The new record, You're No Dream , is out May 20 in the US and June 2 in France. Order it, the physical or the digital, at La Societe Expeditionnaire (USA) . For France, the album is available through Differ-Ant Distribution and Messie Murders Records .
"Awash in lo-fi charm, riddled with the beats of a broken hand drum, and cradling Howard's even-keeled vocals (think Dave Berman of the Silver Jews) You're No Dream comes together as a collection of ragtag nursery rhymes" - L Magazine (Brooklyn)
"The title You're No Dream itself seems like an uneasy self-reassurance that the current condition of the songwriter is in fact real, and not the result of some sort of murky dream. The album dances between these two places—waking life and sleep—in a way that doesn't feel completely comfortable in either state. It is a dark and stunningly subtle record..." - James Burns, Treble
"The soundtrack to wandering around a city you've never visited, to road trips through the South, to lying in bed wishing you were doing all of the above. Even in its relative simplicity — compositions built around a voice and an acoustic guitar — there is a depth in Soltero's music that transcends genres and time periods, leaving you with a fantastic record and your dreams." — Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson, On Tap Magazine
"Soltero's fifth full-length finds him coloring his customary ruminations on relationships with varying senses of place, a palpable feeling of motion and displacement. Howard writes that "the more time I spent on the record, the more I wanted them [the songs] to be slight and unsure, like a novice pickpocket." That shows on "Prick on the Prowl," in which shaky strumming and spectral slide work effect some queasy nocturnal transmission as he pounds the Pavement on his soused and self-loathing rounds. Elsewhere, however, his arrangements are some of the most compelling yet, daubing the diaries of his peregrinations with unusual instrumentation and gauzy production. Among the best is the beautiful instrumental "Living in the Fish Islands," which suggests the subaquatic movement of quicksilver schools via looped accordion, deep-thrumming percussion, pretty arpeggios, jingling bells, and propulsive organ weaves, undulating in and out, far and away." - Mike Miliard, Boston Phoenix
"En dépit d'une décontraction de façade, c'est un vrai travail d'orfèvre que Tim Howard propose avec ce nouvel album : l'air de rien, mieux qu'un rêve, un miracle." - Guillaume Sautereau, POPNews
"Un disque quasi miraculeux où les moments de grâce stellaire ne manquent pas." - Concertandco.com
The previous records can generally be found online - either through solterosongs.com or the respective label's website. But I'd say you're probably S.O.L. on the first record ("Science Will Figure You Out,") because that sucker is out of print, and I think Defrocked may be as well.
Science Will Figure You Out (Kentuckyland) 2001
"[Soltero's] first full-length, Science Will Figure You Out, is absolutely stunning. It's an album of someone in transition, with a three-song opener that surpasses anything I've heard this year... Sure, anyone can write about unrequited love, but how many can really make you care about their pain?" - Northeast Performer (October 2001)
Defrocked and Kicking the Habit (Handsome Records) 2002
"The news may be bad, but the way Howard tells it often evokes a smile amid the tears. Without those few light touches, mostly lyrical in nature, Defrocked might have been too heavy for even the hardest cynics to endure. With them, Howard reminds us that a sense of humor is the best survival tool for life's myriad disappointments -- some good songs don't exactly hurt, either." AMG rating = 4 stars - John Schacht, All Music Guide
The Tongues You Have Tied (Three Ring Records) 2003
"Tim Howard writes songs that possess the mortal weight of old folk ballads, but are delivered with the regal melodies and vocal style of [Ray] Davies.... Tongues is a quiet, beautiful, and sometimes self-deprecating collection of songs.... the title track sounds like Stephen Merritt collaborating with Elliott Smith." - Zeth Lundy, PopMatters (August 2004)
Hell Train (Kip Kip Traw + Three Ring Records) 2005
"Doing the solo singer/songwriter thing well is hard to pull off. You've got to offer the breathy brilliance of an Elliott Smith, the homespun wit of a Loudon Wainwright, the poetic audacity of a Joni Mitchell -- or in the case of Tim Howard, aka Soltero , a bit of all three." - Dan Strachota, SF Weekly (December 2005)
"Hell Train is a record to which I'll keep coming back." - Alistair Fitchett, Plan B (UK) (July 2005)
