Years (Redux)
On January 1st, I am excited to say that my high school and college band, The Fotoelectric Effect, is releasing new recordings of its 2007 album, Years.
This 2017 redux was created in a 102 year old bungalow in South Austin. After the band's defunct years post-college, the original three members wanted to revisit old material with fresh ears and ideas. A decade after initial release, the songs were recorded very much as they were the first time - three friends standing around in a make-shift studio wanting to tell some kind of story without words.
Original handmade copy of the 2007 release of “Years” (thanks to Bryan Cortez for the image)
The original album was recorded in a bedroom in Amarillo, TX with basic and minimal equipment, using GarageBand on an under-equipped laptop, and was strewn together without much depth of technical sound engineering knowledge. The musicianship and songwriting were immature in those early days, but the group's energy and enthusiasm to record something, to leave something behind, resulted in a raw sonic palette, imperfect in all the right ways for a high-school band trying to grow up in college. The album was released with a hand drawn album cover, which has been used again for this redux. The CDs were manually reproduced, packaged, and first sold at a live performance of the songs at The Refuge, a former music venue that has since become a church’s youth center. It was never subsequently uploaded to streaming platforms and those discs are now rarity.
In revisiting these songs ten years later, it was not insignificant to strike balance between honoring the material's original intent and revising the artistic vision of what they could be - how they could mature. What resulted were much richer recordings, new interstitial sonic spaces, cosmic distances dotted by moments of musical intensity; a star being born. There is a lot of sound being made by three people who aren't afraid to enter areas of the weird, but the songs could finally breathe between bouts of immense expression. It is our great hope that you enjoy this record and let the songs wash over you.
We'd like to extend thanks to our friends and family for supporting us for all our musical efforts through the years. Thanks to all the members of The Fotoelectric Effect (Joey, Lowell, Maggie, Garrett, Josh) who grew and evolved the band into a dynamic and wild thing over many years of shows and recording sessions - sorry you weren't a part of this one. A special thanks to Positive Energy for use of their facilities for a very insane weekend of recording. Thanks to Mark Kopecky and Melinda Rothouse for lending us gear to make it happen. And thanks to El Mercado Tex Mex Restaurant for the enchiladas and margaritas to keep us going.
You can pre-order the album and get an early download now via Bandcamp or pre-save the album to your Spotify account via this link.
All proceeds from sales and streaming revenue generated by this record will be donated to the National Institute of Mental Health. Dedicated to Hunter Cortesi, in memoriam.