In the early 21st century men were but beasts ravaging upon what little sustenance God could afford them. The landscape was strewn thick w/ remnants of a civilization lost to the wiles of a wicked tribe. The Earth pined for a return to nothingness, awaiting her inhabitants’ cataclysmic demise. Man would soon be forgotten, time having proven an expanse too perilous to traverse. And in these last breaths of a race, it came to pass that listenlisten should be formed.

upcoming shows:

• Friday, February 3rd, 9pm, Houston, Texas at Mango's Cafe
  w/ England in 1819, The Wheel Workers, and Winter Wallace

music:

• I rise ^#1. “dog” LP
  
• Deaf comes to everyone ^#5. “dog” LP
• A Little ^#4. “Hymns From Rhodesia”
• The winter of two thousand and five ^#1. “self titled ep”
• Watching the watchers watch us watching ^#5. “self titled ep”
• The winter chill {unreleased}  

videos:

• new! “I Will Forget”, official music video
• “On The Water”, official music video
• “Safe Home, Safe Home In Port!”, live in the woods

press references:

• “Hymns From Rhodesia” #39 in eMusic's Best Albums of 2009
  

  “Gorgeous folk-rock so antiquey and memory-filled, it sounds like it’s gilded in the dust blown off an heirloom music box. If he sounds slightly mournful, it’s the good kind of sad — a sympathetic voice to guide you through a crash-landing at the end of the world.”

• “Hymns From Rhodesia” in COLOURlovers' Best Album Palettes Of 2009
  
• “Hymns From Rhodesia” in Albums Des Blogueurs Top 588 Albums of 2009
  
• rollingstone.com
  

  “Finally, a band name we can believe in! Mysterious and borderline un-Googleable Houston collective proves expert at putting the ghosts back into Goth-folk. Their upcoming full-length, Hymns from Rhodesia, is a spellbinding collection of country-gospel songs haunted by loneliness and loss.”

• austin sound
  

  “Make no mistake, Listenlisten have this mood down to a science, or at least an art form – each little piece of this huge puzzle of instrumentation is crafted precisely to give an air of the spontaneous, like a true hymn that materializes out of nowhere on one of those travel shows to “unknown” corners of the earth (like Romania).”

• gumshoe grove
  

  “Hymns From Rhodesia is cinematic and direly Serious; intense; urgent. It’s the sort of music that starts leaking onto playlists as fall slowly swallows summer with its giant, autumn-leaf-spitting maw.”

• space city rock
  

  “There's an absolute fatalism here, a knowledge that death comes for everyone and could well be right around the corner.”

• treble
  

  “Listenlisten is a band that commands the listener's attention not just through their stunning songwriting, but through their impeccable attention to detail.”

• houston press
  

  “several songs on its exceedingly dark, occasionally unsettling debut full-length, Hymns from Rhodesia, really are based in part on century-old church music. “Funeral Dirge; Burial Service” goes them one better, coupling together a pair of Masonic burial songs that the band reckons have been around for 200 years or maybe longer, and that haven't lost one ounce of creepiness.”

• emusic
  

  “Banjo-picking, protest-singing, back-porch-rocking citizens of Texas, have we got some music for you. It's called "anarchana" — a name that hints at both its old-timey Americana roots and its anti-government sympathies — and it's being pioneered by ListenListen, a Houstin band of Appalachian folk-rockers.”

• jamsbio.com
  

  “With a spirit that conjures images of deep, dark woods from a bygone era, listenlisten’s sound is communal, often featuring a chorus of chanting voices bolstered by gently plucked guitars, swelling horns, and swirling strings.”

• weareinvolved.com
  

  “…a farmer stands in his work clothes, staring blankly… A baron and exposed field stretches out away from their feet. On the other side of this are the tall flames of a fire that has engulfed their home. It flickers aggressively in the afternoon wind and stands out in violent contrast to the dark overcast sky that hangs passively overhead…”

• side one: track one
  

  “I love you Austin, but recently some of the most exciting new "Austin music" has been outsourced to Houston, namely to Listenlisten’s new album Hymns From Rhodesia.”

• 29-95.com
  

  “Godfrey and listenlisten put his eerie lyrics of anxiety, violence, death and doom to largely wood-and-wire instrumentation that is gorgeous, unsettling and untethered to era or trend.”

• little reviews
  

  “Pour conclure, j'imagine que ce n'est pas par hasard qu'ils se sont appelés listenlisten (et même parfois listen! listen!) : c'est une musique qui se mérite. Faut plus d'une écoute! Et, après, on ne parvient plus à se décoller…”

• cheaper than therapy
  

  “The most original album on this list, this is a haunting piece of religious heritage brought to the fore through stark arrangements of lost hymns from Africa.”

press materials:

• new! At The Orange Show, photo by Sarah Fleming {low/high}
• Woods, photo by Pam Cantú {low/high}
• Black and White Polaroid, photo by Ben Godfrey {low/high}
  
• Color Polaroid, photo by Ben Godfrey {low/high}
  
• Rubble, photo by Paul Bryan {low/high
  

contact:

• email: saywhat@listenlisten.org
• myspace: myspace.com/listenlisten
• facebook: facebook.com/pages/listenlisten/244200730547
• twitter: twitter.com/listen_listen