So this is my first 'Sound of the Week' installment in a while. Plan is that I manage to do one of these - yes, you guessed it - a week. Famous last words...
The Morning Benders.
The Morning Benders.
I discovered this band last night, completely by accident, while
baking an apple pie (there it is below, right before it went into the oven. It
was exquisite).
I haven’t been able to tear myself away from them since… or the
apple pie that I made, for that matter… snort
I accidentally came across a live acoustic performance they gave, of
their song, Promises. I was looking for some Local Native live sets to add to a playlist and up
popped this video, as they do on YouTube, along the right-hand side of the
webpage. Couple of things caught my eye, the first, being the name ‘The Morning
Benders’. It’s a bit odd, and for any Irish people reading this that are as
immature as I am, it’s also quite funny. The other thing that caught my eye was
the thumbnail frame of the video. It was a close up of the lads in the band, each of whom embodied everything wonderful about classic geekiness (see for yourself below). Between that and the name of the band… I
was sold. Off I clicked...
Promises may be just
another one of those songs about an uncertain relationship, but its unique
combination of big-beat thump and tangled voices add something kind of special.
As most people tend to do when they find a song they like by a band
they’ve not heard before, I went and had a gander at what else they had to offer.
After a little bit of digging, I got the impression it was their second
album, ‘Big Echoes’ that I needed to pay most attention to. So I slowly but
surely, in my belly-full-o-pie state, nommed my way through what ended up feeling like
dessert number two... The type of dessert number two you have room for, and turns out to be way more satisfying than you had anticipated.
The Morning Benders'
vocalist and founder, Christopher Chu, said in a recent interview, that he
likes to attack the recording process with a "Phil Spector kind of
vibe." He went on to say that he would just like to "pile in like 50
people into the studio... and just blow it out."
Enter their recording of
‘Excuses’ (video of recording below), courtesy of Yours Truly sessions. Excuses
is my favourite song on the album, and I think it is down to this recording.
The quartet were joined by an array of friends and San Francisco music
found-abouts, while they performed the song.
I fell for the lyrics
pretty quickly. Chu says, when speaking about the meaning of the song, “It’s a
song about trying to reconcile falling in love for the first time… physically,
specifically, having sex for the first time, or kissing for the first time.
That kind of experience. And then, growing older with someone, and picturing
yourself with someone forever. And it’s trying to reconcile how you can make
those two things work, or how they can exist in one person…”
Excuses is a fun, sunny,
lilting little tune that evokes a 1950s pop feel. If this song were a person,
that person would be an incredibly easy-going, honest pal, who you'd love hanging out with, especially on lazy summer Sundays.
These guys are fun to
listen to. I have a long way to go in terms of making my way through all of
their EPs to date (there are about seven, I think) but Big Echo was a good place to start.
It isn’t overly sappy or sweet, the way you might think an album from a group
of mop-headed twenty-something lads from California might be. It’s accessible, and
it kind of gets deeper with every listen. Like many of my favourite albums, this
seems like it has longevity.
Enjoy.
