Review: Julia Brown - "An Abundance of Strawberries"

Julia Brown - An Abundance of Strawberries

(Self-Released 2014)

It seems strange that a release so understated could have had such an impact on the year's music climate. Julia Brown opened 2013 with their debut effort, to be close to you, an offering that wasn't quite long enough to be classified as an album considering its meager length (16 minutes), but was also too fleshed out, too complete to be recognized as a mere EP. to be close to you existed its own quaint, lowercase reality where punctuation and capitalization were optional and cellos melted into brute, acoustic strumming like hot fudge in a bowl of tape-recorded ice cream. Over the course of the year, many similar outings blossomed across Bandcamp's vast musical landscape, each of them beautiful and fragile in their own way. But none of them could quite live up to the chill-inducing warbliness that was to be close to you. As I waited for Julia Brown's follow-up album, An Abundance of Strawberries, to download, I wondered if even JB themselves could live up to their own lofty standard.

I like to think of Julia Brown's frontman, Sam Ray, as Charlie Brown searching for meaning in South Park's cruel, eternal winter. Somberly, he recites free verse over blustery instrumentals, drawing out the coziness in "the old stone church and kids selling coke". He meditates on the mid-2000's. His friend's older brother shows him his guns and pills on a snow day. He stares out the window on Halloween. The lyrics are beautifully observational; Sam's imagined hands stay rested in the front pockets of his jacket while he looks on, emotionally detached, but sensory-wise, he's absorbent. The scene is spit out at the listener, and it's up to him what to make of them as waves of twangy guitar and tape hiss crash in the distance. Instrumentally, An Abundance of Strawberries isn't as consistently breathtaking as to be close to you, but it is more varied and experimental. "Snow Day" pairs piano with a whirring drum machine, similar to Ray's work under the Ricky Eat Acid moniker. The title track features the band's lushest arrangement yet, marching band drums and droning ambience creating a hugeness unparalleled by any lo-fi song I've heard in recent years. Though I didn't find Strawberries as immediately satisfying as previous Julia Brown output, I think it just might be their finest work to date. Just give it time.

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/tmshiscfsocpxs3/strawberriesmaster.zip

Cassette Corner Timeline: Part 3

The final installment in a list of influential and interesting cassettes. 2003-2013

Hair Police - Obedience Cuts

(2004 Hanson Records)

Lexington, Kentucky harsh noise unit Hair Police have been destroying eardrums since 2001, and Obedience Cassettes is just one of many solid tapes put out by the band. It was their debut on the infamous Hanson Records label and also happens to be their most accessible effort to date. Underneath the layers of screeching noise and grimy tape manipulations, one can hear the faint echo of shouted vocals and meaty bass guitar on songs like "Bee Scrape" and "Let's See Who's Here and Who's Not". Only the truly brave will listen to this with the volume cranked up to the max.

Vehicle Blues - Pizza

(2008 Lillerne)

I think just about everybody reading this can agree that the inventions of both shoegaze and pizza are two of mandkind's greatest achievements, and here they are, housed in the same cassette. Pizza is the debut tape single of bedroom pop project Vehicle Blues, two tracks that combine the influences of My Bloody Valentine and krautrock, creating a stagnant pool of reverb-washed sludge that doesn't do much but stew in its own juices. That's totally ok though, as elements like the "Dancing In the Dark"-esque keyboards on "But What You Feel Is" make for a relaxing and unique listen. This tape is a brain massage, and if you ever get the chance to get your oven mitts on this personal Pizza, by all means do so.

Kevin Greenspon/Cloud Nothings - Split

(2010 Cass/Flick + Bridgetown)

Yeah, you read that right. You may not have known it, but Dylan Baldi's Cloud Nothings have a few tapes in their back catalog, which rank among the finest selections in his discography. This split with Bridgetown Records founder Kevin Greenspon offers two sides of deep-fried fuzz pop. Greenspon's tracks combine the sounds of the Go-Gos and early Dinosaur Jr, while Baldi's side takes on a more modernist garage rock approach, which should appeal to fans of the Orwells and Beach Fossils. "I Apologize" is a noise-laden gem, and is my current favorite Cloud Nothings song.

Yu(c)k - Weakend

(2010 Mirror Universe)

Here's another currently well-known artist who got their start releasing tapes. Yu(c)k was the short-lived side project of Yuck's former frontman Daniel Blumberg. More in tune with "Shook Down" than "Get Away", Weakend is a collection of four dreamy piano tracks recorded in Daniel's flat. Each of the cuts is haunting, from the shoegazey "Daughter" to the stark "Automatic". Perfect in nearly every way.

Abuela - Self Titled EP

(2012 Swan City Sounds)

Abuela's 2012 debut tape served as my introduction to the world of cassette culture, a humble cassingle I happened upon by chance on a Bandcamp binge over fall break last year. Though only eight minutes long, Abuela's tape is a powerful listen. It's extremely raw, with its simple acoustic finger picking, handclaps and stomps, yet it's not particularly noisy or "lo-fi". It relies on sparsity and emotion, not sound quality to capture the attention of the listener. Ramon Crespo's gravelly falsetto is heart piercing, and gives life to each of the three somber tunes on the EP. If this cassette doesn't strike a chord with you, then I don't know what will.

Julia Brown - To Be Close To You

(2013 Birdtapes)

If any current cassette culture band is going to make it big, it's Julia Brown. to be close to you is a lo-fi masterpiece, squeezing strings, watery keyboards, twangy guitars and super tight vocal harmonies all on to one little tape. There's no filler to be found on this album, as it's one of the best overall releases of the year. Read my review of it here: http://half-gifts.blogspot.com/2013/02/review-julia-brown-to-be-close-to-you.html

Interview: Julia Brown on Tour

My friend Ben Wiley had the opportunity to talk to one of the year's finest new indie pop bands, Julia Brown, on their recent tour. Read the interview below, which concludes with a surprise appearance by Coma Cinema's Mat Cothran.

INTERVIEWER: What tour date is this and how long have you been out?

Sam: This about two weeks now.

John: This is the fourth night of the tour. It’s not officially the first day out on tour because we played Baltimore the first night of the tour. Then we went back

Sam: A home show first, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Where do you guys play in Baltimore?

            Sam: We played at Club K. Which was ok. It’s the best thing there since Bell Foundry shut down.

 INTERVIEWER: What’s been your favorite part of the tour?

            John: Tonight probably.

            Sam: Tonight and last night probably. Tonight was maybe the most fun to play because we got to be goofier. Shea, where we played Brooklyn last night, it’s like a venue and a studio and they record everything they do and archive it so we couldn’t mess around. It sounds phenomenal.

            John: We don’t really do sound checks and have our stuffed mic’ed because of the places we play it doesn’t make sense.

Alec: We played on a stage.

John: We actually played on a stage, which was cool.

Alec: It was definitely a less professional show tonight.

John: I think the three Brooklyn shows and the show here tonight are my favorite shows we’ve played as a band.

 INTERVIEWER: John, what were you doing before Julia Brown?

Sam: I can tell you all about that.

John: Before Julia Brown I played bass in a bunch of bands including the Night Crawlers. I actually just started playing drums for this band because they needed a drummer. I was in school.

INTERVIEWER: How do you think your sound has translated live?

Sam: When we were recording ‘to be close to you’ there were only really two or three songs we did all together. We started recording it before the band was formed, before we knew who was in it. I was recording songs. There were a couple songs we were like “we need a drummer for these” and that’s when John joined but then you were in Mexico. Yeah, You got really lit in Mexico for a while and I specifically remember you talking about sea lions for a while.

John: Every night in Mexico, that’s when I bought my first pair of drumsticks, I was vacationing with my family in Mexico for a week. I looked up how to say drumsticks in Spanish and went to a music store and sat there and played drums on a couch and got hella lit and talked to Sam all night. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Sam: ‘Library’ and ‘falling in love’ are the opening two tracks, the only tracks we did as a full band on that so were thinking naturally that was going to be how it was going to go live. So when we were working on ‘to be close to you’ and ‘I will do this for the rest of my life’, they have drums, we were trying to not just replicate but to do a more unique version of them. The new one we’ve been playing is probably going to be very similar to how it is. It depends on the song but we can’t have a lot of super-no-drums-downtempo  stuff and really get away with it.

INTERVIEWER: What’s it like playing with Mat Cothran all the time?

Alec: It’s a lot of fun

John: Uhh its fucking awesome. I love seeing Mat every night.

Sam: He’s a character. He’s another that writes very downtempo. I like when he does Her Vore….and there he is now.

Mat: You guys talking about me?

John: Do you want to be part of our interview?

 Sam: I got a question for mat. So who is Mickey and who is lee and who is Eva Angelina?

Mat: Oh no.

Sam: Who is Blue Suicide?

Caroline: How do you play an F chord?

Mat: I’m like the guru of the mountain but only idiots climb up.

            John: Is Blue Suicide dead? Did the dog kill himself and is that why he’s sad?

            Mat: Someone asked that one once.

Order Issue 3 of the Zine!

Hey there! I just got finished writing issue three of the zine. If you'd like to receive a free print copy, email  your address to jude.noel3@gmail.com. Due to unexpected demand, even if you ordered last time, make sure to email me again. 

Interviews

- Julia Brown

- Lo-Fi By Default

- Kinesthetiac

- Barlow

Features

- Hanson Records

- Vaporwave

Reviews

- Elen Never Sleeps

- Bevo Francis

- Santa Cruz

- Landing

Review: Julia Brown - "To Be Close To You"

Julia Brown - To Be Close To You

(Bird Tapes 2013)

"A beacon of light in a dark age of cookie-cutter lo-fi bands."