Since its inception in 2018, The Big Stir Singles Series has been a weekly diary not only of the global pop rock scene but the culture of its times as well. Our BIG STIR SINGLES: THE SIXTH WAVE CD (out Friday, May 15 at www.bigstirrecords.com/store and up for pre-order now) documents the period between mid-February and late April of 2020, and on its tracks, you can hear the world changing right before your ears. The disc is every bit the sterling collection of exemplary global guitar pop that Waves 1-5 were, but across its running time it clearly pivots to the sounds of musicians addressing the worldwide pandemic through direct artistic responses and the fundraising efforts that accompanied many of the singles upon release. This is heart and soul music as always, of uniformly impressive quality and fundamentally boisterous and uplifting. But on The Sixth Wave listeners can feel those hearts coming together for a bigger purpose. Music unites when we can't be together, and the friends gathered together here prove it.

The disc commences in the pre-Coronavirus era with the superb sunny pop of of Ohio's LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS and Orange County's POPDUDES, and rushes onward through the yearning guitar crunch of Chicagoland's DOLPH CHANEY, a heartfelt cover of the Kinks classic “This Is Where I Belong” from the legendary JIM BASNIGHT, and the blistering art-pop-punk of THE WALKER BRIGADE. As on previous volumes, each artist is represented by their A-Side and B-Side in sequential order, with most of the material being exclusive to the Singles Series and almost all of it making its physical media debut on The Sixth Wave.

PAULA CARINO's beautiful and eerily prescient “Door” represents the first Big Stir Single of the socially-distant era, offering hope to the isolated through both its heart and its charity benefit status with profits going to One Fair Wage's Worker Relief Program. That spirit of giving, support and unity would tellingly define the remainder of the single releases collected here. GLOWBOX and TOM CURLESS AND THE 46% appear courtesy of FUTUREMAN RECORDS with a fine Double A-Side pairing of XTC covers from the previously digital only component of the GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS compilation (benefitting the Wild Honey Foundation). THE WELL WISHERS lend us “We Grow Up”, a single-sided benefit song for Disaster Philanthropy's COVID-19 Response Fund.

Sales of “The Accepted Time”, the beautifully appropriate lead single from the forthcoming album from THE CORNER LAUGHERS, aided the band's hometown Redwood City Educational Foundation. JOE NORMAL & THE ANYTOWN'RS were among the first to address the particulars of our new reality in song, in rocking and reflective turns respectively with “Living With Me” and “Home”. And our own TRIP WIRE, forced to suspend studio tracking of their next record, simply allowed us to release the two brand new tracks that they were able to complete before the lockdown, bursting with the live-in-a-room energy we're all missing so much.
Closest to home for the Big Stir family in all of this was the virus-related loss of our dear friend Matthew Seligman, bassist for The Soft Boys and Thomas Dolby among others and a wonderful companion and collaborator with us in many things over recent years. The closing single from SPYGENIUS was issued to raise funds to assist Matthew's family in coping with his passing, and this collection is lovingly dedicated to his memory.

We at Big Stir have committed ourselves during this time to serving the music community and the wider world through both charity releases and the simple act of continuing to keep the music flowing to our audience. We aim for a balance of providing the comfort and regularity of releasing the wonderful music of our artist friends, and inventively creative responses like our surprise release of the completely isolation-era-created QUARANTINE SESSIONS lo-fi benefit compilation (released in April an available at www.bigstirrecords.com/quarantine-sessions now). The Sixth Wave continues that mission with 25% of all proceeds also going to the same organization – Sweet Relief's Musician Assistance Fund – and an option for fans to donate further beyond the $12 price of the CD or download.