Written by: Dave Cantrell
Many things can be said about the Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records label (beyond the willfully wonderful nature of the name itself, which, for accuracy’s sake, has been officially shortened to HHBTM Records) but above all else it is a highly reliable source of ‘inordinately astute pop music in the rock/psych/etc idiom’ and has been since getting a head start on the 21st century by releasing the label’s first-of-many VA comps – “Happy Happy Birthday To Me Vol. 1” with catalog number HHBTM 001 – in 1999, a propitious designation that has led to a singular label legacy wherein today’s featured full-length exclusive comes with an ‘HHBTM 226’ stamped on its spine. And, not atypically, it’s another roaring yet accomplished pop stormer of a record.
Formerly of the postpunk-tinged Positive No, the duo of Tracy Wilson and Kenneth Close, past that band’s last full-length Kyanite that dropped Valentines Day, 2020, created a new project with just the two of them, named it Outer World and proceeded to roed toward the new unfolding decade with an earned blend of momentum and hope only to have that year’s most unwelcome visitor AKA Covid step in their path and into Tracy’s lungs, an invasion that not only changed the pair’s plans – especially as, unfortunately, it was the long version of the virus – but also wreaked a more-than-subtle havoc on Tracy’s vocal capacities. What had been a full-throated yet fully nuanced instrument was, by her own reckoning, somewhat of a shadow of its former self but, as any artist must do under inescapable circumstance, the singer (and, really, the two of them), over the following two years during which the big C lingered, worked their way toward the new voice and into a new sound. Trading the more standard band set-up for a computer, samples, synths, and plug-ins, the pair began crafting what would become Outer World’s debut EP Who Does The Music Love?. Should one take that title’s question seriously we’re quite certain here at SEM that at least one of the answers would, without doubt, be Outer World themselves.
As for the impact, the sea change forced on them by the pandemic, well, no surprise considering who we’re talking about here, the two took those headwinds and, quite simply, turned them to their advantage, as is exemplified by that adjustment Tracy was forced to make regarding her voice. A powerhouse vocalist that could command attention from the stage sans microphone if needed, that voice of hers is as central as ever as it, rather crucially, provides the central glide path through each of these songs in a way that suggests they couldn’t manage without it. Yes, the timbre is a slight bit less forward-leaning but in all honesty, to this writer’s ears anyway, the voice’s incipient power remains and, arguably, because she’s had to wrestle her way to a fresh approach to singing, it’s more innately expressive. From opener “The Drum the Beat” that kicks off the record with perk and jump and a crackling invincibility that could not more clearly telegraph the message the band isn’t just back after all they’ve been through but BACK!, through the jagged/smooth hypnotism of the aptly named “Flower Gunpowder,” “Have”‘s pop experimentalism, daring and spot-on nailed, the wild mercury sound fueling the eponymous track to closer “Loteria” that traffics in what, we swear, sounds like a kind of serrated, otherworldly exotica and will linger in your memory even before its finished, the entire shebang critically supported by the spirited, new-wavey drive of Positive No bandmate Keith Renna’s drumming, intuitive and as central as any other element, this EP is a daring but grounded introduction to a band that at the very least (and we mean very) will capture your curiosity and attention to a point sufficient enough to put them prominently on your radar. Beyond that, for us here at Stereo Embers, this is exactly the type of startlingly good debut that answers that sometimes elusive ‘why’ of why we do this. To hear something this new, this fresh? That’s just pure exciting and is, in that way we all recognize, the very ‘drug’ we crave. [scroll down below the player to read Tracy and Kenneth’s breakdown of each track; Who Does the Music Love? releases tomorrow, March 22nd on HHBTM and is available in both digital and vinyl formats here]
EMBED SMALL PLAYER:
The Drum the Beat
TW: Human beings have advanced over the centuries to accomplish incredible things from building bridges to curing diseases. We have even flown to the moon and back, and yet we are still undeniably primal animals despite our technological achievements. The electric chemistry between two people is as fascinating to me as our ability to harness nuclear energy and “The Drum The Beat” is about the birds and bees as much as it is about the power dynamic between two humans.
KC: If there is one thing I know that Tracy and I can do together is write a pop song. The arrangement for the song started as a full composition on the bass, which is very driving. This gave us room to sprinkle in the other instruments, creating a buzzing tension as the organs and guitars pushed and pulled between one another. Certain songs just come together quickly and this might be the only song in the collection that we completed within a day.
Flower Gunpowder
TW: The unnerving neopagan folk rituals found in the 1973 film The Wicker Man are the core inspiration for this song. Growing up watching a lot of UK television (my family lived in London as a young child), the occult found its way into all sorts of horror folk fantasy television shows. There were so many wild combinations embedded in my childhood brain: the oddball, oppressive community of The Prisoner, the witchy folklore of The Owl Service and Children of the Stones, and the sci-fi wonder of Dr. Who – they all continue to feed my imagination where the past and the future collide.
KC: I wanted something a little slower with a Gainsbourg-like rhythm. The intro part is this weird atonal Moog patch that we chopped up, stitched back together, and reapplied throughout. I love that the noise is this weird anchor to the song which has these spooky organs and tremolo-driven guitars. Being a live band wasn’t in our DNA quite yet, so we added just about everything we could to this song (hello bongos!).
Forms of Knowing
TW: The pandemic erased our ability to sleep at night. Insomnia moved into our home and stayed for many years. Awake at night, desperately trying to find our way to sleep, all the uncertainty and loss that came with Covid had us thinking more about our mortality and putting time under a microscope in such a curious way. “Forms of Knowing” is the Kosmische adult version of a children’s lullaby.
KC: During this time our travel happened by way of international records. An Italian girl group comp sparked the idea for the pre-chorus breakdown that weaved the whole song together. Thumping bass, booming toms, and our first pass at the spy guitars you hear throughout the album. A French kiss vocal and a pounding break beatty chorus which was maybe the happiest sampling accident we ever could have hoped for.
Have
TW: Written on hotel stationery on a trip to Iceland in the early 2000s, “Have” was an important reminder to myself. I had just lost my brother and father plus my mother’s health was in a place where we knew she would likely not live to see another year. The stress of so much loss and trying to care for my ever-shrinking family erased my focus on self. “Have” captured that hurt and my intention to refocus on myself after so many years of caring for everyone else. It is also impossible for me not to connect Iceland and Bjork (a huge vocal influence for me), so my singing approach was mindful of the spirit of her devastatingly intimate and personal record Vulnicura.
KC: With more time than we knew what to do with, I found myself obsessing over music production tutorials. It bordered on problematic at times as I was stuffing my brain with far more information than it may ever need. “Have” is certainly the outsider of this record, but an important moment in unlocking the code into executing an idea by way of mostly electronic instrumentation. Before the pandemic I would have given up at the drum machine. Knowing there was nothing else going on outside our walls we were able to layer track upon track and blow parts up to make way for this very moody song.
“Have” is our reminder that we are going to write the music we want even if it doesn’t fit into a genre box.
The Message is the Message
TW: As some people might turn to the church or astrology for strength and answers, I turn to art. Sure artists magically create something out of nothing, but they are also meticulous problem solvers. Rarely does a piece of art arrive into this world fully formed, an artist has to chip away at it, as if it is a sculpture being chiseled out of a marble slab. It takes shape slowly with each careful blow. I love reading biographies about painters because it allows the reader to get a sense of how their brain worked and what drove them to do the things they did; the how and the why. “The Message is the Message” is a celebration of Keith Haring after reading his diaries, the mind behind driving his art.
KC: This was the song where we truly became Outer World. We had written two songs prior, a loving nod to Stereolab, and another which was us throwing everything in the kitchen sink. Tracy showed me the verse guitar part which was so simple and spooky. Within minutes I had the bass underneath generally locked. As we completed the instrumentation of this song, it felt like we had captured the spirit of what we had intended with writing music for this project. A nod to the past with our spin and the song that paved the way for almost everything else you hear on ‘Who Does the Music Love?’
Outer World
TW: Continuing on the theme of art and its role in our lives, “Outer World” is a reminder that for every action, there is a reaction. Modern artists of the 19th century were creating masterpieces that took them out of the horrific nightmares of World War II. Jazz musicians like Sun Ra used their art to take them out of this oppressive planet into a better universe. “Outer World” considers humanity’s relationship (and my own), with the art and the world it is born into and where we eventually lose control of the things we create. The transition of handing over something that was an internal part of your being to the universe for others to do what they will with it is a surreal experience.
KC: Tracy hates even numbers. So we needed a 7th song for this collection and this was to be it. I must have just seen something on UK house music so I wanted to have a drum and bass loop for the song which is something we would normally never do. The fuzz bass might be our most obvious French influence. Tracy often writes very abstract lyrics and as we got to this song she decided she wanted to be as direct as possible. Let’s go for it and take yet another left turn. “I love the music! Who does the music love?”
Loteria
TW: A surreal piece that moves nonsensically like a dream. It began as a poem, an exercise of pulling random lines I had written down over the years and weaving them together to see what happens when you collage multiple ideas into one piece. This is much more about atmosphere and the abstract – allowing the words and my melody choices to become one of the instruments in the song.
KC: Right before lockdown I bought Tracy a sampler from a toy store. You can only record one, but it will loop and you can modulate the pitch. As we were working on “Loteria” we spent a day running around the house with that sampler, trying to capture the world around us and resampling ourselves for texture. This song is very free and the instrumentation feels like we got let loose in that toy store to play. It felt natural to end the record here—the space and open-endedness leave room for the next chapter.
