They didn’t mean to but The Velvet Teen got us reprimanded by our landlord when they were here just a couple of days into October (the third, to be exact). As circumstances would have it, the band wasn’t able to come in for a session prior to playing in Iowa City that night we’d agreed upon, so we had to perform a rare session-ectomy following the performance later in the night. Luckily, the gig in Iowa City was an early all-ages show and luckier for this session’s general energy, the band came away from it feeling everything but satiated by what they’d just done before a slight crowd. It was the same situation that we benefited from when Will Oldham was by and there’s hard proof in our archives that such disappointment and dissatisfaction is good for the recorded song. Even with an early show, getting loaded up and out of the venue is always an operation that takes time and by the time they were on the road to Rock Island, it was already time for the 10 o’clock news. They got here at 11 p.m. and we had a full refrigerator of Busch Light awaiting them. Lead singer Judah Nagler took some time to set up a crate full of gizmos, pedals, noisemakers and bullhorns and once that was completed, the sounds began bursting through the studio walls like a den full of hungry and thirsty lions. The roar of the three-piece — as small as that might sound — was monumental and it made the legs shake. It reverberated with authority and made your teeth chatter as if it were 10-below-zero and you’d just been dunked in the creek. We finished the session close to two in the morning, making it the latest we’ve ever been in the studio recording a session, despite our vows to not do evening sessions anymore. This one, we think turned out in a style that is flattering to the way the band wishes to record themselves anyway. It’s oddly addictive, the fuzz-drenched quality that Nagler wrings his vocals through, the way they get elliptical and spin into their own brief orbits and sidewinding forays. Sometimes that voice gets away from him, like a balloon string slipping through the sweaty fingers of a sugared up 10-year-old, but it finds a way to be mindful of the tune and it battens you to the headphones to absorb it. Following the session, a few days later, our landlord politely told us that, from now on, we probably shouldn’t record past midnight. He lives on the other side of the wall of the studio and that night must have been rough sleeping. — Sean Moeller

First song
Spin the Wink (The Velvet Teen) [4.42MB] [2184 downloads]


— original version appears on Cum Laude
Starts like a Bono/Edge collaboration and then finds its own identity with elements that could make rain. An affecting tune that can stop time.
 
Second song
333 (The Velvet Teen) [4.09MB] [1913 downloads]


— original version appears on Cum Laude
Some of Nagler’s gadgets come into play, with an intro that sounds like two washing machines at the riverboat casino. Along the way, some things get turned on the upside.
 
Third song
Caspian Can Wait (The Velvet Teen) [2.82MB] [1958 downloads]


— original version appears on Out of the Fierce Parade
The oldest song in this set, it comes from the band’s debut full-length, which was engineered and collaborated on by Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla.

Fourth song
Building A Whale (The Velvet Teen) [3.47MB] [1909 downloads]


— original version appears on Cum Laude
This was the rest of any energy that was still in the gas tank at the end of the night.