Sometimes you get lit on a night. Sometimes it takes on a life of its own and you get that second or third wind that always comes to the rescue when things are grinding into a lethargic stupor. Bracing for the tailspin and thinking about feather mattresses one minute, the next you’re wide-eyed and clutching to the railing so you don’t fly completely off into an orgy of lamplight and whim. The day that Sound Team showed its five-headed face was the late evening of the first day of Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival in August. It was some 90 degrees outside, sunny and ravaging. Their van, with a white whale painted on what would be a van’s upper thigh met its match taking on some outbound Chicago traffic after kicking off the festival at the noon hour on that Friday. As they told it, when they began playing, there was no one in the park and then the gates were swung open and it was like the Griswolds storming the entrance at Wally World. They suddenly had an audience with its entire sunburn ahead of it. They’d just completed a multiple-week tour with Tapes ‘N Tapes and Cold War Kids. Earlier in the day, the Cold War Kids were in the studio for their session, driving out of their way to get to us before doubling back to Chi-town for their Saturday gig at Lollapalooza. When Sound Team finally arrived here, it was 10 p.m. and they were on their last leg. They’d averaged three hours of sleep each of the last three days and they were on their way home to Austin, Texas, planning on driving through the night so bassist Bill Baird could be home Sunday for a studio session. (When we got out of the studio just before 2 a.m. it sounded like they were going to sleep instead and roll the dice that getting the mileage covered in a straight-shot drive the following day would be best). With all these detriments stacked against there being any sort of life in the performance they were about to give, the session that was had was revelatory to what lurks intangibly in the bellies of these men. In the time it took to set up shop, plug in and turn up, the room occupied by nine people in various states of shutdown swapped its listless, night of the living dead feeling for one of rakish delirium. It got hot fast. There were some bare chests and the musical mood was spellbinding, chucking all it knew about its host’s very real sleep deprivation. It was as if everyone was simultaneously saying, “This means way!” Sean Moeller

First song
It's Obvious What's Happening Here (Sound Team) [4.01MB] [2184 downloads]


—original version appears on the Work EP
This was the first indication that Sound Team was setting out to create a body for the session they were going to do this evening. It wasn’t just going to be randomness, but a precise statement hellbent on lodging a silver bulleted sense of paranoia into your chest.

Second song
TV Torso (Sound Team) [5.77MB] [2004 downloads]


—original version appears on Movie Monster
Before they began playing this one, they made a decision to experiment with parts, who played what, new sounds and the general tension of the song. The sprigs of the original meet an attacking array of new flares, lead singer Matt Oliver’s beautifully hoarse throat scratchings sound even better, like the way a falcon tethered to a keeper’s arm might shriek as it tried to get away or gnaw its leg off all the while staying mindful of the tune.

Third song
Movie Monster (Sound Team) [4.14MB] [1981 downloads]


—original version appears on Movie Monster
The title track from the band’s full-length that couldn’t really be about the velociraptors from Jurassic Park, though those monsters were mechanical as well. It slipped my mind to ask if it was about Chucky or his bride.

Fourth song
Orion (Sound Team) [4.00MB] [2004 downloads]


—unreleased
A release song for the buildup of three songs. It asks questions of a friend and it’s a fitting close to the session.