Rebecca Gates—whose music provided a soundtrack of sorts to a large part of my collegiate and young adult life—has just released her first full-length album of original music since her 2001 Ruby Series EP.
As one half of the 90’s indie pop duo, the Spinanes, Gates wrote songs of love, loss, and feeling that she gave voice to with powerfully intimate vocals and guitar melodies that still define what I consider to be good pop music structure to this day. Her current work strikes me as understandably more mature in sound and scope and brings her together with ‘the Consortium’—a rotating roaster of backing musicians culled from other notable bands such as Wild Flag, The Decemberists, Quasi, Blue Cranes, and friend from a former life and amazing cellist, Amy Domingues (go Duke Dogs!).
We caught up with Gates last spring as we interviewed her prior to her first live shows with new material in recent memory. You can see her at Park Slope’s Rock Shop this Saturday. Be sure to get their early to catch Verpluscott, the new band from Richard + James Baluyut of +/- and Versus, respectively, and Kendall Meade of Mascott. Word on the street is that they’ll be playing three +/- songs, three Versus songs, and three Mascott songs. So that’s awesome. The show kicks off with locals, Glass Anchors at 9PM, who we hear are also well worth a listen.
In the meantime, check out this week’s Song, the new Rebecca Gates + the Consortium track, “&&&”, from The Float, which you can download, get on vinyl, or pick up at the show this weekend. And check out our 2011 interview with Ms. Gates as she talks about her new work and the best song ever.
Note: Music posted to this site is kept online for a limited period of time out of fairness to the artists and, you know, our server. So if this is now an older post, the links may well be dead.
