Tag: Young Marble Giants

“Recent Mineral” by Church Chords is an Enchanting and Mysterious Blend of Krautrock, Bossa Nova and Noise

Church Chords, photo by Matt Gribben

Church Chords’ forthcoming album elvis, he was Schlager (out February 26, 2024 on Otherly Love Records) sounds like an ambitious, experimental post-punk album years in the making with numerous collaborators that songwriter and producer Stephen Buono brought together after the manner of a hip-hop producer. And you get a taste of what’s in store with the single “Recent Mineral” with the quietly sultry vocals of Genevieve Artadi who sings in Portuguese. What are the lyrics about? Might have to ask someone that understands the language or wait for the full release of the record. But you don’t need to know in order to really be taken in by the finely accented percussion and hypnotic arrangements of texture tones, slashes of echoing, stretching, warping guitar altogether reminiscent of Young Marble Giants, Faust and an abstract Bossa Nova band mixing it up to make a song that is entrancing and mysterious and you wouldn’t think overmuch about if it was in a movie like something Jim Jarmusch or Sofia Coppola would produce.

Church Chords on YouTube

Church Chords on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 34: John Baumgartner of The Trypes

The Trypes, from Bandcamp

The Trypes is an experimental, psychedelic folk band that began in 1982 in Haledon, New Jersey. It’s instrumentation began with an eclectic mix of sounds and textures so that its music was difficult to narrow down to an established genre. Fans of Savage Republic (who were contemporaries) and Stereolab will find something to like in The Trypes’ unconventional use of rhythm and composition at times seeming to favor compound time signatures and textural atmospheric elements. Its brand of folk and psychedelia sounded like it had tapped into a bit of the minimalist post-punk of the early 80s like Young Marble Giants and the more avant-garde Swell Maps whose own use of noise collage has some resonance with what you hear in a song by The Trypes. Around the mid-80s Glenn Mercer and Bill Million of influential post-punk band Feelies joined The Trypes for a time when their own band was on hiatus adding to some of this group’s artistic legacy. In 2012 Acute Records released the collection Music fore Neighbors which collected the group’s 1984 EP The Explorer’s Hold as well as unreleased demos and a compilation track not so easy to come by. But now in 2022 that compilation has been reissued on Pravda Records to celebrate the band’s 40 year anniversary and now includes songs from a 1984 showcase at the Bottom Line in New York and two tracks recorded when the original Trypes performed a reunion show in 2017. The CD is available now with a gatefold vinyl to be issued later in 2022. This interview was conducted with founding keyboard player John Baumgartner and delves into the group’s early days in New Jersey and its development and for many rediscovery.

Listen to the interview with Baumgarnter on Bandcamp linked below and for more information on The Trypes and to order the CD/download of Music For Neighbors visit the links below.

The Trypes on Facebook

Pravda Records