A very extended play single of Discount Store from the forthcoming LP Pop Psychology

It was inevitable. Singer-songwriter Dan Bryk has returned to record store racks with Discount Store.

This six-pack of Bryk’s trademark alternapop provides a glimpse into what he’s been up to the last five years—with a taste of Pop Psychology, the forthcoming full-length follow-up to 2000's Lovers Leap (released by Scratchie in North America; Avex in Asia).

Lovers Leap's relentless pop melodism and funny/dour/romantic lyrics introduced a songwriter who could walk the tightrope between confession and art that few but Elliott Smith would even attempt. Bryk was compared favorably to forebears like Bacharach and David, Randy Newman, and Jonathan Richman, contemporaries Aimee Mann, Ben Folds, and Fountains of Wayne, and more recently, indie phenoms Sufjan Stevens and Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst. Critically-acclaimed Lovers Leap landed towards the bottom of many critics' year-end lists and most tellingly, three years later in Pitchfork's influential “Found Sound” post-mortem. (Even a cursory Google search will turn up ongoing discovery of Lovers Leap, though it has been out of print since 2002.)

In 2001 Bryk travelled to Japan for a triumphant tour opening for freshly solo Pavement frontman Steven Malkmus. This was ironically followed by a protracted hiatus thanks to label wrangling and immigration delays that has kept Bryk from releasing another record for five years (although it did at least yield a few bitterly funny new songs that show up on Pop Psychology).

During that “career downtime” Bryk has written and/or recorded several albums' worth of material. But unlike J.D. Salinger, he's not waiting until he dies to release it. He has leaked songs to internet blogs, and various tracks have surfaced as e-singles (2006’s We Don’t Care earned 4 stars from Pitchfork), magazine compilation tracks and in soundtracks—and to Bryk's bemusement, Lovers Leap tracks have appeared in mash-ups with the likes of The Human League and Nirvana. His 2006 website-direct Christmas Album (Urban Myth) garnered a handful of stellar reviews from the web and the press, who couldn’t resist an eight minute plus ballad about his immigration travails from native Toronto to Raleigh, North Carolina, with perhaps a sly nod to that old Beatle chestnut about John and Yoko.

Those immigration difficulties are hopefully at an end, now that Bryk has received his U.S. residency and can tour and properly release records—the first of which is Discount Store. The 6-track EP features two versions of the title track (as mixed by Mika/Rufus Wainwright producer and fellow Canadian expat Greg Wells) with three more sparkling originals that would be welcome on any Dan Bryk album, plus a riveting cover of I Miss You, a ballad by new wave cult heroes The Furniture.

Discount Store is the first co-release between Bryk's singer/songwriter-focused label Urban Myth (also home to Brooklyn's Lee Feldman and LA's Corey Landis) and upstart Raleigh Emo/Punk label Firefly Music (Dakota Darling, Love and Reverie, The Tourist).

Bryk will begin solo touring the East Coast and Southeast in August, with full band shows for CD release and SE regional dates. Discount Store hits stores and download services July 24th. Each label will service the record to their traditional press and blog outlets independently, but will combine their college radio mailout and digital servicing.

Artist Websites: www.bryk.com • www.myspace.com/danbryk • www.reverbnation.com/danbryk

ACCLAIM FOR DAN BRYK

"Best Canadian Export since Loverboy" -Chris Collingwood (Fountains of Wayne)

"Gemlike acts of idiosyncratic genius... proof of just how exaggerated reports of song's demise remain." -Robert Christgau, Village Voice

"Dan Bryk is no ordinary singer-songwriter... Don’t be surprised if Pop Psychology earns the local secret with the often mispronounced name (bryk, not brike) a profile more commensurate with his talent." -Brian Howe, The Independent Weekly

"Irresistably catchy... Bryk’s honest, funny lyrics flirt with self-deprecatory gloom and loneliness." -Glorious Noise.com

"Songcraft is the game Dan Bryk plays, and he gets a triple-double with about half of the songs he writes." -Grayson Currin, The Independent

"It's funny that singers who cynically exploit idealized notions of plastic beauty and weighty fate scan as earnest and sensitive, while cynical Bryk's representations of the actual world, where physically flawed, terminally bored people half-heartedly find and lose each other all the time, contain so much more truth and empathy.” -Brian Howe, Pitchforkmedia.com

"Dan Bryk is quite entrancing. He plays piano ariettas that will make your heart flutter just like a teenager with a first crush. His voice is honestly emotive, his lyrics easily comprehensible, following many storylines of love lost, life forgotten and dreams remembered. Bryk has pop music down to a tee. Peel back each onion skin and you’ll be shocked by what sounds you hear in unison. It’s layered pop." -Encore

"You know of course that the guy who wrote "...and Now Our Love is Dead" didn't just release a chirpy little Christmas album full of family-friendly good cheer. Nor is this a sarcastic stab in the heart of the holiday season that you might expect from a smug indie rocker. Instead this is an entertaining, sensitive yet comedic, singer-singwriter album similar to his 2000 release Lovers Leap, but instead the songs are about Christmas, a tete-a-tete with Jesus Christ, and a long drive across the United States... it will keep you alive with indie rock Christmas tales year round." -Mote

"Nicely twisted confessional pop... Rufus Wainwright meets Ben Folds, drunk, at a Christmas party" -The Wilmington Star-News

“[Bryk’s] somewhat crazed imperfection is about the closest thing to inspired that I can imagine.” -Aiding and Abetting

"The Jimmy Webb of the new millennium" -Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices)

“Bryk’s gift is that he can turn just about anything into music” -Amplifier

"The Greatest Pop Genius You've Never Heard Of" -Tokyo Metropolis