While Sam Coomes's career has seen him mixing it up with Elliott Smith and Built to Spill, he's most well-known for being part of pop-dabbling organ-and-drums ensemble Quasi. He's now taking time off from the long-running project to deliver his first-ever solo album, which arrives later this summer.
Coomes's Bugger Me is due August 19 in North America through No Quarter, with Domino handling the release in Europe and the UK. While he's not jamming out with drummer Janet Weiss on this latest LP, Coomes uses his familiar organ tones on the LP, according to the press release. He's also accompanied by a non-programmable "mid-'60s rhythm box" he calls "Conny."
Explaining his decision to use the primitive machine, Coomes said in a statement:
In a time where anyone with a computer and enough time on their hands can micro-manage a given piece of music to the nth degree; can process, arrange, edit and otherwise wheedle a song into a state-of-the-art showcase of outclevering the next guy… maybe allowing a song to exist at its most basic level is a means to not only subvert market-based (or, almost equivalently, technology-based) standards of production, but also a means to keep the music & the performance of the music honest.
He added, however: "This is assuming of course that honesty is a good thing, or at least is considered a good thing by those unmoved by mainstream entertainment music, which often reeks of dishonesty."
The 10-song release is currently being teased with a stream of its "Stride On," a piece that finds Coomes using carnival-style organ runs and a shaky falsetto above a mechanical cha-cha beat. You can sample the song down below, where you'll also find the tracklisting to Bugger Me. That is the record's Lon Chaney-channelling cover art up above.
Coomes's last release with Quasi was 2013's Mole City.
Bugger Me:
1. Stride On
2. Tough Times In Plastic Land
3. Everybody Loves A War
4. Shined It On / Lobotomy Eggs
5. The Tucchus pt I
6. Cruisin Thru / Just Like The Rest
7. Fordana
8. Corpse Rider
9. The Tucchus pt 2
10. Bugger-me
Coomes's Bugger Me is due August 19 in North America through No Quarter, with Domino handling the release in Europe and the UK. While he's not jamming out with drummer Janet Weiss on this latest LP, Coomes uses his familiar organ tones on the LP, according to the press release. He's also accompanied by a non-programmable "mid-'60s rhythm box" he calls "Conny."
Explaining his decision to use the primitive machine, Coomes said in a statement:
In a time where anyone with a computer and enough time on their hands can micro-manage a given piece of music to the nth degree; can process, arrange, edit and otherwise wheedle a song into a state-of-the-art showcase of outclevering the next guy… maybe allowing a song to exist at its most basic level is a means to not only subvert market-based (or, almost equivalently, technology-based) standards of production, but also a means to keep the music & the performance of the music honest.
He added, however: "This is assuming of course that honesty is a good thing, or at least is considered a good thing by those unmoved by mainstream entertainment music, which often reeks of dishonesty."
The 10-song release is currently being teased with a stream of its "Stride On," a piece that finds Coomes using carnival-style organ runs and a shaky falsetto above a mechanical cha-cha beat. You can sample the song down below, where you'll also find the tracklisting to Bugger Me. That is the record's Lon Chaney-channelling cover art up above.
Coomes's last release with Quasi was 2013's Mole City.
Bugger Me:
1. Stride On
2. Tough Times In Plastic Land
3. Everybody Loves A War
4. Shined It On / Lobotomy Eggs
5. The Tucchus pt I
6. Cruisin Thru / Just Like The Rest
7. Fordana
8. Corpse Rider
9. The Tucchus pt 2
10. Bugger-me
