Neo

Release Date:02/19/2016;Notes:Vinyl LP pressing includes digital download. "We're a band named after a YouTube video. I like that." Nathan Rodriguez, of Seattle's So Pitted, is referring to a viral clip of a surfer, standing on the shore in front of mountainous waves, relaying to a reporter the glory of the conditions from which he has just emerged. To most, the clip is a funny nugget of Spicoli brah-speak, culminating with two brilliantly smashed together words. But to Rodriguez and his band mates, Liam Downey and Jeannine Koewler, "So Pitted" is way more than just that slacker-speak catchphrase. "That surfer gets carried away talking about what he loves, because to him that's all that really matters," says Rodriguez. "I don't surf, but to this surfer 'so pitted' is following through instead of bailing. You can take that abstraction and repurpose it to anything you like." So Pitted is an experiment in social partnerships as much as it is a noise outfit. Rodriguez learned music theory on Wikipedia Downey is a new wave fanatic who sticks pipe cleaners in his brain to speak to extraterrestrials Koewler is a longtime ballet dancer who loves bands like Cocteau Twins. Roles and positions have never been important to So Pitted: Rodriguez and Downey often switch instruments and both sing, while Koewler plays her guitar through a bass amp. Together, the trio just fits, a perfect balance for one another's quirks, strengths, and shortcomings. Enter neo, So Pitted's debut album some years in the making. These eleven tracks are lean and snarling rebukes, songs that will torch your house down. It's fuzzy, angular, throbbing, pounding, yet catchy. Songs crash over and over, turning under themselves like waves, but, as the measures tick off, the dog-eared melodies arise. And yet, for all it's power, growth, and complexities, neo is but a slice in time. In Rodriguez's words, "Our whole process is not perfect, but I don't think it's supposed to be. That's not the point." neo was co-produced & mixed by So Pitted & Dylan Wall and recorded at The Old Fire House, Media Lab, Spruce Haus, the band's practice space, and Tastefully Loud in Seattle. Neo was engineered by Wall at Tastefully Loud and mastered by Eric Boulanger at The Bakery in Los Angeles.