Hermit Thrushes are a strange, ambitious power that only the east coast could have birthed. Cryptic lyrics in English and Greek sit comfortably overtop angular guitar parts, melodic bass lines and fine-tuned drumming. Standard rock instruments are supplemented by melodic doublings on trumpet, spare glockenspiel lines, noisy organ chords and drums filled with metal.
In the Fall of 2006, Yianni Kourmadas (guitar, vocals) embarked upon an extended trip to Greece. Far removed from family and friends, he wrote and recorded a handful of songs on a guitar he trash-picked in Athens and collected hours of field recordings. The songs and sounds he captured reflected happiness, curiosity and loneliness. When he returned to his home in Philadelphia, a small group of friends assembled to perform and record these songs. After three months of playing together, the recordings (both the basement recordings of the young band and the recordings made in Greece) would become the first Hermit Thrushes album, "Benaki" (named after the museum in Athens that Yianni had spent entire days perusing and obsessing over).
The band released their debut, Benaki on Single Girl Married Girl in June of 2008, followed by a 7" record, a cassette tape, four national tours, and a notorious CMJ Marathon appearance involving a pants-less drummer and a Village Voice reporter.
The Hermit Thrushes stage show has been the subject controversy and frequently features cross-dressings, rainbow outfits, outrageous acrobatics and high kicks. They have shared the stage with notables Elf Power, Pattern Is Movement, Nat Baldwin (of Dirty Projectors), The Mae Shi and many more. Hermit Thrushes also perform in the band Folklore, fronted by Jimmy Hughes of Elf Power and Yianni performs in Leopulde (Sounds Familyre Records).
The band's second album and first for Joyful Noise, entitled Slight Fountain, streamlines the band's chaotic sound into a cohesive batch of songs - successfully balancing their naive bedroom lo-fi with disjointed arrangements, noisy multi-instrumental blasts, and nasty pitch-shifts. Slight Fountain will be released June 2009. 
NEWS 2009 Year-End Musings (December 15, 2009) CJ Boyd "Aerial Roots" and Stationary Odyssey "Sons of Boy" Released Today! Both bands tour! (November 10, 2009) Stationary Odyssey release free digital EP & Tour (October 28, 2009) HERMIT THRUSHES ARE DEFILING EVERY NOOK & CRANNY OF THE UNITED STATES WITH POLYRHYTHMIC HIGH KICKS (July 18, 2009) HERMIT THRUSHES "SLIGHT FOUNTAIN" & PUSH-PULL "BETWEEN NOISE..." NOW AVAILABLE (June 14, 2009) HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY / TINY MIX TAPES MIX / MAGNET MAGAZINE & HERMIT THRUSHES (April 1, 2009) HERMIT THRUSHES SIGN WITH JOYFUL NOISE (March 9, 2009) | 
