Dear Friends,

We are going on a hiatus for a bit. We aren't sure how long. Two of our bandmates are leaving us for other adventures. Michael Bird is moving to Santa Barbara. Darrin Wardle is moving to Albuqureque, New Mexico.

They will be missed and we wish them luck.

Thanks to everyone who supported us. We will keep you up to date on our future plans when we figure it out.

with Love,

AV

Why does San Diego, CA have weather that is just about perfect all year long? And why then does every band I seem to come across on the interweb from San Diego seem to be really good? Dumb luck perhaps or something more than that?

My latest San Diego "find" is a band called Alta Voz that sounds like ghostly and fractured math-rocking apparition of At The Drive-In or maybe a less Latin influenced Mars Volta. I should also note that any band that garners comparisons to ATDI from me (or anyone else) had better be damn good. Alta Voz is damn good. The music rocks really hard at times but also has an almost haunting and ethereal quality to it as well. Much like some of the more brooding tunes from Death Cab's Transatlanticism album effect-laden guitars chime and wash over propulsive and relentless backbeats. However you describe Alta Voz, they have a new full-length record City of Echo that deserves your attention. It is available from CD Baby if you aren't from their neck 'o the woods.

http://www.canyouseethesunset.com/2007/03/sucker-punched-in-ribcage.html

We are, if anything, flagrant over acheivers, trying to accomplish so (too?) much in a years time. We started off with last years demo review which, much to our shock, ended up being a flattering on the one hand and ambitious on the other: to be compared to Radiohead is one thing but with that comes the rub-are you as good as Radiohead? Such a question is too absurd to really consider. Not up to us. We just hope people like us in a typical, needy indie rock sort of way.

After the shock wore off we did a home recording titled "The sign read welcome back" mostly to keep up with friends in rival cities (Deer or the Doe- Portland and Get Down to Brass Tacks-Phoenix) and to show that we could use Garageband with a live drummer. We gave it away. Five songs for free. With the full length about to drop no more free stuff. Sorry. (Actually, we still giving away our stickers and we are worth it.).  

Now, just as City of Echo is about be released we are recording a three song EP with no known title, once again on Garageband now to prove that we still got it.We will send it in for the Demo Review again with hopefully similar results, if not we were fortunate the first time. The new material is different, its more cohesive, its more collabrative, there is more spanish and now you can hear where the vocal training and hundreds of dollars have begun to payoff.

So, Friends and neighbors, thanks for supporting this album, even if you haven't had a chance yet. We have only been a band a year and we are constantly biting off more than we can chew. Someone bring a birthday cake to the show. We'll chew on it too.

love, jared  

Last night we finished vocals for the album. We worked with Mike Kamoo of Earthling Studios again and though I haven't recorded in many other studios in town, Mike's place is so relaxed and he is the best engineer I have ever worked with. He just gets it! (You are on the short thank yous list for the San Diego music awards Mike, thats only if POD, Switchfoot, and AJ Croce don't put out new albums).

I don't think we have ever been more prepared going into the studio which gave us time to experiment a little. In all ways this is a huge departure from our previous projects but I think the biggest departure will come across in the vocal performances. I spent a lot of time (and money!) on my voice this year and I think its beginning to show. Its not perfect I don't suspect it ever will be, maybe I'll always be a little flat but lord knows I'm trying.

Note: the song "the death scene waltz" is as prog as we are ever going to go and given that I wrote the song it's all my fault. I know a lot of people are digging that but I can't handle it anymore though it sounds good on the album but here are the details:

10 ten songs titled, City of Echo. Though not a concept album (not sure what a concept album consists of) the lyrics are a narrative inspired by a number of events which would be boring as shit for me to talk about.  

Anyway, the new album will be done Sunday and maybe we'll have a cd release before the years out. Maybe. Be listening for new songs and a lot of shows to come. Hope to see you all soon, whomever you are.

jared   

For some reason, I skipped over Alta Voz when summarizing the CityBeat's Local Music issue last week. Well actually I know the reason, it's because there was a Death Cab for Cutie comparison in the first sentence. But looking back, it compares it to the effect-less era of Death Cab for Cutie, which I've never actually heard, and it follows it up with a solid Bends-era Radiohead comparison. So it's probably worth venturing a listen towards, especially since they are playing the Casbah for the first time tonight as part of the Rookie Card Telethon/Bakesale/Rummage Sale/Comeback Show, which sounds like a pretty entertaining affair, featuring several other bands, breakdancers, burlesque, and free cd's with your paid admission, which is only $5.

The CityBeat review described the sound as "desperately sullen" which I guess is pretty accurate. I don't know how much the Bends-era Radiohead comment I agree with. People seem to forget that The Bends wasn't just some mopey record. Songs like "The Bends" actualy reached hieghts of rocking that few bands have made sound as authentic within recent memory. I prefer my tunes to have a big more energy, more of that awesome three note guitar solo from the end of "The Bends", but if there's one particular time and place to show off just how much you rock, it sounds like it would have to be the Casbah tonight.

-San Diego Serenade

Alta Voz
Demo

Newcomers Alta Voz play a gorgeous and anfractuous brand of indie-rock that recalls the days of effect-less Death Cab and Bends-era Radiohead. Don't get me wrong, it's not all doom and gloom and gushy break-up tunes, but there's certainly real emotion behind these songs. "Twilight in the Colosseum" sounds as desperately sullen as anything Ben Gibbard's ever put out, and it's probably the best song I've heard in all the CD's I received this year.

Brothers Darrin and Jared Wardle have stunning call-and response vocals, and while the band doesn't have a drummer yet, bassist Eric Neri is often a rhythm section unto himself. Expect these guys to do well locally, with hopefully bigger things to come.

—Seth Combs

we did everything on garage band. Obviously, we have no drummer and we sampled all the beats. I'm still not comfortable with it for several reasons. I realized quickly that a marginally talented twelve year old, with a guitar and a mouse, could sound relatively, well, decent, if not, good. The real nightmare is having this recording technology in your bedroom where it quickly turns into an obsession which leads to one conclusion: your songswill never be fully finished. There is always one morechange. Always one improvement.Unless the computer is taken away by a friend who happens to be the owner and bass player of the band. So at best these are demos, always a work in progress. We also realize we aren't engineers by any means so spare us our volume changes and panning choices (hello engineer friends). We also realize the vocals sound thin and, well, shotty, we don't have a great mixer forour mic but the improvements will come and we'll let you know as it happens.

thanks

jared