Austin Sound

It’s difficult, if not impossible and somewhat pointless, to anticipate whether Sixteen Deluxe could have been really big. At the end of Nineties, the band was poised to acolyte the Austin scene behind their showers and sparks of deep-distortion bled shoegaze, signed to Warner Bros and garnering national attention. An all too familiar story followed from there, though: short-lived major label love, followed by band drama, drugs, and eventual disbandment. If 1998 seemed like nothing but promise for the quartet, by 2000 it was bust. Yet this is largely what is also so great about the recent reunion shows from the band, and the subsequent release of the early live shots and demos on Year One. Watching Carrie Clark, “Frenchie” Smith, Jeff Copas, and Steven Hall during SXSW, there was no pressure – just a return to the early joy of feedback bliss simply for what it was worth, and that is exactly the sound that emerges from Year One. The recent shows and these first early recordings serve as complimentary bookends of band simply in love with the sound, of pushing themselves with unconcerned expectations, and perhaps resurrecting something that got lost along the way.

The warped screech that kicks off the album with the demo of “Baby Headrush,” cut by Carrie Clark’s monotone, disaffected chant sets the scene of the album. Giving way to the scarring burst of guitar noise and abusive percussion, the tune is ecstatically rough. The five demos that make up the first half of the album were recorded in July of 1994, only two months after the band’s formation, and the results that come through the speakers on these tunes are not just of Sixteen Deluxe first formulating their sound, but of a group enthralled with the possibilities awash in the roaring feedback.

Clark’s vocals are, for the most part, buried deep behind the wall of distortion, which on songs like “Now” contributes to the washed out aesthetic. The stellar slacker anthem of “Idea” might be better with more surfacing of Clark’s ferocious howl, but also manages paint perhaps the best portrait of the band at it’s birth. Meanwhile, the heavy sludge of “Honey” is a veritable mind-numbing barrage and “Happy Song” unhinges the demos with a 2:00 vocalless screed. Though certainly not the best recordings offered up by Sixteen Deluxe, the intention of capturing that early catharsis is fully achieved here, and balance Year One well with the juxtaposition of the live tracks recorded nearly a year later that make up the rest of the album.

There is something inherently warming in listening to the 4 songs recorded at Liberty Lunch in May of 1995. The short set commences with “Shanesong,” and the gentle guitar leading into the tune is almost shocking in its contrast with the onslaught of the previous demos. We hear a band that has not just tightened up, but that has also taken that primal instinct that fueled their inception to a level that extends beyond themselves. Carrie Clark’s vocals on the live recordings are fierce, dripping with a psychotic grit that rips through “Shanesong” and rises to meet the liquidating force of the music. The control of tempo on “Apron Strings” was nowhere near hinted at on the demos, and the reprise of “Baby Headrush” and “Idea” one year on make it clear why Sixteen Deluxe grew into the powerhouse that they did.

Year One doesn’t fall into the essential category of Sixteen Deluxe’s material, but the album does present something much more exciting – especially for those Austinites that watched the band emerge in the Nineties, and as a document that marvelously represents the band’s impressive transition from its earliest sounds to the more familiar fulfillment of that vision a year later. And it’s a nostalgia that actually ages incredibly well.

Websites:
http://sixteendeluxemusic.com
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