Foundry Field Recordings

August 8, 2007

Foundry Field Recordings are a one of those midwestern bands (Columbia, Missouri in this case) that survive not on being a part of a certain east coast/west coast scene or style, but by taking influences from a variety of artists and creating something they’re proud of, something unique. The influences for Foundry Field range from the Pixies and Built to Spill to Wilco and Broken Social Scene. They are more experimental and in general, noisier than most pop bands you will find, but the distortion never takes a way from the melodies. The band is playing on Saturday of the Pygmalion Music Festival in Urbana, IL and I’m very excited to see them.

The first song I heard from the band, via a number of blogs was “Transistor Kids” which is actually a pretty good summation of what the band is all about. It starts out with a lonely piano melody and strings before evolving into a solid guitar-oriented pop song. Seemingly unsatisfied though, the song takes another turn with a spectacularly fuzzy jam that rages for over two and half minutes. After collecting some more Foundry Field Recordings, a song I was immediately impressed with “Circuits on Board” from their 2006 debut, prompts/miscues. The lyrics come from an observation that the crates used to carry bombs to war are the same ones that carry dead bodies back. Musically the song swoons you with a underlying string section before a storming guitar riff takes over the song and carries you through the passionate “bombs away” outro.

MP3 Transistor Kids
MP3 Circuits on Board

Myspace
Emusic

***

The Taste of Peoria is tonight and everybody’s favorite 90’s grunge-lite band, Gin Blossoms are playing! It should be fun in that ol’ nolstagic way to hear “Hey Jealousy” and the song that was in Empire Records. Anyone have any Gin Blossoms heckling ideas?

MP3 Hey Jealousy

Posted by Taylor in Artist Spotlight