New England's Kurt von Stetten is a man to be jealous of. He's apparently a cello prodigy, although you won't hear much of that here, he's the drummer for The Longwalls, former frontman of Drag Queens, a prolific songwriter and producer, having made several albums and taking care of every aspect of the music himself. He's also pretty handy with a BMX apparently. Latest album 'Androlafi' is out now and draws heavily on the bands he grew up on; early 90s alt-rock. Sensibly, Kurt describes himself as a revisionist as opposed to a revivalist, as he's ripping off no one. Yeah you can pick a few bands who made a similar noise, but he has individuality too.
Current single 'First Daughter' is a perfect example. He skips the pleasantries and ploughs straight into some simple college-rock riffing and his voice is a perfect match to this variety of guitar tune. Midway between Pixies and Pavement, the tempo doesn't drop but some simple guitar lines are allowed to take the lead at times which brings a little element of individuality to the track. It's got a great chorus too, proving he can do the whole caboodle. Even the angelic backing vocals here are precision positioned and sometimes that guitar is allowed to twang that bit more, almost taking us back to the very birth of modern guitar music. This is the complete antithesis of so called "manufactured pop". Naturally it'll sell a fraction of what that will, but we'd choose this any day.
Kurt von Stetten's website
Stream or buy the album
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