Zoo & A Movie super 6 way split!

Jeff Shelton from The Party Girls and The Mack sent me a single that both of his projects were a part of recently from Zoo and a Movie records. I first came across The Party Girls on a split series from Louisville is for Lovers Records and their track here includes another one of their technically precise numbers as well as introducing a ton of new acts you weren't even expecting.

A-Side's Gnome Wrecker/Dwarf Corpse does "Still Asleep" which is for me completely in that Eric's Trip style of restrained indie, the hushed layered vocals - booming clean drums picking up every nunce of the hit down to every accidental rim shot and clicky hit. The booming center kick shot fills up the rest of the spaces, it's all perfectly recorded, the dynamic of a high hat fill the simple no effects electric and the vocal here which is listed as Christine Murakami. This is leaning towards all of that mathhouse, the hits have even been separated across the channels, tom over there. Catching only pieces of this buried lyric like Rex where it becoes that much more important and mysterious. Or it's even like Dump, the quiet intensity of big guitars that fade away. I love this gigantic drum sound and simple repetitive melody that's all about the details.

Lucky Eyes are up with "Dummy Check" and Paul and Amber Oldham sharing vocals. It's a gritty, slightly western track with that back and forth vocal with such great style. Amber's a little more snarly than Paul who's singing in a low register baritone. The four chords toiling in a blue collar Replacements way. I always liked the word dummy, it's a better insult than anything...if you say it as sarcastic as possible. And how many great duo tracks are there? Loose and Velvets sounding in its casual sound, without the sweat, falling in line together.

The Party Girls "If 6 was 6" is the family affair of John and Jeff Bailey on bass and guitar respectively working this loose but technically complex piece with a lot of serious guitar... from windmill riffage to somber complex instrumentation. It's sort of surf even in the Jacuzzi Boys style of calling it like you see it, the mood and feel of that imperfection is the important thing. Not that there's any mistakes, but it's set up to be delivered all at once in a laid back set like this. A fantastic selection of bands, so far all working in a pretty straight forward very americana, hard edge sound, layered with fringe elements.

B-Side's The Gallery Singers open with "Night Prowler" which starts with some band howling and acoustic country guitar with a "Hoo ...Ha!" track, recorded hissy filled samples where a verse should be. This strange sense of timing is clear at parts. The back and forth of low fidelity and sparse guitar, voices chanting in like savages. A strange rain dance against the field recordings of cars going by.

The Mack does "Vision of Love" next which is John and Jeff from The Party Girls, sounding like Sonny and the Sunsets, man that guy can write a really contemporary, narrative/folk song. These guys have a raw rehearsal quality to this, but the core of a great Van Zandt track is here. They benefit from this loose arena and encourage things to open up, and that's why the best tracks end up like this. Crazy warbly room sound reverb flutter...tambourine and muffled warm electric. To get an intimate sound like this with their big noises is inspiring. This could never end up being played to more than 50 people.
Lawn Yachts do "Field of Poppies" with a direct line-in guitar, like a Shrimper comp from 20 years ago. Huge distortion, close mic vocals and feedback guitar washes in with big muff layers in massive crunch. Super 4 track recorded with those sounds that weren't created toegther in the same space.
Lucky Eyes finish the single with "Surprise" penned by A. Oldham, their straight up electric country sound is back. Honest with loose rock from the late '70s, just honorable composition and delivery. Listed as a demo it comes off as anything but...Amber and Paul layered over each other again in a great way, perfect dynamic in their duo sound, thanks to the years of sharing a last name. Art by kyle field.
Like the epic plains... something for everyone.

Massive list of info right there on the cover, no need for an insert, this is the list of players, dont get it wrong.

Translucent green vinyl with a yellow center label like the sundowners singles...on Zoo & A Movie Records.

The Mack / The Party Girls split series on Louisville is for Lovers Records

This split came in from a label out of Kentucky, Louisville is for Lovers Records and I love the whole idea they put together for this 7" series. This summer they are putting on a series of shows where the bands featured will have a split single they'll give attendee's with the price of admission. 4 shows, 4 7"'s: in total, 8 bands. You can subscribe to all the shows beforehand and then pick up the single at the door...for less than $10 bucks a show. Genius way to get excited about the music and then walk away with a record from local bands. Lucky you there's a few left from these shows and they're selling them at the Louisville is for Lovers online store.... including this split from The Mack and The Party Girls.

The Mack Side is singer/songwriter Jeff Shelton who plays nearly everything who's joined by a rotating cast of musicians this time Pete Townsend (!) came over from England to play drums. This side is mastered by Paul Oldham, who I've noticed has been mastering a bunch of singles from all kinds of micro labels like LIFL, and subdued songwriting like this. Gold Robot, Empty Cellar I remember worked with artists mastered by Paul.

'Love Habit', the first one on the A-Side has a real quiet, low, restrained feel, which seems to be the standard for The Mack. He's a real storyteller, narrative driven artist. He seems to just need the most basic, hardly heard backup, loose jazz-rock behind him. Always lots of space around everything, huge pauses to breathe and get acquainted with the whole picture... it's the situation Jeff designs, a classic formula that's worked since the beginning of this sort of thing. Dateless and like Jason Molina, or Vic Chestnut, I can imagine an alien planet where they could take whatever was considered an instrument and write a song.

'Free No More' has Jeff continuing the bare bones instrumentation, hardly a guitar melody but massive bassline this time (that could just be the vinyl) with a slight warm organ, sort of a jazz feel to this one. Jeff has just a hint of nasal Dylan to the vocal but definitely the same dense imagery, and clever unexpected rhyme and the folk rock style of the master and captures that concise simple sentiment, proving you don't have to write anything more than exactly what you mean.
I don't wanna be free no more / I wanna belong to you
But to put it like that is the hard part, Jeff gets to the point of the track without an epic chorus or fancy finger picking. The sentiment drives the song, this kind of songwriting based around a strong vocal melody captured so clean, leaves you a little raw. He's got nothing to hide behind.
A slow whiskey sipping, porch and a rocking chair, sun going down music, which is how I imagine all the land of Kentucky to be.

Shelton is also a part of the B-Side's group, The Party Girls which features his brother on vocals and bass. I've since found out the band is no longer recording and playing around and these are two unreleased tracks from their '90s/00's output, 'In the White House' and 'Checks Cashed'.

'In the White house' has a free jazz, experimental feel with electric guitar muted notes with that harmonic 'twing' that rides the sound out into into feedback. It's all held together by a main groove bassline and brother John belts out his vocal, punctuating the stops and starts of this complex rhythm.

'Checks Cashed' looks to be a solo song from member Ben Herning, and gets way out there into the experimental zone, home recording style. Far off distorted sampled vocals that start overlapping over a barely audible guitar bassline, repeating 'Checks cashed' which works as a rhythm for the main vocal. The guitar screams into feedback for a second and it really gets quiet, maybe once the check is cashed, well, that's it, it's spent right on the rent. The guitar changes, and starts coming out of the background, completely free form vocals, layers of tracks changing speed, getting a little dark. The howling and bird screech starts, all far far off in the distance right up to the end.

It's great to hear the range of Jeff's work, and that those slow direct folksongs can be informed by these experiments, and freeform work. it only makes me like the A-Side more.

All on marble purple vinyl from Louisville is for Lovers Records.