DOMINANT LEGS and NURSES
On sale: Friday, August 12 at 12:00pm CST
DOMINANT LEGS
Let yourself love what you love: the idea is simple and yet the act is deceivingly hard. Nevertheless, when you are in the presence of Ryan William Lynch, songwriter, guitarist and lead vocalist for San Francisco’s Dominant Legs, you know without question that he has done just that. And he’s asking you to join him. To judge by Dominant Legs’ sound—pop songs culled from the textures of past decades, but with a classic songwriting approach—this man has many loves. Shot through with addictive synth melodies and vocal harmonies, crossed with a chic shimmer of Nile Rogers style guitar, and flecked with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac and, yes, Tracy Chapman, Dominant Legs songs are as difficult to describe as they are to resist.
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The story begins in 2008, when, after being laid off from his job as a mail clerk, Lynch, began to compose the first Dominant Legs songs in his suddenly abundant free time. He recalls, “one day I finished a new song. It was different from any song I had written before. I knew I had something.” With his newfound sound as Dominant Legs, Lynch, who had played for years in SF band Magic Bullets and was currently lending his playing to GIRLS, began catching ears and eyes while performing around San Francisco and eventually across the country.
In 2009 vocalist/keyboardist Hannah Hunt joined. With interweaving male and female vocals, the duo breathed life into songs about the perils and excitements that endlessly rise from the commingling of boy and girl. In 2010 Dominant Legs released the Young at Love and Life EP to critical praise. After a year of performing internationally, the songs had grown and so did the band: bassist Andrew Connors, guitarist Garett Goddard and drummer Rene Solomon joined to expand Dominant Legs’ sound as the group geared up to record its first full-length LP.
With a handful of songs already written, Lynch encountered a quote by the Boss himself speaking of his masterpiece, Thunder Road: “It's an invitation. It was my big invitation. We invite you to something. Not sure what yet. Something is opening up. A sense of larger life, greater experience. . . . Sense of more fun. Sense of personal exploration, the idea that it was all laying there somewhere inside of you.” He chose to run with these themes, and, in late May Dominant Legs' first full-length was completed. Rife with a spirit of abandon and love and life experienced in its fullness, Invitation awaits you on Lefse Records this fall.
NURSES
Nurses return with Dracula, the follow-up to their 2009 homemade psych gem Apple's Acre. Dracula is steeped in the strange pop brew that bore Apple's Acre, with the band's unmistakable elastic melodies, heady pop hooks and unconventional knack for catchy songwriting that gets under your skin. But where Apple's Acre was an insular album, recorded primarily in an attic in Idaho using just an internal Macbook microphone and primitive recording software, Dracula is bursting. It's bolder, heavier, with deep grooves, dubby basslines and a focus on rhythm. It's an album with pure physical qualities. Apple's Acre was an album made for headphones; Dracula needs a sound system. What has not changed is the undeniable constant in Nurses' body of work: their immediate and catchy pop songs. The band embraces hooks and melodies--yes, they turn them upside down and inside out--but at their core, the band (and Dracula) are defined by pop songwriting.
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Nurses retreated to the Oregon coast to record the album, spending winter months in a cabin together, where they set up a recording studio away from the distraction of their hometown of Portland, OR. They were completely immersed in the process, the three members of the band (Aaron Chapman, James Mitchell, John Bowers) deep in collaboration. They did not embrace typical roles--no guitarist, no keyboardist--instead collaborating as a trio of producers, adding one idea on top of another until the sounds became songs. This isolation, the early winter darkness, the misty, moody walks on rocky beaches all creep into Dracula. The band avoided society and focused on making the record, and managing to shut out most outside influences. Except for Prince. Like almost any music fan, you have a moment with Prince, the moment that you realize his mastery of song and soul and discover the true depth of his genius. Luckily for us, this moment for Nurses happened during the making of Dracula.
Following the tracking of the album on the Oregon coast, the band took the audio to Scott Colburn's Gravelvoice Studios in Seattle, enlisting Colburn and Julian Martlew to mix Dracula. Colburn's masterful touch (his production credits include Arcade Fire's Funeral, Animal Collective's Feels, and the bulk of the Sun City Girls catalog) brought the sounds to life, allowing Dracula to become a three dimensional being, solidifying the band's evolution from a bedroom recording experiment to a dynamic ensemble.
PHANTOM VIBRATION
Phantom Vibration is a dream pop trio based out of the Twin Cities. Daniel Clinton-McCausland met Henry Mackaman in high school. They used to play in a blues rock band. They met Gunnar Kauth during their senior year. That summer they made a lo-fi/surf band and skateboarded a lot. When it was time to go their separate ways for college, writing for Phantom Vibration became a way for Dan and Henry to stay connected. Eventually, they asked Gunnar to be their drummer.
