Jason Urick is the kind of ubiquitous figure in Baltimore underground music that you’re bound to have tripped over at one point or another if you’ve spent any time in the scene, whether he was organizing the Once.Twice Festival, running the DIY venue Floristree, working at the record store the Sound Garden, or playing in the noise band Wzt Hearts. But it’s only now, a year after that group’s breakup, that Urick has issued his first solo album on Thrill Jockey.
For years, Karmella’s Game have been one of the most infectiously fun live bands in Baltimore, with a bombastic treble overload of squealing synth lines and polished female vocal harmonies. However, like many power pop bands, they’ve struggled to translate the energy of their concerts to studio recordings without losing the heft of their rhythm section and the crunch of their more guitar-driven material. Their 2003 debut EP, What He Doesn’t Know Won’t Hurt Him, was promising but still tentative and lightweight, while their first full-length, 2006’s The Art Of Distraction, was a confident step in the right direction, with heavier rock and almost proggy song structures.
Needle Gun, a noise band formed in Baltimore by four teenagers in 2006, feels like a bit of an anomoly. Historically, the noise scene in Baltimore seems to be defined largely by solo improvisors, or home recording projects. But Needle Gun, in addition to being much younger than the average noise act, are a live band with a firm lineup who play rock venues, and their music isn’t purely improvised. Still, they are clearly connected to, and embraced by, the estabished Baltimore noise scene, as evidenced by their ties to Ehse Records, who released their recent album Afternoon Computer Umbrage, and Twig Harper of Nautical Almanac, who produced the disc.
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The first time I saw the duo of Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack, at a small, half-empty club in Baltimore shortly before the release of their debut album, If Children, will always stick out in my mind as a cherished memory. And it’s not just because their band, then called Monarch and now known as Wye Oak, have since gone on to national acclaim and a deal with Merge Records. More than any me-first bragging rights, I remember that night as the first time I heard several songs that I’ve since fallen in love with an obsessed over, as If Children subsequently revealed its emotional depth and musical ingenuity more with each listen.
Rjyan Kidwell has been releasing records and performing as Cex in and around Baltimore for roughly a decade now. And while there was a period, running from 2002’s Tall, Dark and Handcuffed through 2006’s Actual Fucking, that he operated primarily as a vocalist, creating music that was a vehicle for his singing or rapping, the majority of his work before and since then has been instrumental, driven by programmed beats. As closely associated with the IDM scene as he’s always been, though, there’s long been a thread of appreciation for less “intelligent” dance music running through Cex’s catalog. And his latest release, Bataille Royale, is his most overt attempt at incorporating the sounds of some of those other genres, particular Baltimore club music, into his own murky, proggy aesthetic.
Impossible Hair’s members have been kicking around the Baltimore indie rock scene for well over a decade, in outfits of local legend and modest national renown like Buttsteak, The Oranges Band, Roads To Space Travel and the Lee Harvey Keitel Band. So in a sense it’s easy to regard them as just another project from a few journeymen that will probably move onto something else in a couple years. And while their breezy, 35-minute debut, What Is The Secret Of Impossible Hair, doesn’t necessarily disprove that notion, it packs an impressive punch that consolidates the strengths of their previous bands into a fun, compact package.
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A Recording & Mastering Studio in Baltimore
