{"id":21802,"date":"2021-10-22T05:30:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T09:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21802"},"modified":"2021-10-07T10:39:40","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T14:39:40","slug":"sugar-candy-mountain-makes-a-good-impression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/22\/sugar-candy-mountain-makes-a-good-impression\/","title":{"rendered":"Sugar Candy Mountain Makes a Good ‘Impression’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hypnotic psychedelia with a deep groove is the musical stock in trade of Oakland\u2019s Sugar Candy Mountain. Led by multi-instrumentalists Will Halsey and Ash Reiter, the group debuted with a self-released, self-titled album in 2011. Swimming in the same pool of influences that informs modern-day acts like Khruangbin, The Allah-Las and even the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Sugar Candy Mountain is more firmly rooted in classic pop values than many of their contemporaries. The group\u2019s irresistible melodies and lush-yet uncluttered arrangements make for some alluring listening.<\/p>\n

Ten years and six albums after their start, Reiter and Halsey \u2013 joined by producer and fellow multi-instrumentalist Jason Quever \u2013 have returned with Impression<\/i>, the group\u2019s most fully realized effort to date. There\u2019s a cohesiveness to the album\u2019s 13 songs, but there\u2019s variety, too. That comes from the frequent change-up of who\u2019s-playing-what on a given track.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of it comes down to if we\u2019re recording together live,\u201d Reiter explains. The last track on Impression<\/i>, \u201cPlease Don\u2019t Look Away\u201d was recorded in Quever\u2019s L.A. studio (he has since relocated to the Bay Area). \u201cFor that one, I played bass, because I had written the bass line,\u201d Reiter says. \u201cWill was on drums, because he\u2019s the best drummer [among] the three of us. And that left Jason for guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other songs on Impression<\/i> got their start at Halsey and Reiter\u2019s home studio setup, where they would sometimes be joined by their new neighbor Quever. So sometimes, Reiter says, \u201cit just comes down to, \u2018Oh, I think your style would fit right here; could you come up with something?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As sessions for the new album began, the couple bought a couple of vintage \u201870s-era home organs; those machines\u2019 distinctive texture is a central component of the album\u2019s sound. We’ve got this one Lowrey that was the same [model] used for \u2018Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,\u2019\u201d Reiter says. \u201cIt was pretty exciting to get that on there.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many recording artists use the less-expensive (and often more reliable) sampled keyboards or computer-based soft synths, Sugar Candy Mountain prefers the real thing whenever possible. \u201cWe like to use a lot of vintage instruments,\u201d Reiter says. \u201cThat’s something that we’ve always valued.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a real Mellotron (tape-based mechanical keyboard) on Impression<\/i>. \u201cAs long as it\u2019s working,\u201d Reiter says with a laugh, \u201cwe always try to sneak it in. But half the time when we go to the studio, it’s, \u2018Well, the Mellotron isn\u2019t working today.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to live shows, the group isn\u2019t a slave to those vintage gear fashions. \u201cFor one thing,\u201d Reiter laughs, \u201cwe couldn’t move that Lowrey.\u201d And Quever\u2019s finicky Mellotron stays in the studio as well. \u201cFor the atmosphere of playing live, it\u2019s less important to have the actual [vintage] keyboards,\u201d Reiter says. \u201cWe\u2019ve started bringing one of those MiniKorgs, because it\u2019s the size of a laptop and only costs a couple hundred bucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as creatively useful as switching instruments in the studio can be, Sugar Candy Mountain doesn\u2019t do much of that at their shows. \u201cI think it’s cool showmanship to change things up,\u201d Reiter admits. \u201cBut it can take you out of the flow if you’re like, \u2018Okay, I’ve got to plug into this and move onto that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Reiter says that the new album\u2019s \u201cLove Between\u201d is influenced by one of her favorite artists: Shuggie Otis, who also happens to be a multi-instrumentalist. \u201cHe\u2019s such a touchstone for me; I love his album Inspiration Information<\/i>,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those albums I\u2019ve listened to a thousand times; it has such cool organ sounds and funky little grooves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And Sugar Candy Mountain draws inspiration from 1970s experimental krautrock, too. Reiter and Halsey were turned on to krautrock by fpodbpod guitarist Sean Olmstead, a member of the group in its earliest days (he guests on Impression<\/i> as well). \u201cFinding your way into those grooves and some of the kosmische<\/i> guitar work from bands like Ash Ra Tempel really resonates with me,\u201d Reiter says. And that music\u2019s hypnotic quality is a trademark of her band\u2019s style as well. \u201cControlled chaos,\u201d she calls it.<\/p>\n

On Impression<\/i>, the trio of Reiter, Halsey and Quever is augmented on select tracks by Olmstead and\/or four other musicians. But Reiter says that \u2013 for better or worse \u2013 Sugar Candy Mountain doesn\u2019t give much thought in the studio to how the songs will eventually be played in a live setting. \u201cI\u2019ll write things where it\u2019s like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time,\u201d she laughs. \u201cSo we find ourselves in a conundrum: \u2018Oh crap, now I have to figure out how to do this!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Reiter notes that some of the new songs\u2019 vocal parts run counter to what she is doing on guitar at the same time. For live shows, the group has a simple solution to that challenge. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be using five people in the band,\u201d she says. \u201cIt’ll be a little different that way, and that will give me a chance on some songs to just focus on singing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to the collateral effects of the global pandemic, none of the guest players on Impression<\/i> are part of the live Sugar Candy Mountain lineup. \u201cAll our guys who we\u2019ve played with have found themselves in new life circumstances,\u201d Reiter explains. \u201cNew jobs, back in school, having kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halsey and Reiter experienced some changes during the downtime, too; their second child was born in late Spring. And they\u2019ve continued to record in their home studio. \u201cWe’re pretty satisfied with what we can do at home, and then we work with Jason for other things,\u201d Reiter says. On one hand, she believes that Sugar Candy Mountain\u2019s biggest change of late is moving more toward rocking, psychedelic sonic textures. She suggests that the new album\u2019s track \u201cThe End\u201d has a \u201cTomorrow Never Knows\u201d vibe.<\/p>\n

But then she rethinks the point she just made. \u201cI always go back to writing songs that are more classic-styled,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I think that Impression<\/i> has the whole spectrum of what we\u2019re into.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hypnotic psychedelia with a deep groove is the musical stock in trade of Oakland\u2019s Sugar Candy Mountain. Led by multi-instrumentalists Will Halsey and Ash Reiter, the group debuted with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,51],"tags":[4668],"class_list":["post-21802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","tag-sugar-candy-mountain","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21805,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21802\/revisions\/21805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}