in wide latitude

Sitting in their home studio on Ashe Avenue about a year ago, the three pieces of Ticonderoga –Mark Paulson, Phil Moore and Wes Phillips, best friends since grade school back in Iowa City–pronounced that they didn’t need a label. For the moment, they were content, or even eager, to spend their time writing, recording and releasing a flood of new material pro bono in self-replicated, limited runs. On Saturday, they will release their debut in UPC-bearing, shrink-wrapped jewel cases through Michigan’s tiny, highly selective upstart 54˚40′ or Fight! And it’s not that Ticonderoga has gone back on its word. Instead, the label, sporting the same organic, day-by-day business strategy that the band too prized, pursued them after becoming enamored with online demos. That’s how exciting Ticonderoga–folk-influenced songsters with avant jazz leanings and subtly psychedelic meanderings–is. For their CD release party this Friday at Kings, Chapel Hill’s explosive two-piece Bellafea opens, followed by Yep Roc’s The Comas and their recent tour mates, Brooklyn’s Vietnam.