Flameshovel Records was born on the streets of Chicago, IL in the early portion of 2001, with the simple idea of helping some friends get their music heard. Founded by Jesse Woghin and long time buddy Noah Mewborn, the duo were soon joined by James Kenler. Mewborn left for Philadelphia the following year to finish grad school and the remaining partners forged ahead.

The label has since put out over 30 releases, not least of which includes the entire Make Believe catalog (featuring the newest ramblings of indie-avant hero Tim Kinsella), Low Skies, Sybris, Lying In States and many more. In the last year alone the label has seen its stock rise considerably garnering glowing praise with tastemakers such as Pitchfork with the release of The Narrator and Chin Up Chin Up's debut full-lengths. As 2006 unfolds the label quickly finds itself continuing to branch out scoring both the latest release from post-Promise Ring popsters Maritime, avant-instrumental heart throbs Russian Circles and Chicago buzz band Bound Stems.

So what's left for the duo? After being called out by the Chicago Tribune as one of the 10 local labels that still matter and with bands playing both Lollapalooza (Sybris) and Pitchfork Fest (Chin Up Chin Up) this summer, both James & Jesse have their eyes on the prize, looking squarely at the future with the singular goal of following through with the same high ideals that launched them 5 years ago: the impassioned release of the finest new music flying under the radar in Chicago and beyond. Flameshovel has carved themselves a rare niche as a label with both vision and heart.

What people are saying...
Bound Stems:
"A woozy triumph featuring quivering vocals, ragged distortion, and train-track drums, the song follows its haphazard trajectory to arrive at a blissfully imperfect indie-rocking whole." - Entertainment Weekly

"On its densely packed 25-minute EP, The Logic of Building the Body Plan (Flameshovel), the Chicago band Bound Stems finds plenty of room in a zone that borders Wilco, Animal Collective, Tortoise and the Fiery Furnaces. The songs start out orderly and serene, working in minimalist patterns on a chord or two. But it doesn't take them long to go haywire. Tracks mutate from electronics-smudged skiffle to garage rock to noise, and back; verse-chorus-verse gets discombobulated by psychedelic squall and vertiginous overdubs. And Bobby Gallivan sings, in an unheroic voice, about memories, romance gone wrong and - strangest of all, given this stubbornly idiosyncratic rock - commercial ambitions." New York Times

"The music is smart and ambitious incorporating a tongue-tying jumble of lyrics on "My Kingdom For A Trundle Bed" and a collage of field recordings on the two part "Up All Night," but it's also emotionally super-saturated, achieving post-rock's complexity without its aridity or pretension - this is clearly a band bound for greatness, or at
least bigness." - Chicago Reader

Maritime:
"Pulling taut the slack of their saggy debut, Maritime's looking on the Mr. Brightside on 'Tearing up the Oxygen'. Davey von Bohlen lisplessly manipulates the full-bodied melody. Eric Axelson's bassline glides like the shadow of fast-moving cloudcover. Guitars quietly erupt into fountains of sparks. A gossamer vocal harmony and precious keyboard line take turns inscribing and transcribing the same inspired hook. Sleep pervades the oxygen: 'clocks keep slippery time,' scenery shifts, and the enamoree's absent eyes 'can be anywhere.' 'You can do anything,' von Bohlen asserts helplessly, 'I should be so lucky,' nailing himself to the heavy air." - Pitchfork

Low Skies:
"As the Chicago backwoods balladeers' engrossing second album attests, dying is easy; it's the living and loving part that brings trouble... His absence-makes-the-heart-go- flounder despair is reflected in the band's skeletal arrangements, which assume the sunstroked stumble of Crazy Horse (c.f. 'Cortez the Killer') and the Dirty Three's desert-dragging dirges. And standing in for Neil's signature one-note leads and Warren Ellis' weeping violin is an equally distressing instrument: Salveter's distinctive vocal, a death-bed confessional tremble that doesn't so much suggest a lump in his throat as a tumor." - Pitchfork [8.1/10]

Sybris:
"Mullenhour puts on her best Edie Brickell coo as her band rolls smoothly through understated dynamic shifts, building incrementally to a thrashing middle section, sinking through a quiet descent, then a upwelling to a mountainous, distortion-drenched re-crescendo. 'You're Only Confident in Your Insecurities' opens with a fuck-all '90s guitar jangle, then edges crisply to a pop-metal stomp, the music and vocals intensifying as one. Even the coffee-shop strum of 'Blame It on the Baseball' is made magnetic by Mullenhour's authoritative vocal turn, a blend of raw emotion and melodic control, and by the shimmering, stormy shoegaze it gradually melts into. ...Sybris's long songs, tonal contiguity, deliberate pacing, and infectious melodies are more than pleasant but less than bracing-- just right. They require no palliative counter-measure, and when the disc ends, there's no compulsion to rush to the changer-- why not just let it spin once more?" - Pitchfork [8.0/10]

Lying In States:
"Over the years, Chicago has been responsible for producing a fleet of celebrated artists, and its indie-rock pedigree is especially sterling. Consider acts like Liz Phair, Tortoise and a small band called, um, Wilco. Now add to that list Lying in States, an indie five-piece that's been a stalwart of the scene and with their latest album Wildfire on the Lake, just out on rising local label Flameshovel Records, threatens to break out." - Rollingstone.com

Narrator:
"A combination of serrated texture and breakneck intensity is what makes this fairly conventional album stand out: Instead of the shock of the new, it imparts the shock of the awesome, as it's tough to reinvent a wheel that's jamming down a rutted road with redlining RPMs. The violence is pyrotechnically garish, and one pictures bending guitar necks, snapping strings, toppling cymbals, sparking and smoking amps, a sky full of fireworks. For those who miss Up-era Modest Mouse, with their concussive riffs, prickly harmonics, and canting string-bends, Such Triumph will give you a lot to think about on your next long drive." - Pitchfork [7.5/10]

Make Believe:
"A swinging alternative to the Windy City's neo-trad scene is provided by Make! Believe! whose second single, The Vampire's Lament To His Nurse/Each Day Is Different And The Same As Cocks (Flameshovel 7") is an ass-flattener. Reminding me of a whole generation of lost children of Beefheart and also the early work of The Scene is Now, this record is really quite wonderful, surging into unexpected places with a rhythmic grace and sophistication that belies close attention to the works of Mayo Thompson." - WIRE