Connections

Connections

Midnight Run

Anyway

Connections came out of Columbus, Ohio, at a rush, releasing two stellar LPs and several singles in their first year. They felt like the wind rushing through the open window of a car hurtling down the highway at 90 MPH. In the second year, they firmed up their sound and shook off some of the bedroom-lo-fi-Oh (as in Oh-hi-O) for the almost radio-friendly Into Sixes, which earned the band continued praise in Pitchfork, AVClub, Stereogum and more. And like the previous two records, Into Sixes wound up on a plethora of “Best Of” lists (Village Voice, Still Single, etc.) as well as on the pages of ESPN. They took a year off to record a single for Chicago’s tasty HoZac label and a play handful of shows including several sold-out NYC dates.  Midnight Run kicks the murk of basement four-track recordings from the soles of the five members’ collective shoes with the sound of two guitars that growl as if they are echoing out of the propellers of a B-12 bomber. After the gentle hiss for the opener “Raise Awareness,” which echoes the early power pop of the Shoes or Cars played through a 1987 Mustang’s tape-deck, “Month to Month” shatters the windshield as singers Kevin Elliott and Andy Hampel stand atop the chorus like they just conquered a Two-for-Tuesday slot on your local classic rock station. From there, the record rolls over the speakers with a great band getting greater, flexing sinewy guitar with Hampel’s and...

Connections

5 Imaginary Boys

Hozac

***This modern Columbus, Ohio pop band flashed before us via KEVIN ELLIOT, previously of 84 NASH and one of the guys with great musical taste at the Agit Reader that we'd corresponded with over the years, and we're so glad it did. CONNECTIONS intersect at points we normally might be reluctant to tread, a la the dreaded "indie rock" misnomer, but if you listen close, this is much more than just a tossed off GBV reference you see in every review they've garnered so far. I can hear Let It Be-era Replacements, the sorely missed Dogmatics, and numerous other forgotten mid 80s bands "too raw for the the college rock crowd," yet still fitting snugly into the central Ohio "sound" that's become limitless in its reach. Already three albums deep into their career, Connections admirably went with the seminal Anyway label, who have released everything underground Ohio-style from Mike Rep & The Quotas, New Bomb Turks, and Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments to Jim Shepard's V-3, as well as Obnox, and in doing so, solidified their heritage in a long line of influential acts.  The 5 Imaginary Boys EP combines five glimpses into the Connections' melodically off-kilter, yet always honest and bitter world, taking perfectly strung-out pop to another level of sardonic simplicity in each burst after bleeding burst. If you're already familiar with them, this record will only drive home the fact that they're on the cusp of their run, firing off spotless songs in short form, yet with...

Connections

Into Sixes

Anyway

One would think that Columbus, Ohio's Connections took a breather in the early portion of the 2014. After cracking onto the music scene in 2013 with two critically acclaimed full length LP's (album of the year by Still Single, glowing coverage from Pitchfork, Stereogum, Onion AV Club...), one EP and several singles, tours with the Breeders and Ex Hex, the band has waited until the summer of 2014 to release Into Sixes -- a muscle flexing study that displays the epic proportions of the band's true anthem-driven nature.  Connections prowess lies in the head-spinning gift for melody, fortified by a stout backbone of wiry guitars and are as tight and loose as a well-worn sweat-suit in the chip section at Wal-Mart. Into Sixes presents Connections in full rock regalia, recorded at famed Columbus Musicol Studios with engineer Adam Smith. Stuffed with ringing harmonies by dual singers Kevin Elliott and Andy Hampel, sing-song roundabouts that can floor the listener after one chorus ("Minister of Ah Ah Ah"), Into Sixes is about as tasty as a sound one can devour. The songs are still brief, with a handful extending past the FM radio friendly three minute mark, and a couple showing a subversive tendency to jam. "Apartment by the Interstate" and "Extremely Boss" though, are the aural equivalent of a summer roller-coaster ride, quick and satisfying and urging to be played over and over again. The sturdy confidence of "Brothers and Sisters" may be the closest that American underground rock has...

Connections

Year One

Anyway

A perfect primer for the uninitiated, Year One accumulates everything released by Connections in the year 2013. Included here are both LPs—their debut, Private Airplane, and its followup, Body Language—plus the Tough City EP.

Connections

Body Language

Anyway

"Body Language" is the second full length from Columbus' Connections, whose sound at once echoes Ohio but also the vast history of the bands and their collective knowledge of music. They say the mid-west is the breadbasket of America and that Ohio is the heart of it all. The state is, in fact, shaped like a heart and in the center of the heart lies Columbus. A town larger than the rest and a melting pot of transplants from around the state, Cleveland, Cincinnati and of course Dayton, where the core of Connections hails from. The homegrown in Ohio breed loyalty whether it's tragic loyalty (ala any Cleveland sports fan) or the hope of yet another Big Red Machine, and the men in Connections have a distinct loyalty to sound, the creation and bending of sound to transport the listener to the front seat of the car, with a 40 oz between your legs singing along to your favorite song as the "Summer Creeps" does to total FM radio perfection. The sounds of massive record collections are squeezed into and spit out into two and three minutes bursts from the gleeful spree of "Late Shift" which recalls hints of the Homosexuals "Astral Glamour" and the best Brit-pop of the 1990's, to the Wire-esque "Girl's Night Out" while the fatter sound of "Aimless" and "Hang On" have nods to the sound of Gaunt and Guided by Voices, they know that some of the best finds are in your own back yard....

Connections

Private Airplane

Anyway

I don't want to talk about the Ohio water, as in what's in it, as the raison d’être for another instant classic of underground pop to surface to vinyl with Connections’ Private Airplane. This allusion is justifiably thrown up in the hands of well-wishers at a loss for words, yet to say Ohioans are dosed from the tap with a certain knack is to slight what constitutes the substance. Other liquids are more conspicuously involved: blood, beer, whiskey and gasoline - although I wouldn't recommend that order. Songs like "Finally", "Casuals", "Cindy" and "Love St." don't just happen, albeit by the time we hear them it certainly seems like they do; spontaneously, with whatever working degree of immaculacy you uphold. The five members of Connections are not bystanders for a conduit; Kevin Elliott and Andy Hampel of 84 Nash, Adam Elliott of Times New Viking, Dave Capaldi of El Jesus de Magico and 'peach district laureate' Philip Kim have been clocking in for awhile now. Private Airplane is a result of their craft; fifteen paragons of song, each laden with hooks you can't pay for, never mind get, anywhere else. - Elizabeth Murphy (Memphis, TN 2012)  touchstones: Dayton Ohio circa 1991, Columbus Ohio circa 1993, 4-track recordings ala "lo-fi" rejuvenation, longing, sweating beer and massive record collections.