In Oct. 2014, a two-track 7” heralded the arrival of the smog-soaked pop trio Spirit Club. Nearly two years later, the group is stepping out of the haze and into the sun for their second full-length record, Slouch.
Composed of Nathan Williams (Wavves/Sweet Valley), Kynan Williams (Sweet Valley/Safe In Hell) and Andrew Caddick (Jeans Wilder), Spirit Club formed during the summer of 2014. The childhood friends were reconnecting after several years apart and Caddick, coming out of a rough break-up, sent Nathan a song demo that was originally intended for another project. Nathan and Kynan enjoyed the track and asked to help Caddick, which would ultimately lead to the first Spirit Club single, “Eye Dozer.” “We didn’t have any aspirations,” says Caddick, “but we found very quickly that we made a very cohesive unit.”
By the following spring, Spirit Club had released its debut LP, Spirit Club, via Nathan Williams’ Ghost Ramp label. The self-titled record drew considerable acclaim. Exclaim praised Spirit Club’s “cerebral and experimental” pop inclinations, while Stereogum drew attention to the album’s “queasy psychedelic sensibility.” The 405 compared the group’s songs to “the orange glow of summer dusk,” while noting the potential for an “incredible” follow-up record.
Slouch, Spirit Club’s sophomore full-length effort, is the result of three pop auteurs coming together and hitting their stride in sync. The album almost sounds lost-in-time, blurring the lines between old and new, familiar and exploratory. Packed with stunning vocal harmonies, earworm hooks and some of the best songwriting to-date from three well-season veterans, Slouch makes for an immensely satisfying listen. The evolution between Spirit Club and Slouch is immediately noticeable, which Caddick says was not an accident. “We all kind of agreed we had no interest in recreating the vibe from the first record,” he explains, “but what we originally had planned for this record and what ended up as the finished product were completely different.”
The members of Spirit Club attribute the full realization of their vision largely to the time, effort and resources they were afforded in crafting Slouch. Rather than resting on their laurels following the release of Spirit Club’s self-titled debut, the group was back in the studio within weeks of that release. As the band tells it, Slouch was written largely through a welcoming, communal process. All three members played a wide-range of instruments, sang and wrote material for the album. “We don’t really have set roles when writing, we just bounce ideas off each other,” explains Kynan Williams. “We all bring something different to the table and we all end up contributing and making the song what it is,” adds Caddick.
Recorded at DTLA Recording in Los Angeles, Slouch was constructed with the help of engineer Misha Hercules and Grammy-winning producer Dennis Herring. This is the first time Nathan Williams and Herring have collaborated for a full-length project since Wavves’ much-lauded 2010 release, King Of The Beach. Caddick believes that the assistance of Herring and Hercules, as well as the studio itself, were integral to the finished product. “I feel that the studio, Dennis and Misha were just as instrumental as everything else,” he says.
Drawing largely from The Beach Boys and vocal groups such as The Flamingos and The Cadillacs, Slouch is a sunny-sounding affair packed with the darker lyrical concerns of heartbreak and loneliness. Tracks like “Fast Ice” and “Broken Link” provide foot-stomping guitar leads, encased in twinkling instrumentation. The nautically tinged “That’s My Curse” drips with melancholic beauty as the singers’ examine their predilection for self-destructive relationships. “Lately I Haven’t Been Sleeping,” a stirringly wistful mediation on lost love, is perhaps the best crystallization of Slouch’s offerings, as the sparse and decidedly modern verses give way to a thrilling California Sound-style chorus.
The end result of all this work is Slouch, a shimmering and stirring record that all three members of Spirit Club are confident in and extremely proud to have created. “I never imagined I would be able to make a record that sounds this huge,” says Caddick. “I wouldn’t have been able to make it without these guys.”
