Through The Sparks
Lazarus Beach (Skybucket Records)

Is:
Jody Nelson
James Brangle
Greg Slamen
Thomas Mimikakis
Nikolaus Mimikakis

HISTORY:
Through the Sparks was named when Birmingham musicians James Brangle and Jody Nelson began writing and recording with longtime friends and collaborators Nikolaus and Thomas Mimikakis and Greg Slamen in early 2004, but the music had been culminating for years. The band had worked together in full and partial forms with other Birmingham bands, such as Stateside and Cutgrass and as a backing band for other folks for a decade that began . . . in relative childhood.

Nelson, Brangle and the Mimikakis twins taught themselves to play music together in high school, when "Blues Before Sunrise," the Band, the Blue Oyster Cult, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, ELO, Neil Young and Steely Dan were the soundtrack to Canadian whiskey-swilling sing-alongs in the Alabama kitchens of any out-of-town parents with unwarranted confidence in their children's judgment. However, they spent most of their time learning to play instruments rather than falling prey to the perilous Trans-Am revving years of youth (or at least living to tell about them).

Slamen, an oddly familiar face from the guitar stores and record store aisles, became a mainstay in the group early in the college days, when full-time music-making became the norm. Upon the realization that they were sitting on a library of songs and ideas, and with multiple songwriters in the band, Through the Sparks pooled their pile of beat-up pianos and organs, 8-tracks and a Protools rig, and formed Alamalibu Studios, the band's heavily fortified, though often transient, music-making space in Birmingham. The band released an EP titled Coin Toss and a limited edition collection of early recordings, AudioIotas, during the first year and a half of its existence, both released on Skybucket Records. They've recently completed their first full-length release for Skybucket, while playing as many shows as their recording schedule allowed.

Lazarus Beach is due May 1. The album was a year in the making, and hosts many Birmingham guest musicians to round out some of the instruments needed that Through the Sparks either didn't have on hand, or didn't know how to play.

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