Listen to Help

Jake Bellows is the frontman of Neva Dinova, with which he released three proper full-length albums in addition to a split with Bright Eyes. Neva Dinova has toured the world as headliners and supported bands such as Death Cab for Cutie, M. Ward, Rilo Kiley, Stephen Malkmus, Daniel Johnston, Jonathan Richman, The Faint, Mates of State, Cursive, Azure Ray, Pinback, and more.

Recently, Jake Bellows and friends including Ben Brodin (Conor Oberst sideman and engineer at ARC Studios), Ryan Fox (The Good Life), Todd Fink (The Faint), and Heath Koontz (Neva Dinova) have been at work on a big batch of new songs which will be on Bellows's new album, to be released later in 2013. In the meantime, they took one of those album tracks, "Help", and put it on a cassette tape with a couple other recordings from recent studio sessions ("She's Feeling Low" & "It's All Working Out"), a gorgeous new song called "Meaning Wrong" and an old 4-track cassette solo demo of the Neva Dinova staple "Supercomputer". The flip side of the tape includes a handful of demos from Jake's deep catalog of unreleased material and most of them weren't recorded while on drugs. There's tape hiss, creaking chairs, coughing, a reggae tune, and an embryonic version of "It's All Right Now" which will appear in fleshier form on the upcoming full-length. Cassette includes mp3 download of the A-side tracks.

A true and unique voice of our time, Bellows has after two decades never relented as a writer, and with new intention will release the starkly beautiful New Ocean later in 2013. In the title track, he speaks of imagining a flood filling up the valleys of East LA, where he now resides. And instead of scrambling, every man for himself, he speaks to the possibility of a better way. "Let's lower down the ropes, and let our brothers in" he sings. "Give my body to the fish so they don't starve. And we can fall into a New Ocean."