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Arjuna Oakes & Serebii - Tired Faces

Arjuna Oakes & Serebii release "Tired Faces," the first single off the forthcoming Final Days EP due out on October 14, 2022

Oakes and Serebii, a.k.a. Callum Mower, met while playing sold out shows together, but they knew then that it was just the beginning of something bigger. They were serving as hired guns in a popular surf rock band, touring their native Aotearoa New Zealand in mid-size venues, tearing it up, helping others realize their musical vision. That was great, but the friendship forged between the two of them in the process was the real bounty: “We got on like a house on fire,” says Mower. “And we’d end up sticking together through festivals or hanging out at parties.”

“Just like a brother,” Oakes jumps in. 
 
Back in their base of Wellington, Oakes and Mower kept hanging out and playing together—except this time they were making music more like what was calling to them personally. When Oakes was working on his solo work—jazzy chillhop with an alt-rock twist—he would call on Mower to pop in to help with some of his velvet-y production skills. And when Mower needed a killer voice or a compositional tweak on something he was working on—often psych-infused grooves—he had Oakes on speed-dial. It wasn’t long before they realized that they should be working together in earnest. 
 
Something like if Portishead collaborated with Flying Lotus, 2021’s First Nights EP was an introduction to the duo as a singular act, and “Even When You’re Gone,” a funky chiller Oakes wrote while going through a tough breakup, quickly found its way onto endless streaming playlists looking to harness the vibe. The EP sounds like a million bucks, but was in fact largely recorded over several months in Mower’s bedroom, “with just an SM57 [mic] and no gear whatsoever,” laughs Oakes. “It’s quite nice recording over a longer period of time,” says Oakes, “because you can really mold the songs the way that you want to.”
 
They soon decided to keep the momentum going, creating a second EP, Final Days, designed to be “a sister record” for First Nights. This new one was put together in much the same way as the first: songwriting duties were shared between the two, with Oakes handling most of the singing and all of the keys and synths, and Mower leading the production duties and playing almost all the guitar and bass parts. (A few friends also helped with drums/percussion and trumpet parts.) By and large, it was recorded in Mower’s bedroom, his cat crawling on their shoulders throughout.
 
You can feel the push and pull of each personality on certain tracks, swirling together in a collage of various talents and sensibilities. On “Flavour,” a club-ready track that Oakes brought in, Mower’s Chic-ish guitar licks shimmy into the mix, and on “Tired Faces,” a track that Mower brought in, Oakes’ Thom Yorke–reminiscent pipes turn the song into a pure vapor—more a gas hovering in the landscape than a file on a computer. “We both grew up in thick, thick nature,” notes Mower. “I’m forever searching for ways to recreate what nature does.” 
 
Like First Nights, Final Days was also similarly inspired by a form of grief. Rather than a breakup, Oakes was dealing with the impending loss of a beloved grandparent this time around, and was trying to process the experience through music. “I was losing my granddad to cancer, and I knew it was coming,” he explains. “So it’s a kind of a thing of letting go of people you love.”
 
“Make this pain feel small / Crave the moments that I once never noticed,” Oakes sings on the song “Final Days,” over an intricate nylon-string progression. The track begins with a voicemail that was left for Mower by his grandmother, who’s still with us, “and is such a character,” according to Oakes. “I’m very grateful [Mower] put that clip in because I wrote that song about my granddad who just passed away,” Oakes says. “It felt right to make it about our grandparents. And our loved ones.” 
 
“I’m not strolling down the avenue, but I’m thinking of you,” Mower’s grandmother says, over a laugh. “OK, darling, lots of love. Bye.”
Dendrons x 5-3-8

"Gleefully discordant properties of early Scritti Politti" – Uncut

"Willfully obtuse, yet intrinsically irresistible. Extraordinary" 9/10 – Classic Rock

"Hypnotic post-punk pulse exists in a continuum with bands like Wire and Omni— tight bass groove, melting guitar leads, and all" – Stereogum

"Slashing and contemplative" – Brooklyn Vegan

"Sprawling slacker jam" – FLOOD

"Spindly, propulsive post-punk that doesn't shy away from a bit of brawny catharsis" – Post-Trash

Chicago-based five-piece, Dendrons have today released their much-anticipated second album, 5-3-8. The band has found widespread acclaim for this new album from Uncut, Classic Rock, Stereogum, FLOOD, Brooklyn Vegan, Post Trash, CBC Radio, Under the Radar, KCRW and more.

The release of the new album arrives in tandem with a video for "High In The Circle K", a standout track to be lifted from the new album. The song features bombastic grooves, and wiry, spindly guitar lines delivered over a bed of often monotone vocal delivery, segueing into a cathartic, 2-minute climax of hypnotic guitar work. Speaking about the track, Dane Jarvie of the band says: "The album's namesake comes from one of the repeated lines/mantras in this song: “Fifths, thirds, octaves only” — almost as an appeal for a sort of utopian ideal. A dumb simplification. A desirable reduction."

5-3-8 – titled as a reference to the lyrical refrain that appears at a few points of the album of “fifths, thirds, octaves only” – was recorded at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas and Highland Recording Studio in Phoenix, Arizona; it was produced by Tony Brant and Sonny Di Perri (Protomartyr, DIIV, Nine Inch Nails, Animal Collective, Emma Ruth Rundle, Dirty Projectors) before being mastered at Elysian Sound by Dave Cooley.

 Dendrons hit the road before they even knew exactly where they were headed. On New Year’s Day 2018, Dane Jarvie and Zak Sprenger first convened in Chicago to start a new project, recording a demo at home by the seat of their pants, and almost immediately after, began to play shows. “I would just email as many people as possible,” says Jarvie. “I’m like, ‘Can we open this?’ It didn’t matter if it was in Dallas or New Orleans or Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was like, let’s go.”

With a band name chosen by flipping through books in the library (“Dendron” is Greek for “tree”) and a sound and lineup in healthy evolution as they bounced around North America, Dendrons were finding who they were in front of a live audience. Over the course of 2018 and 2019, they were developing a propulsive, acerbic rock style both reminiscent of midwestern peers like Deeper and Dehd and reaching beyond to develop an unmistakable aura all their own. They put out their debut, 2020’s Dendrons, and were packing their bags for a full European tour before it had to be abruptly canceled when borders closed and venues shut down around the world. Suddenly, a band that cut their teeth on the road had to get comfortable staying at home.

“It was out of necessity,” says Jarvie, who started brainstorming ideas for a new album back at his family’s home in Phoenix, Arizona, just after the pandemic took hold. When he returned to Chicago a few months later, the full band of Jarvie (vocals/guitar/synth), Sprenger (synth/guitar), Matt Kase (bass/synth/vocals), John MacEachen (guitar/samples), Nick Togliatti (drums), and Stef Roti (drums) formed a bubble to get together and work out what would prove to be their highly ambitious and meticulously crafted second album, 5-3-8. “It was just like, well, we can’t tour, we can’t do anything,” Jarvie remembers. “So we might as well just stick together and really create something.”

Meeting three or four times a week, and ultimately rehearsing almost 40 song ideas, Dendrons began to methodically whittle down the batch to a set of songs that weaved through one another intricately, with lyrical and musical motifs dancing around a swirling rock arrangement. Taken on their own, tracks like “Vain Repeating” and “Octaves Only” tap into the manic energy and wit of bands like Wire and Stereolab—but in the context of the album’s full vision, they come together to paint an album informed by the post-truth spectacle, and a desire for optimism in the face of isolation.

The lyrics paint those emotions with subtlety, having been put together partially through a cut-up method, grabbing words and phrases from places such as CNN and CSPAN. “That was a real intention with this record was to try different techniques in terms of how words are coming together—stringing together sentences through collage,” Jarvie explains. On “New Outlook 1,” he sings in his direct, almost Stephen Malkmus-like style: “Soon we’ll be stooped over laughing / Watching ourselves high on a vision.”

“You’re always gonna leave a record feeling like there is something more to be said,” Jarvie says. “I don’t believe in a magnum opus. Art is contextual and exists for the specific time and circumstance it was created in. Every record is a conversation with the last.”

Purchase/stream Dendrons "5-3-8" here.

 

De Lux x They Call This Love

"As a lover of music and skateboarding, I thought They Call This Love would be a great song to mesh the two worlds. I've picked up skating again for the past 2 years and have met incredible people. Grabbed some of them for a session in downtown LA, as well as a bunch of high schools and notable spots.  Skateboarding is so community based that it felt good to just go out with everyone and have an adventure. The song is about love, the ups and downs, the good and bad, and the hard work it requires. Landing a trick after 40 tries in 90 degree heat only to have all your buds there to cheer you on, I think represents love in so many ways." - Sean Guerin of De Lux 

De Lux is out with a new single ("They Call This Love") today in anticipation of their upcoming "Do You Need A Release."

VANO 3000 x IDK

"Adult Swim has served as a space for fans to discover new music, with their bumps as well as shows and their ongoing Singles Program — introducing fans to everyone from MF DOOM to Freddie Gibbs to Madlib. So, it makes sense that part of the charm of TikTok's biggest viral trend isn’t just the creative visuals TikTok users are coming up with, but that it’s soundtracked by a great song." - OKAYPLAYER
 
“IDK” is VANO 3000’s follow up to last summer's “Running Away”, which amassed billlions of plays collectively on all media platforms.  VANO 3000 once again taps BADBADNOTGOOD & Samuel T. Herring to sample their 2017 single “I Don’t Know” and shows a more reflective side of VANO 3000.  The lyrics say “I dont know if I could go on” which sounds about right after running away for so long.
Dendrons x Vain Repeating

"Hypnotic post-punk pulse exists in continuum with bands like Wire and Omni — tight bass groove, melting guitar leads, and all" - - Stereogum

Chicago-based five-piece, Dendrons are today sharing "Vain Repeating", the final advance preview of their forthcoming second album, 5-3-8 which is out on August 26. The band, which has just wrapped up a Mexican tour with A Place to Bury Strangers, has found tips for this new album from Stereogum, FLOOD, Brooklyn Vegan, Post Trash, CBC Radio, Under the Radar, KCRW and more.

"Vain Repeating" changes tact from the jungle-inflected world of "New Outlook II" finding the band tapping into a punkier sound, switching flows and dynamics in a similar fashion to Magazine, Wire, etc. Speaking about the track, Dane Jarvie of the band says: "The song was created as a word pastiche of inconsequential data, spit out in aura of self-importance. The song deals with a loose promise of either cathartic piety, or vanity, through repetition, depending on who you’re talking to."