As Maryland-based cinematic alt-rock trio THE SHENANDOAH ELECTRIC COMPANY – formed by members of Pianos Become The Teeth – prepares to release their LP1 debut album through Pax Aeternum in June, BrooklynVegan is hosting an exclusive stream of the new single, “N. Howard St.”
Winter in the mountains can be unpredictable. The best anyone can do is stockpile wood, food, and whatever vice they need to potentially not see much of the outside world until the first thaw in the Spring. The days grow shorter, moods shift, loneliness sets in. The cold can cut like a knife. But there always comes a morning where something shifts. The days seem to get a little bit longer. Things start to thaw. The season’s cycle and we seemingly are always looking forward to what to prepare for next. Time passes and before we know it, we are preparing for that first frost again. THE SHENANDOAH ELECTRIC COMPANY‘s LP1 feels like that cycle. Unpredictable at times while also offering moments of comfort, clarity, and warmth amidst the gloom of Winter.
LP1 was recorded by the band’s members, David Haik, Michael York, and Wes Young, mixed by York who handled the cover art, and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege (The Armed, Engine Kid, Glassing).
The band’s Wes Young reveals with the new single, “‘N. Howard St.’ is about one of our most beloved venues in Baltimore. The song started from a creative set of chords Mike initially wrote and we re-arranged several times. While the whole thing sounds pretty straightforward, it actually has a total linear feel where there’s not many repeating parts. There was a time that we were all worried that the Ottobar was going to close the doors forever and I felt I had to say something about a place we all loved so much. I played my first show there in the city, held hands with my wife for the first time, got thrown out of there for underage drinking for the first time, and was mugged for the first time all at the same place. Thankfully, the light has not gone out yet on Howard Street.”
BrooklynVegan writes, “THE SHENANDOAH ELECTRIC COMPANY is a new band fronted by former Octaves guitarist Wes Young that also features Pianos Become the Teeth members Michael York and David Haik. And through all three members are best known for playing in post-hardcore bands, this band has more of an atmospheric Americana feel, with songs that would fit in next to anything from Springsteen to Band of Horses to Orville Peck.”
Listen to THE SHENANDOAH ELECTRIC COMPANY’s “N. Howard St.” first at BrooklynVegan now at THIS LOCATION.
LP1 will see release June 3rd through all digital providers including Bandcamp where preorders are live and the songs “This Has To Work” and “Hot Mess” are playing HERE.
THE SHENANDOAH ELECTRIC COMPANY has been writing their first record over the last five years. What started as an idea of making raw, heavy music began shifting into something more nuanced. Throughout the writing, Wes Young and Michael York had the idea of a band that felt fluid. Something that would ebb and flow with different collaborators and people to focus on the process of thinking and creating differently. They wrote and recorded sketches over the first few years – yet, in the middle of a session one afternoon – they lost everything. Most of the last two years were gone in an instant.
Taking this as an opportunity, they took the remains they could find (a single .wav file of a guitar here, a bounce of roughmixdrumsonly_ver11.mp3 there) and started thinking about how they could take these pieces and form something else out of them. Using the only remains they had left of their previous recorded output as the foundation to build something new on, they began writing a different record along with drummer David Haik. Something that felt a bit more chaotic and volatile. Something angular that felt enveloping and beautiful yet somehow still digital and cold. There was no “studio,” only spaces that provided a backdrop to record whenever they could be it a hotel room, a late 1800s warehouse in which there was a vacant recording studio, or in the mountains in Virginia during a particularly bad cold snap. However, the home of the record is in the woods of Bayse, Virginia where the music and vision both came to fruition in a 1970’s ski resort house.
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