FIRST LISTEN: NEW SPAIN COLORED ORANGE

Yesterday Gilbert, the man behind Spain Colored Orange’s vocals, keyboards and best hat (not shown), leaked to us a few tracks from the group’s upcoming full length Sneaky Like a Villain. Well, not at first. First he sent us the track ‘Hide’ and let us stew on that for a few hours while we tried to figure out a response. Anyone familiar with the band’s sound will understand why the following attributes of the arrangement left us at a welcome loss for words: 'Hide' has drum machines and a synth for bass; no guitar and no trumpet. ‘Departure’ is an understatement – ‘gutsy’ probably is too.

After the most politely worded inquiry we could draft regarding whether the entire band had been fired in the studio, the man who sits at the Rhodes wrote back with three other tracks and more about the shape the album is taking: “There is a bit of a departure from the EP [Hopelessly Incapable of Standing in the Way]. The album is way more diverse. This time around, I really focused on what I wanted to do as far as song writing. Being....electronic, weird-spooky-jazz-pop, or just feel good 70's rock. Not so straight forward rock, like the previous release.”

And we’d have to agree. From the tube-socked roller-skate down the boardwalk with the love child of Tom Jones, Chuck Mangione and the Turtles that is ‘Who Am I’ to the Goulet dune buggy mischief of ‘Cheap Thrills’ to the glitch drums and string section in Music Box, all we can really say is that Villain will prolly be as (if not more) pub PA friendly as Hopelessly while taking the headphones experience up the light rail several stops.

No doubt at least a little bit of the recording (which took place at Sugarhill with Steve Christensen assisting) during December with some mixing done last week, benefited from having Bill Racine there for the recording. Racine, who has worked with a bunch of nobodies you have never heard of like Mogwai, Sparklehorse, Mercury Rev, Rouge Wave and the Flaming Lips, met SCO while they were on tour with Mates of State and offered to do their next album. The twelve-track album will come out towards the end of the summer on a TBD label.

Spain Colored Orange will be playing Saturday, with Paris Falls and The Kimonos, at the Balinese Room in Galveston as part of the first Sandblast Scooter Rally. And though our editorial calendar tells us that we shall most likely repost the following information on March 14^th, here is SCO’s ‘we’re taking it easy’ SXSW schedule:

March 14 @ The Parlor- Spain Colored Orange (11pm), Cartright (10pm), The Quiet Company (9pm), The Quiet Life (8pm)

March 15 @ Bella Blue- KVRX & I Eat Records party! Spain Colored Orange, YipYip, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Black Before Red, Mae-Shi, Greg Ashley (of Gris Gris), The Six Parts Seven, Ladybug Transistor

March 15 @ Cheapo Disc- Spain Colored Orange instore at 2 pm.

March 16 @ Scholz Garten- Texas Music Magazine party

March 16 @ Hole In The Wall- Invincible Czars, Two Star Symphony, Spain Colored Orange and others.

March 17 @ The Whisky - Shout it Out Loud / Boys & Girls Club Day Party! O' Death, Kid 606, CeePlus, Foreign Islands, Shit Disco, Datarock, Spain Colored Orange, David Vandervelde and others.

stream: Spain Colored Orange - Hide