To start the new year, we wanted to catch up on some EPs that have recently been released and that we didn’t have a chance to cover last year. Focus Group, Nurk, and the Correction Brothers are all debuts and sweep across a range of styles, while Transmography’s tour EP from several months is ago is simply pure Tranmsographied awesomeness. The Focus Group offer up a beats and instrumental, sample-laden shot, Nurk takes a break from fronting the Seas to swoon through pop, and the Correction Brothers lay down the dirty the strings with their dark folk. Most of these groups are already working on new material, so keep a look for official releases coming soon.
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Focus Group – Focus Group (SR)
The debut EP from this local quartet is bizarrely fascinating, layering a polished instrumental prowess with contortions of samples and beats. It’s an odd balance that doesn’t always come together perfectly, but the mix of jazzier elements and electro gadgetry in songs like “White Folk Is Freaky” produces a riveting torrent of surprises. The song, sampling a stand up routine over a thudding bass line and trombone blasts, is the best of the five tracks, mixing each member’s expertise most effectively into a driving groove. It succeeds where opener “Very Truly Yours” is a too overwhelmed by the blips, and other songs like the 7-minute long closer “Teeth First” polish out too many of the surprise twists to remain engaging over the extended jam. The bass line on “Baby Fat” melds perfectly with piano, however, and bolsters the intermittent surges of distortion and electric guitar before jumping into a fast-paced dervish.
- Doug Freeman
Website:
Myspace
Nurk – Nurk EP (SR)
As lead singer of the Seas, Nurk delivered the kind of swaggering, jittery pop that quivered behind falsetto reaches and sexualized, ass-shaking Eighties styled tunes. His debut solo EP, however, is somewhat of a different creature, stripped to just guitar and his dramatically flared vocals. There is still a bit of the driving sexuality to his songs, especially the exceptional “Skinny Legs,” which sounds like Morrissey keening voyeuristically across the dance floor as Nurk’s voice swells and pops with a smooth croon. The EP opens with the short, lilting ditty of “Make Up A Sin” before sliding into delicate “Work in Progress.” The recording quality is fairly lo-fi, and the 7 track EP lacks somewhat in direction or overall coherence, but songs like “A Small Investment,” which plays like a mellow “Rocky Racoon,” are charming and witty, and closer “O Selma” hits on almost Orbisonian note. There’s no denying Nurk’s mesmerizing voice, and it’s great to hear it given so much of the spotlight as it is here.
- Doug Freeman
Website:
Myspace
The Correction Brothers – The Correction Brothers (SR)
If you’re from the dirty, then your grandmother may have whipped up a warm concoction of syrup, lemon and whiskey to ail your sickness when you were a wee little tyke. Well, the premiere release from the Correction Brothers will surely do the trick for you as a grown up. Not that any of us have grown up, but the rural, acoustic blessings of Dale Beach and Mark Medley may show you how to get there, and how to take the rough times with a grain of salt, or sometimes, sugar. Self-taught and self-produced, the local duo delivers country goodness with strings and broken throats, harmonizing the fears and the joys of a post-punk pair, whose backwoods colors sketch an uplifting darkness. On opener “Boots,” Medley proclaims: “…thirsty for things bucolic, can I adjust please/ I’m feeling apostolic, it must be them trees/ I kinda like this bottle, it kinda likes me/ I ain’t no kind of model, on this we agree” Meanwhile, the harmonica and words of Beach on “Sugar on the Floor’’ gave the most eerie, yet rewarding sensation, like if I died tomorrow, it would be ok.
- Bryan Smith
Website:
Myspace
Transmography – Transmography EP (8o88)
Transmography and I have a history of me sucking them off in print since 2005. And while I’m quite aware of this atrocity, I can’t help but keep my pen lathered, as Michael Lewis Frazier ‘5000’ and Jimmy ‘Jimbabwe’ Evans have recently dropped a four song EP that has local turntable-ists talking BPMs and the relevance of live instrumentation within the resurgence of the “party’’ or “nu-rave’’ culture. Since the earlier part of the decade, countless bands, production teams and deejays have come out of the disco closet to make a quick buck off the 4/4. Well, this Texas pair do it live, AND stroke your cerebral at the same 8-bit time. In other words, with a drum kit, a guitar or two and a Yamaha DJX, Transmography has birthed their own brand of anthemic dance that’s part psych, part paisley, and all party. Eat your heart out DFA. Or sign Transmography! Either way, they kind of rule the minimal disco revival - Austin style.
- Bryan Smith
Website:
Myspace
