AMERICAN CREAM BAND - Presents

"At once a spiritually-charged journey and a shit-kicking party record, American Cream Band comes to Quindi covering all the bases. American Cream Band was formed by Twin-Cities musician Nathan Nelson , taking the form of improvised live shows and albums Frankensteined from these sessions into exultant, fully-formed records. The band's previous records have manifested on labels like Moon Glyph and Medium Sound, and now Presents arrives in a freewheeling flash of snappy new wave, skronky sax, call and response sass and some krautrock-minded sonic cosmology. The album came together in December 2021, when Nelson took ten musicians to legendary studio Pachyderm in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Living together, they laid down some drum-heavy sessions that became the building blocks of the record. "Taste What We Taste" is the perfect example of an exuberant groove pounded on skins as a vessel for a joyous get-down, with the singers and players free to freak out on top. Nelson remains at the center of the melee, throwing half-sardonic, half-heartfelt calls out for connection. "Banana" celebrates nonsense and holds down the most serious of beats -- a disco-not-disco deadeye dripping in late night sleaze and lysergic potential. On "Royal Tears," the jagged guitar chops call back to Gang Of Four , while the hot n' heavy sax from Cole Pulice baits James Chance and all the other angular New York un-jazz misfits. Amongst his other implied intentions for the recordings, Nelson wanted to channel opposites, not least the distinct male-female energies in his vocal sparring with the girls on assistance duties. It wouldn't be right to call them backing singers as they shoot back at his punchy mantras, bringing a certain fierce femininity that tips its hat to The B-52s ' Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson , not to mention iconic post-punk bands like Au Pairs , Delta 5 and Bush Tetras . There's space for the dreamier kosmische which has crept into the American Cream oeuvre in the past, as "Sirens" opens the album up in a swirling pond of rag tag percussion and molten synths. "Words Would Handcuff Us" cools the whole riotous assembly down in unmoored perfection, a strung-out Bossa nova seance dusted with celestial drips from analogue spaceships. Equally treading the line between light and dark, conscious and unconscious, the sacred and profane, Presents is a life-affirming, creep-under-the-skin listening experience -- a joyously transient chapter in the evolution of American Cream Band."