIA + OHTIS Midwest Tour!

Tuesday August 19th
Bloomington, IL @ Mack Glass, Co.

Wednesday August 20th
Nashville, TN @ The End

Thursday August 21st
Bowling Green, KY @ Bread + Bagel

Friday August 22nd
Toledo, OH @ Mickey Finn's

Saturday August 23rd
Detroit Summer Smash
Detroit, MI @ the C.A.I.D

Check out Prussia's Myspace page for details.

XOXO
Tim

Dear Prussia, Best Wishes, Detour

Lots of indie bands, local and abroad, are content rehashing musics that are barely as old as the iPhones that take up room in the back-pocket of their skinny jeans. And it can be maddening, when a band like Robbers on High Street, a virtual facsimile of Spoon, are allowed to make records, go on tour, and get national press attention on the strength of their lack of original ideas. And don't get us started on all those newfangled emo baby boy-bands whose record collection doesn't go past Jimmy Eat World's Clarity.

Thank God, then, for Detroit's very own Prussia — a welcome breath of fresh air amongst a collection of boring, same-sounding bands content with ripping one another off. Much like the like-minded Grizzly Bear, Prussia too are interested in letting a handful of their songs slowly unfold through heaps and heaps of punctuated reverb. But whereas Ed Droste and company are becoming, with each new song debuted on late night television, expert pop practitioners, Prussia are the the kind of indie/hippie kids who would much rather stay up late exploring old reggae, dub, Motown, doo-wop, and psychedelic records, than writing hits and/or watching Letterman shoot the shit with Paul Shaffer.

And it looks like all that time skipping Top 10 Lists and cheesy guests to indulge in some kind smoke and a few Dobby Dobson records must have paid off for Prussia. Their wonderful debut full-length effort, Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly, is an album immersed in the obscure and weird sounds of the past, but played out in a familiar way that would suggest Prussia have a tight grasp on what makes for great, strange pop music. Whether they're messing about with funky samples ("Oil"), replacing hi-hats with sleigh bells ("I Misbehave"), getting their calypso on ("Great Lakes"), or spazzing out like the Ramones covering Herman's Hermits at a bizarro sock hop ("Supreme Being"), Prussia are consistently full of surprises — and even more importantly, original thoughts and ideas. True, like the stranger works of the Beach Boys, the Velvet Underground, and Animal Collective (bands who Prussia will no doubt get compared to), Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly may not be for everybody. Some might be annoyed by singer/guitarist Ryan Spencer's screechy vocals, the album's lack of full-on "rockers," or the unpredictable twists and turns the band seem to take at the drop of a dime. But they didn't make this record to impress Jay Leno. They made it for themselves and for their friends; themselves being rampant and excited music fans with mountains of ideas spilling out of their skinny asses, and their friends being the kind of supportive and open-minded types a band needs to stay alive these days. So, if you've got a hankering for something new, constructed without pretense (hell, without a real drum set anywhere, from what we can tell), with one foot firmly planted in the past, and one outstretched towards the future, then we recommend Prussia's Dear Emily…as the soundtrack to your next late night excursion. — Ryan Allen

Prussia's CD Release Show w/ The Silent Years, Ohtis + The Oscillating Fan Club • 8/16 • The Arthur C. Rich Building

Prussia is in the August 5th Issue of Real Detroit Weekly.
The article is written by, Jeff Milo, with picture by Megan Lang.



Prussia
Not Ones To Brag

"It's not an aim," says Ryan Spencer of Prussia's laid back spontaneity. "It just comes random." I settled down with the young, modest, local quartet to a rickety dinner table in the Garden Bowl with plates of pizza, affixing napkins at our collars, jiving a few spry witticisms back and forth as we discussed their first full-length record, coming out August 16 on Common Cloud.

Prussia's bag is full with strange, transmogrified takes on Motown and reggae, filtered through an undeniable penchant for a healthy bit of punk and caustic '90s indie-rock; their sound's facilitated by "a lot of weird shit" in terms of instrumentation, be it a kick-drum flipped on its side, beaten mercilessly with mallets or maybe djembes, sitars, melodicas, theremins or "weird hula-girl shit." Prussia combine an odd Rasta-esque falsetto voice over groove-and-bounce basslines, Afro-Cuban bending percussion and sweetly sliding melodies with root beer float tasting doo-wop refrains splotched over tribal experimental rock freakouts.

Aged between 19 and 23, their youth doesn't deny them a mastery of pop and soul structures (and distinct tastes linked to classic R&B and reggae). The eldest, Spencer, with bassist Brenton Bober and drummer Andrew Remdenok, met in high school (Rochester Adams), forming first as an electronic band, then later as an experimental folk band, Russian Spy Orchestration (eventually simplified to Prussia). They played their first show on New Year's Eve, 2006, at the renowned indie-arts enclave, the A.C. Rich building in Pontiac. They recorded their first EP, Artless, in early '07, took the summer off and reformed in October '07 with Steven Wagner as second drummer/go-to instrumentalist who switches off with Spencer's younger brother Drew.

They've played local shows diligently throughout '08, taking time here and there to record their first full-length, Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly, this past spring, and each Prussian also does solo experiments, garnering admirable D.I.Y. recording experience. The vinyl release has appropriately been self-described as their "pop album," with "Morrissey lyrics" and "a weird dub song" as well as some "folky-type stuff." Contemplating the somewhat all-over-the-map-ness, Spencer opines, "It's like a Kinks album."

"For shows," says Remdenok, "we'll always change things around with added parts. The live shows and the album are two different things. A lot of times we'll just improvise." Bober interjects, "Especially when stuff breaks. There's times when Ryan will have a melody, we'll get together and flesh it out and see if we can build upon it." Spencer adds, "Then Andrew tries to make it not sound anything like the original."

"I add a lot of weird stuff," admits Remdenok. Percussively speaking, "Aerosol cans, lots of forks and knives, bongos, djembe … olive oil." One song, "Great Lakes," requires a vocal melody to be high enough to match the buzzy whistle of a melodica, for which Remdenok downed olive oil. "It souped up my chords, man." Adds Bober, "It's never occurred to us 'what' we are doing, we just do things the way we think our music should be done. We all draw on different things that inspire us. We all love Motown and that would be the common ground in the band. But we all love certain bands or movements of music that definitely differ from each other."

The band will tour soon and perform a session with Daytrotter online radio (this fall). See them live at their birthplace, the A.C. Rich, for their free vinyl release party with Ohtis, Paleo, The Oscillating Fan Club and The Silent Years. | RDW

Prussia • 8/16 • The Arthur C. Rich Building

Pre-orders for our new album, "Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly", have begun today, Monday, July 7th. You can Pre-order the vinyl LP by going to the Common Cloud Store.

Here's what Common Cloud has to say:
We here at Common Cloud were never ones to snoop for Christmas presents in the attic, but some things leave us unable to control our excitement. We recently got the test pressings for Prussia's new album, "Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly" and they sound so fantastic, that we cannot wait to get them in your hands (and ears)! We are starting pre-orders today!

Remember, this first pressing is limited to just 300 copies, all of which receive the royal treatment of hand-screened and numbered artwork and a free digital download of the entire album. In order to ensure that you'll be able to enjoy this record and avoid a Furby-like situation, we suggest you pre-order today. All this fun for only $15 with free shipping!

Pre-ordering will also allow you to be one of the first to listen to the album in its entirety, as the digital copy will be sent to you on or before July 20th, which is well before it is available on iTunes and in stores August 12th. It'll be like you're listening to the future!

Here's what "Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly" has in store for you:

Tracklist
Side A
1. Plantation Workers
(Unite and Take Over)
2. I Misbehave
3. Oil
4. Supreme Being
5. Great Lakes

Side B
6. Indian Girls
7. Lenin
8. Closed Lips
9. Lady Lady
10. Electric Ocean

So to recap, order now to guarantee yourself a copy of the first pressing of Prussia's debut LP and to be the first on the block to know all the words to both sides of "Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly." Also, while you're in the store, make sure you double check that you have all our recent releases like The Small Cities and Venna EPs, as well as our frugally-priced back catalogue! Shipping is free!

Thanks for stopping by!
XOXO
Tim

Common Cloud Records will be releasing our new LP, "Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly" August 12th . The new ten song LP will be pressed on 12" vinyl, hand-numbered with hand-screened art by Eric Mortensen and the Silent Giants. The album will also be available on iTunes and the vinyl will come with a digital download as well. Stay tuned for more information about pre-orders, a look at the cover art, and our summer tour schedule with Othis soon.