The Band and the Beat‘s two-song single is a warm, lush blast. It’s a blast in the “blast of air” sense: the analog synths and drum machine create a surprisingly different atmosphere than the harsh digital synths I’m used to. (It’s also a blast in that it’s a lot of fun.) Even when the sound turns ominous, as it does about four and half minutes through the seven-minute runtime, the tune seems comforting. I keep wanting to say “warm blanket,” but gives short shrift to the tightly constructed arrangements and song structures. Freeflowing jams these are not, which is good–I’m not usually the guy trying to sell people on lengthy noodling (be it of the synth or guitar type).
No, “21” stays tight due to thoughtful songwriting and Tracy Tritten’s pristine vocals (of Tracy Shedd). Her soft alto/mezzo-soprano floats effortlessly over the seas of synths. Her voice is more playful in b-side “Buoy,” which fits with the lighter mood of the track. “Buoy” sounds like a lost Mates of State track, if they gave up the piano altogether and went full synth. It’s a friendly, smile-inducing song that features a bit of arpeggiated bass thump to break up the legato lines. “We were never meant to settle down,” Tritten claims, “Another trip and another town.” The song fits as a road song–perfect for the bit when the adrenaline of leaving has worn off and the enjoyment of the ride has set in.
“Get ready / suit up,” Tritten offers at the conclusion of “21,” and it’s a worthy mantra for the outfit as well as the listeners. I’m intrigued to hear more from The Band and the Beat, as their synth-pop is more than just cheery melodies. The complexity of the songwriting in “21” points towards strong offerings in the future.
If you’re in the Triangle of North Carolina, you’ll have a couple chances to see them live over the next week or so:
Nov 1. Durham. Duke Coffeehouse. w/ Free Pizza (Boston)
Nov 7. Chapel Hill. The Cave. w/ Tim Lee 3
In 2014, Fort Lowell Records took a leap of faith and asked me to do something that I had never done before in 12 years of being a blog: premiere a record. (I still have my vinyl copy of the Good Graces’ Close to the Sun framed and hanging on my wall to mark the momentous occasion.)
When I dramatically changed the genres I review and listen to in 2018, I noted that “I’ll probably be a pretty bad premiere partner for the near future, as I don’t quite know how to talk about the stuff I’m geeking out on yet.” So it’s with astonishment and gratitude that I present to you one of the first ambient premieres I’ve ever done–for none other than Fort Lowell Records.
“in the same vibration that pothos green grows” is the first single from infinitikiss‘ ambient music(yes, it’s really called that–I can’t make up this amount of serendipity).
The track itself is an expansive piece drawing on the subtle tensions between a roughed-up arpeggiator pattern and the round tones of a bright acoustic guitar. The programmed and gently distorted synth puts forward pressure on the track; the lazy, expansive, elegant acoustic guitar notes slow the track down. The space between those motions is the heart of the song. Even with the texturing on the arpeggiator, the piece is warm and sunny, evoking hammocking on back porches and laying in summery fields.
If the song above piques your interest, the album will be pressed on chartreuse green translucent vinyl via Fort Lowell: you can order it here. (Look at that snazzy mock-up! You know you want one.) The album releases February 17, 2023.
James Tritten and a nice hat.
And while, usually, my premieres would stop there, this one was too astonishing to let go at just that. So I took it upon myself to talk with James Tritten, the label head of Fort Lowell records. I wanted to know: how did y’all end up listening to ambient too? And how did you come across infinitikiss? James was so gracious that he not only gave me answers to those questions, but he made a Spotify playlist of his favorite ambient tracks. (The interview has been condensed for clarity and length.)
Stephen (IC): infinitikiss is an ambient record. How did that come about, and how did you get involved in ambient?
James Tritten (JT): It starts with The Band and the Beat [ed: James and his wife Tracy Shedd’s electronic duo. We’ve covered them too.] So basically, Nic Jenkins is infinitikiss. We met him when we were living in Raleigh, around the time we were touring around the region. We were booking a leg all the way through Florida and back, and I just picked up his name between the Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina.
He lived between the two cities, and so I reached out to him. And we ended up playing a couple of shows with Nic. Nic and Tracy and I, but specifically Nic and Tracy, really, really hit it off. Like, they were brother and sister immediately. They were just kindred spirits.
infinitikiss. photo by M. Elger.
I think it was like the first night we played with him, it was the end of the set. She got him after the show and she’s like, Nic, I wanna record a record with you. And that would’ve been probably 2015 or 2016. So then fast forward that conversation: when we decided that we were gonna record another Tracy Shedd record, Nic was it. If you look at the credits on The Carolinas record, it’s Tracy, me and Nic Jenkins.
So, Tracy and I took a little trip across the US this last May and we spent time with Nic. He’s now in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We got there, we spent a couple of days with him, which was beautiful. Somewhere in that conversation I must have spoken about the first ambient record that Fort Lowell had the privilege to release, and that’s the La Cerca record: A Nice Sweet Getaway. That came out in 2020. I remember recommending it to Nic at some point. It was later that he made a note [on Instagram] like, “wrapping up an ambient record,” and then I reached out to him then to say, “Well, hey, could I hear it?” That’s all it was. Could I hear it?
So we, Tracy and I, we just fell in love with it within–I don’t even think I was halfway through the record yet, and I was already like texting him, “Hey, can we talk about putting this out?”
Also infinitikiss. Lower resolution version.
This is a true statement when I say that I literally start every Saturday and Sunday listening to that La Cerca record. And we’ve been doing it for two years now. And the minute I got Nic’s record, it’s now both records. They’re just both of ’em side by side. It’s just such a beautiful way to start a day. It’s so just peaceful and it just, it just brings you into the day.
IC: So, tell me about this playlist!
JT: I literally spent my entire weekend making this playlist. I’m so excited. I’m really proud of it.
Ambient music starts with that, at my core, I’m a shoegazer. Tracy and I, we grew up with shoegaze. Like we were going to the club when it was like, “Here, let me introduce you to a band called My Bloody Valentine. You know, they just put out an EP.” And it’s really weird. It’s really noisy, you know?
So as a shoegazer, the goal was always to just get your guitar to sustain as long as it could. You know, one strum and then just this ever-sustained echo or whatever it was–reverb, whatever. This would’ve been like ’92, maybe ’93. I had four Roland Space Echoes. Four. Not one. Four.
IC: Just in case.
JT: No, I played through every one of them! That’s how obsessed I was with sustaining the guitar. Four of them. And I’d even loop ’em. I knew how to cover the erase head and you can create loops out of it and stuff. So I just became obsessed with these things. They were very much part of my instrumentation, as much as the guitar was. Well that led me to Brian Eno’s Discreet Music. So it’ll be the first song on the playlist. In my opinion, that is just the utmost epitome of ambient music.
And then I purposely, you know, I gave you La Cerca right following that because I just, I think it is on par with what Brian Eno does. And I know that’s a bold ass statement to say.
IC: Hey, you know, shoot your shot!
JT: I think it’s great. These examples on the front end that are these shoegaze bands that we were listening to. I mean, at the end of the day, ambient music is shoegaze minus the rhythm section. I mean, really! It’s true!
So that is where I just started aggressively collecting music like that. My dad ended up getting me introduced to bands like Tangerine Dream and Synergy, some of that older stuff, you know, the Barry Cleveland I’ve got there. Harold Budd, you know Harold Budd. Obviously you can kind of tie that into Brian Eno. But you can quickly see how it goes from this world of shoegaze stuff into this world of like old seventies-ish electronic music.
IC: I see … I love Johan Johansson. I see that on here. I love Spiritualized, Squarepusher, AphexTwin. American Analog Set. I love that you have–this is the more guitar-oriented ambient, right? The way I came into ambient is the opposite direction from the more synthesizer-heavy stuff into quieter and quieter and quieter and quieter until I ended up at ambient.
This is really fascinating for me. It will be really exciting for me because a lot of these were not in the path that I took to get to Brian Eno and then points beyond.
JT: I appreciate that actually, because I purposefully did that. I felt like, “I really need to tell my story with ambient music.” And I’m coming at it from a guitarist point of view. That’s the truth. You never would associate a band like American Analog Set with the word ambient.
IC: Yeah. But you put it in there and it makes sense.
JT: Yep. Well, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that track and what it is specifically. It was part of the Darla Records Bliss Out series. The Windy and Carl track came from the same exact series. It was a series of 12 inch EPs that they did. And my understanding is that that is what they were pushing the artist to do. I don’t know if the word ambient was being directly given to them. But that American Analog Set 12-inch is nothing like any of the albums. It’s completely different.
And so that song, in my opinion, it qualifies to a degree of ambient. There’s a couple of tracks in there where’s there’s a bit of a beat or rhythm that kind of comes in, enough that someone may challenge it.
IC: I think that’s part of it. I mean, ambient doesn’t have to be all clouds of synthesizers, right?
Thank you for talking with me about this “new” fascination that I have that goes back a decade, but is still basically new because we’ve only been writing about it for short period of time. I’m looking forward to more, more ambient records from y’all!
JT: I thank you even more for the opportunity to help promote the record and get it out. It really does mean a lot. —Stephen Carradini
I’m a big fan of Tracy Shedd, The Band and the Beat, and Fort Lowell Records– all efforts of some combination of Shedd and James Tritten. They (in Fort Lowell form) have a new compilation coming out called GROW: A Compilation in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter. The label explains that “The project, focused on Wilmington, North Carolina, is a response to the racial injustice continuously displayed by law enforcement across the United States of America. Friends of the formerly Tucson, Arizona-based label involved with GROW have donated their own talents to allow 100% of the sales from the record to endow the New Hanover County NAACP with working capital to help Fort Lowell’s newly adopted local community. GROW is an effort to help address the dire effects of racism in America.”
In advance of the record, they’re releasing four singles, and we have the honor of premiering Tracy Shedd’s single/video for “Holding Space.” The video is here:
The song is an icy, stark, downtempo electro framework with Shedd’s inviting vocals lifting the proceedings. “Are you listening?” she asks over a rubbery bass guitar, Casio-esque tinny synths, and distant tambourine clink. “Holding space / make it a better world” she croons over the chorus, as the instrumentation cheers slightly to meet the hopeful lyrics. The song isn’t long (2:59), keeping things tight and urgent. This is especially reflected in the coda of the song, which shudders to a sudden halt, leaving the listener with a sense of incompleteness that fits the lyrics. The accompanying video focuses on moving shots of horses and plants (particularly flowering ones, plus the spiky/beautiful aloe plant), but with a cold, desaturated color palette reflecting the dim light of the song’s sonic world. It’s a unique, interesting song with a tightly connected video.
You can also listen to “Holding Space” via SoundCloud:
1. “Monolith 1” – The Kompressor Experiment. Here’s 15 minutes and 43 seconds of gloriously thunderous post-rock/post-metal that draws its inspiration from Kubrick’s 2001. Need I say more?
2. “Ocean in a Drop” – GoGo Penguin. This churning, dense piece resists classification. Is it a post-rock piece being played by a jazz trio? Is it experimental jazz? Is it something entirely different? Whatever it is, it is wildly engrossing and deeply interesting. The bass gets a lot to do, which I very much enjoy.
3. “White” – Liam Pitcher. This is the first track of the first album of an eleven-album synchronous release. Ambition much? The solo piano work is delicate and lovely; it’s very sweet but with notes of dissonance throughout. It is evocative of the Japanese video game soundtracks (FFVIII in particular) that Pitcher grew up on. (Full Disclosure: IC writer Lisa Whealy is doing the PR for this.)
4. “Blackberry Wine” – Jon Bennett. If you think that they don’t make folk singers like they used to, then you’ll love the early ’60s finger-pickin’ folk of Jon Bennett. It’s evocative of a singer whose name rhymes with Rob Millen.
5. “His Name Was the Color That I Loved” – the Good Graces. A sentimental, touching ode to a male family figure (grandfather? father?) in the tried-and-true alt-country vein: train-track drums, crunchy lead guitar, and acoustic guitar. The Good Graces are always a safe bet, and this one pays off in spades.
6. “Rush to Spark” – Foxes in Fiction. The former chillwaver has settled neatly into a dream-pop vein, taking some (some) of the big synth washes away in lieu of more intricate, delicate arrangements here. The feathery vocals are a great touch over the keys and gently insistent percussion beat.
7. “Bruises on Your Shoulders” – Thirsty Curses. A piano-driven folk-pop jam that’s a cross between the Lumineers’s pop chops and The (old-school) Avett Brothers’ vocal enthusiasms. The tune is about suddenly realizing you’ve become an adult out of nowhere, which I certainly have experienced more than once.
8. “Holding On” – Tracy Shedd. Shedd is moving in the opposite direction from Foxes in Fiction, going from an introspective singer-songwriter space into a dancy, electro-pop-inspired vein. It’s not quite the big dance-pop of her other project The Band and the Beat, but it’s got stacked big synths and a lot of forward motion accompanying Shedd’s intimate vocals and lyrics. It’s a head-bobber.
9. “At Night They Race Through the Stars” – Clara Engel. If you’re down for some vocal-centric slowcore acoustic work, Clara Engel has you covered. The slow-paced, slow-motion-fingerpicking tune has atmosphere to spare from solid supporting cello work.
10. “Johnny Went Off to War” – The Long Farewells. Here’s a historically-inspired (although it could be about any war at any time, the mark of a true folk song) folk song with a tragic ending. The arrangement is spartan but effective, and the female vocals are strong.
11. “Something in the Background” – Samuel. Funky, soulful, downtempo instrumental work with a sax as the lead voice. I’m sure someone somewhere is claiming this as some variant of jazz, too. Whatever you call it, it’s chill and would work great in the chill-out section of your next party playlist.
12. “O World! I Remain No Longer Here” – Glacier. I’m far from the first person to note this, but the fact that crushing post-rock band Glacier named their latest release No Light Ever is basically all you need to know about this release. There’s so much heavy guitar distortion here on this track that you’d be forgiven for thinking Glacier is a metal or doom band. This stuff is sludged-out to the max–until it goes almost silent. This is quiet/loud/quiet taken to its utter extreme. Oh, and it’s 14 minutes long.
1. “Hopeful” – Bear Mountain. A little bit of Passion Pit, a little bit of Vampire Weekend, a little M83, and you’ve got one of the best dance-pop songs I’ve heard all year.
2. “Entomologist” – Luxxe. Shades of Jason Isbell’s evocative voice creep in here, placed in the context of a perky-yet-mature pop-rock tune. It all comes off with impressive cohesion.
3. “Buoy” – The Band and the Beat. If you wished that Mates of State used analog synths all the time, you’ll be way into TBxB’s gentle, warm, female-fronted synth-pop. The tune just wraps itself around my brain and comforts it.
4. “Understand” – Photoreal. It seems wrong to describe this pop-rock tune as “muscly,” but it feels like a streamlined, beefed-up version of Generationals’ catchy indie-pop work.
5. “Au Naturel” – Holy ’57. The frenetic blitz of a major-key sugar rush will never get old. This tune has everything I’m looking for in a pop tune.
6. “Lodestar” – Starlight Girls. The disco vibes are impeccably done and the vocals are tight, but–for my money–this song is 100% about that bass work. It’s melodic, funky, tight, and just plain irresistible. A knock-out.
7. “Storm” – Bright Whistles. Sometimes I’m concerned that I’ve abused the term “quirky,” because something always seems to come along that was quirkier than the last. Suffice it to say, “Storm” by Bright Whistles is like what The Flaming Lips could have been if they kept on the Yoshimi path, or what all genres of indie-rock sound like in a giant blender, or (stay with me on this one) what an OK GO music video would sound like if the video itself were transformed into audio that reflected the clever, enthusiastic, enigmatic visuals. In other words, it’s pretty rad.
8. “Summertime” – The High Divers. Bands are always making odes to that sunniest of seasons, but this one really nails it: a touch of Vampire Weekend, a splash of Hamilton Leithauser’s vocal gymnastics, and a whole lot of good-old-pop-music. Dare you to not smile.
9. “Two Weeks” – HIGH UP. File this powerhouse tune under “Muscle Shoals Soul/Funk,” right there next to Alabama Shakes, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and St. Paul and the Broken Bones.
10. “Burning Candles” – Disaster Lover. It’s like I walked into a room where Disaster Lover’s vision was already fully employed: not so many songs capture and modify the aural space that they’re deployed in. The whirling/somewhat chaotic percussion and synths that are woven together to create this here/there/everywhere piece of work are wild and yet inviting.
11. “We All Decided No” – S.M. Wolf. This is, at its core, a pop-rock song. It is a very weird, arch, theatrical, blown-out take on the theme, but it’s in there. This is basically what I imagine we’re trying to capture with the idea of indie-pop: pop songs that just aren’t radio material in this universe, but only because it’s an unjust universe.
12. “Suspended in la raison d’être” – Cloud Seeding. Just a beautiful instrumental dream-pop track that’s over too soon.
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The track itself is an expansive piece drawing on the subtle tensions between a roughed-up arpeggiator pattern and the round tones of a bright acoustic guitar. The programmed and gently distorted synth puts forward pressure on the track; the lazy, expansive, elegant acoustic guitar notes slow the track down. The space between those motions is the heart of the song. Even with the texturing on the arpeggiator, the piece is warm and sunny, evoking hammocking on back porches and laying in summery fields.
