Brooklyn’s Sloppy Heads – comprised of Bill the Drummer (aka V. Stiles) and Ariella Stok (aka Starmaiden) and Jimmy Jumpjump (aka Frow #1) – have been hard at work on their debut full-length, following the success of various shorter releases in the past. Leading up to the release of Useless Smile at the end of the month, we’ve got the exclusive premiere of their track “Plane To See”.
Bill The Drummer has quite a bit to say about the track itself.
“Plane To See” was the last song we wrote before recording Useless Smile, and the recording captures it in that stage of newness where there’s still a bit of nervous excitement to playing a song, before it gets completely internalized. When we play it live, the instrumental second half becomes a long, gradual crescendo, but for this version we opted to take advantage of the studio and build the track in terms of density rather than merely volume. Each of the three of us contributed loops of field recordings we’d made and manipulated — crickets in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, bells that hung from Jimmy’s grandmother’s door, and a turbine in a building near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway — which are slowly faded in to create a cloud of sounds buzzing around that circling organ melody. Too late in the mastering/manufacturing process, we had the idea of making the final seconds into a locked groove, to allow the space created by the collision of these different environments to continue infinitely, or at least as long as the listener cares to inhabit it; if anybody successfully modifies their record to create one, hit us up and you might be the lucky recipient of a prize bundle from Vlada. (Items in prize bundle may be perishable, hexed, and/or mildly radioactive.)
From the first guitar chords, we feel like we’re about to be transported into a track by The Monkees. And we aren’t far off, as they sing about the coming of winter in a very similar – and equally as endearing – way, with a tad more contemporary garage rock inflection.
Shows:
01.25.17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool * Album Release Show with Dump*
02.04.17 – Brooklyn, NY @ The Gutter
Useless Smile is out January 27th. It is available for preorder now.
