We’re New Here – Sylvie

Drugdealer’s Ben Schwab unveils his personal immaculate model of sepia-tinged gentle rock, on Sylvie’s self-titled effort, in our SEPTEMBER 2022 challenge of Uncut, available to buy here.

Sylvie mastermind Ben Schwab is a little bit of a late bloomer. “My father’s a musician and I grew up listening to him play along with his group Mad Anthony,” he says from his residence in Silverlake, LA. “He’d additionally play a lot of music from his technology like Todd Rundgren, Steely Dan, The Beatles, all that stuff. I used to be listening to that music early on and impressed by it, however I didn’t begin enjoying guitar till I used to be 21 years previous or so.” However since he started writing and performing unique songs as a scholar on the California Institute For The Arts in close by Santa Clarita, Schwab’s made a reputation for himself as one of many premier revivalists in LA’s eastside music scene.

Within the duo Golden Daze, Schwab and bandmate Jacob Loeb channel the spirits of Simon & Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills & Nash, their gossamer concord singing layered over textural folk-rock preparations. Schwab additionally performs with the shape-shifting LA collective Drugdealer, led by songwriter Michael Collins, which takes its cues from basic psych-pop and gentle rock of the ’60s and ’70s. With Sylvie, Schwab applies an analogous however rather more hands-on method, performing as songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer and engineer in his garage-slash-studio. “I do all of it myself and have good mates of mine who I consider in,” he explains. “The concept is that it might change and broaden.”

The Sylvie moniker is taken from a deep lower of the identical identify by British folk-rockers Matthews Southern Consolation, launched in 1970. He found it shortly after becoming a member of Drugdealer and bonding with Collins over music. “There’s simply one thing actually mysterious and particular about it,” Schwab says. “We favored it a lot that anytime we discovered a misplaced music from that interval that was actually good, we referred to as it a ‘Sylvie’. I used to be nervous to call the group after another person’s music, it appeared like a bit a lot, however then I simply rolled with it.”

“Ben is extremely deliberate and intentional in his manufacturing and writing,” says singer-songwriter Marina Allen, who performs on Sylvie’s self-titled debut, which Schwab first posted on Bandcamp in October of final 12 months. “We tried “Falls On Me” in several keys, totally different tempos, with totally different melodies and totally different lyrics till we lastly landed on the album model.” The music highlights Allen’s silky alto singing and particulars the emotional ups and downs Schwab felt amid a breakup and transformative interval in his private life. Its minimalist, mid-tempo association of piano, bass, drums and slide guitar recollects The Carpenters with out the orchestral schmaltz, a maudlin-adjacent ballad that finds hope in Allen’s lilted insistence that “No-one’s gonna break my coronary heart once more”.

Sam Burton rounds out the collective on vocals and guitars, with contributions by Angel Olsen’s drummer Sam Kauffman-Skloff, brass blower JJ Kirkpatrick and pedal metal participant Connor Gallagher, a scene go-to for spirited glissandos. Schwab’s dad John additionally makes an look, his voice narrating “50/50”. Full Time Passion are poised to challenge an expanded model of Sylvie on vinyl, that includes two new tracks, “Additional Down The Highway” and “Stealing Time”. Schwab is hopeful that this wider launch will deliver the band abroad for the primary time, even if they had been in a harrowing automotive accident in Arizona not too long ago, on the finish of a brief US tour. They sustained minor accidents, however have since recovered. “I’ve simply been laying low, taking it simple, attempting to be wholesome,” he says. “We’d love to return to the UK and Europe.”