Minneapolis muso geek trio Baby Boys have expertly utilized their vast amounts of time spent honing their skills in recording studios, combining that hard-earned nous with the playful experimentation of a certain local Purple pop legend, creating a beguiling little cartoon of an album full of twists and turns.
Given the keys to BJ Burton’s Minneapolis studio for a whole week, the first time they’ve had such a place to themselves to do their thing, the trio proceeded to slice and dice their way through a million and one cutting room cast-offs, creating ‘Threesome’, a short but sweet producer’s record very much of its time, yet simultaneously the disposable and throwaway cheeky brother to Beck Hansen.
Caleb Hinz, Jake Luppen and Nathan Stocker are world famous in Minneapolis, each seemingly involved in more bands than they’ve eaten hot dinners, the ten tracks here a combination of stoner rock, cerebral indie, psych pop, all buried beneath a truckload of bedroom DIY video game electronica and non-sequiturs.
Released on 12th March via Transgressive Records, lead off single ‘Gone’, together with it’s vocoder tinged mangling feels like it’s come from a million other recent tunes yet still manages to feel quirky and original. Stoner rabble-rouser ‘Cannonball’ probably cost 99p to record although the two slightly longer tracks, the manic ‘Backgammon’ and closer ‘Shorty’ replete with warming brass preceding unhinged coda, hint at a more complex and somewhat darker interior still to be fully explored.
Words - Mike Price
Baby Boys official