I often times receive submissions for review that may not have necessarily been recorded at a studio…or mixed…or mastered. A lot of those records may be good songs, but are hurt by an abomination of production value. Don’t get me wrong, I love lo-fi stuff. What I produce at home is certainly not what some high class Nashville studio is churning out and for me, that has kind of become my own aesthetic. Keith of Vudu Sister sent me along some demo tracks for an upcoming release. I got that initial “ugggg” in my stomach from the demo mention, but I’ve seen these folks play before and I am already a fan. Well, I am happy to say that this isn’t the case. Self described as having a “dark, gothic-romantic folky sound”, I couldn’t agree more with this and be more excited about the tracks.
There is something extremely romantic, vulnerable and exciting to me about hearing a bands work and ideas before they become fully developed. It makes hearing that final product so much more interesting. To see the process and feel what they are moving towards. Hearing the talks between takes, coughs, all the pieces that make it “real” for me. “Catastrophes”, one of the tracks has a waltzing feel and vibe, dancing around an old castle great room or something to that effect. “Maladaptive” has a more spooky, secretive feel to it. These guys really bring that burlesque, stylistic quality to their music. I overuse the term “haunting” but it has that feel, it really just takes me to an emotion and makes me become engulfed in it. Their music and their sound is extremely moving and powerful and affecting. It certainly leaves a mark, even in the demo track state. I can’t wait to see what becomes of these demos and what Vudu Sister has in store.
We will be following up with them on the progress of the record in some future features.
A little more about the band from KeithJ G McCurdy:
“Anyways. I’m a Romanichal (“gypsies”…the Anglo-Celtic kind..) singer/songwriter from Providence. I’ve been performing since I was 16. I’ve been doing Vudu Sister for three years now with my violinist and confidant, Diane O’Connor. We released Bastard Children, our first album, in 2012. This first record was sort of an amalgamation of assorted flavors. Many tracks on the record had guest spots such as Joe Fletcher and his band The Wrong Reasons, Michael Samos (formerly of Brown Bird), Kate Jones and Lily Costner. This album was very roots-inspired and I took a lot of hints from one my personal heroes, Mr. Mark Lanegan (especially his first few solo albums) as a heavy influence. The second album Household Items was a huge departure from Bastard Children in that it’s sort of a love-letter to the punky-grunge/alt-rock era that I grew up on and served as my rock and roll “christening”. I enlisted a small little rock lineup for that album and it was produced by Ben Knox Miller of the Low Anthem and was recorded at the Columbus Theatre in Providence, RI. We were lucky to have played 2013’s Newport Folk Festival as well as the Doc Watson festival in Sugar Grove and the Tweed River Music Fest in VT. Anyways…live, I have been performing with Diane, primarily, while I stick to acoustic guitar. At times we are accompanied by our upright player, Amato Zinno. I would say that our current sound reflects sort of a dark, gothic-romantic folky sound with obvious grunge undertones”