There’s something inherently magical about the coming of autumn, especially in Florida. Tank tops are traded ever-so-briefly for sweaters and sunshine-fueled rock & roll for honeyed, cozy melodies. On very rare occasions you get a perfect melding of the two — no longer do you need to compromise bright sunshine to get your fix of the crisp, chilly and cozy — and that’s when you get a group like Orlando’s indie-pop ramblers The Sourdrops.
On a rare nippy night outside of Stardust Video & Coffee, after the quartet took in a fuzz-drenched jangle-pop set from Richmond, Virginia’s Canaries, Orlando Weekly set down with these shaggy-haired, deadpan musicians about their newest shambolic full-length, Next to New.
For this new release, the band — consisting of siblings Matty Begnaud (guitar, vocals) and Kate Begnaud (percussion, vocals), with Shad Perez (drums, guitar, vocals) and Tyler Rautenberg (bass) — opt not to reinvent the wheel, but to build out its fundamentals.
“The songs,” explains Matty, “took shape the more we played them. Recording live this time also helped. It was easier and gave the songs an organic feel.”
The most obvious creative shift that sharp-eared fans of the group will notice — aside from the boost in recording quality — is a willingness to blend other influences and styles into their sound other than the rambunctious mid-1980s jangle-guitar mainstays like The Pastels, Heavenly and Beat Happening.
The album runs the stylistic gauntlet, from minimalist intro track “Look What the Wind Blew” to the seemingly tongue-in-cheek, drum machine-driven title track “Next to New” that shifts in the album toward faster, more aggressive tunes like “Hey Sharon.”
“We definitely delved into the most genres for this album,” Perez deadpans. “We still wanted the songs to be catchy as possible without trying to make them all sound the same.”
Arguably the contributions of Perez, who switched to a full drum kit for the recording instead of the previous primitive groove of the snare and floor-tom combo [editor’s note: See Bobby Gillespie‘s drumming in the Jesus & Mary Chain for the apex of this style], lent the most to the overall shift in the sound. Across 10 songs none of them drag. The faster, more erratic drumming, oft sounding on the verge of falling apart, offers an energy and tension that their previous releases lacked. When asked about this drum sound, Perez listed as chief influences the Ramones and Eric’s Trip.
“Mainly,” he says, “I just wanted to play as many fills as I could.”
The album dropped in late October through Chicago’s Pocket Rocket Records, and the band have just set out on a short tour across the Midwest, stopping off in cities such as Chicago and Bloomington, which happen to be two of the most fertile sites stateside for the jangle-pop revival. (There is no Orlando release show in planned in the immediate future, sadly.)
When asked how their native Florida scene stacks up, Kate explained that this “style of music isn’t as popular here, compared to hardcore or punk or screamo, but hopefully we can inspire new groups to start.” On this topic the usually quiet Rautenberg even lent a few words: “It’s fun, so just go and do it.”
You can listen to the new Sourdrops album Next to New on the Pocket Rocket Records Bandcamp. The music video for “Clever One” can be found on YouTube and watched directly below.
