With 'Kola,' Sparklejet offers up its version of a studio pop album
Plus, MC Wicks lands spot on Back to Basics Festival and new albums teases from Haunt and Brim.
Sparklejet has never been much of a studio band.
Their most recent albums (“Beyond the Beyond” in 2006 and “Phonovella” in 2013) were quick-hit affairs, recorded essentially live as a trio, with limited effects or overdubs and no producers helping call the shots.
“Beyond the Beyond” was done at Electrical Audio in Chicago, by legendary engineer Steve Albini, a guy who’s notorious for not being a producer and instead working to simply capture a band’s sound.
“Phonovella” was more DIY, recorded on a budget close to zero dollars with the band doing overdubs in its practice space.
“It’s always been in house,” says Sparklejet singer/guitarist Victor Sotelo.
That changed on its new release, “Kola,” out May 3 on streaming platforms.
“Kola” was tracked in 2019 at Peter Wolf’s Wolfsound studio and for the first time the band had a producer; longtime friend and fellow musician Scott Oliver.
Oliver has a number of projects around town, including Miss Alans, Blackcoats and Elektron Graffiti Kult.
Sparklejet was prepared to take another trip to Chicago to make an album where the songs stood on the performance, san embellishments. Oliver reminded the band that they’d already made that album.
“When Scott came in, the emphasis shifted,” Sotelo says.
“He had a clear vision throughout the whole process.”
Oliver helped the band with pre-production, song selection and arrangements and other, more subtle, nuances in recording. He urged Sotelo to experiment with his approach to vocals; to find his voice without going full throttle.
“He had me hold back some, even on the rockers,” Sotelo says.
You can hear it on “She Owns the Night.”
The resulting 13 tracks aren’t exactly a pop album, but Sparklet’s version of a pop album, Sotelo says. The name, “Kola” with a K, is a play on “cola,” or “soda” or “pop.” The songs are concise and cohesive, loud and edgy, but also listenable.
“Kola” is also a testament to the tenacity of a band that has been playing for 25 years.
It was almost shelved completely.
The recorded tracks sat untouched for almost a year while the world worked through a global pandemic and Sotelo worked through months of severe anxiety and depression that ultimately altered his cognitive abilities.
“What was strange and unusual for me, was that I had zero interest in it,” Sotelo says. At points, he questioned whether he even wanted to be an musician.
He didn’t play guitar for eight months.
“I felt like, ‘I think I’m done. I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”
Eventually, he got into a behavioral health program, started taking medication and going to therapy. He cleaned up the guitar that had left sitting in the corner of his room and started playing again every day, though the calluses were gone and he had lost some ability.
When he finally went back and listened to the album again, it rekindled something, he says.
The band, and Oliver were waiting.
“They never gave up. When I said ‘I’m ready,’ they said ‘ok lets do it. It all survived thanks to that support system, to people caring.”
MC Wicks added to Back to Basics lineup
This week, MC Wicks announced a pair of upcoming shows.
The first, happens Friday night at Fresbrew (across from the Tower Theater). The rapper is taking time off from hanging out with punk rockers to perform at his own birthday bash. He’ll be joined by Capsan, Guillotine DSC and Dengee.
Wormavin hosts the free event.
The bigger news is that Wicks got added to the Back to Basics Festival in Garden Grove in June. This is a major score that puts the rapper on a lineup with Dilated Peoples, Raekwon and KRS-One, among others. A lot of others.
Wicks plays day two of the festival.
One and two-day festival tickets are available now.
New music alert: Brim, Haunt
Brim has been teasing its album, “California Gold,” for a year, at least.
The Visalia country rock band is the twang-and-harmony filled off shoot of Slow Season (now known as Westing) and features Daniel Rice and Hayden Doyel along with Stone Foxes drummer Brian Bakalian, Rice’s brother Micah and his wife ReNelle.
The album is “a paen to the dirt road back streets and down-to-earth humanity of rural California’s small towns and agricultural Valleys,” and “recalls the lonesome pedal steel of Bakersfield country, Gram Parson’s stories of sin and salvation, and Neil Young’s loose and dusty years on the beach.”
The title track was released last week and whole album available on CD and cassette May 20 from Royal Oakie Records.
Haunt is hitting on the last leg of its Allied Forces tour with Traveler, Screamer and Saber. The final show is Saturday at Strummer’s and will be the metal band’s first hometown show in more than two years (you’ll wanna see them this time around).
Earlier this month, the band (helmed by multi instrumentalist/vocalist Trevor Church) dropped a lyric video for the title track of its upcoming (seventh) album “Windows of Your Heart.”
The song is a jewel of retro pop metal appropriately punctuated with a few flashy guitar solos. The album is out in digital formats May 14. Physical copies drop July 1 on Iron Grip/Church Recordings.
That’s it for this week. Remember you can now hear me on the Homegrown Show Sundays at 8 p.m. on New Rock 104.1 FM. If you have anything you think I need to be looking at or listening to, feel free to let me know: jtehee@gmail.com