Photograph courtesy of Shervin Lainez
It’s early in the year, but there’s little doubt that Projection Room, Sleepy Kitty’s sophomore album on Euclid Records, will be in contention as one of the finest St. Louis releases of the year. It’s certainly among the very best of this decade to date. Full of both clever pop songs and experimental interstitial breaks, the album is truly one of those that demands a hearing in the old-fashioned way, from glorious start to satisfying finish.
Embedded in their adopted neighborhood of Cherokee Street for the past half-decade, Sleepy Kitty’s Paige Brubeck and Evan Sult have become integral parts of the original-music scene in St. Louis since their arrival. Both are heavily involved in their design business, Sleepy Kitty Arts, as well as the music monthly Eleven magazine, for which Sult serves as editor, Brubeck as frequent contributor. The two maintain a continual personal presence on the local club scene, and their posters grace the walls of just about every local record store and coffee shop.
“So far, the reception has been good,” says Brubeck of Projection Room. “It’s a weird album. Infinity City was weird in its own way, too. But this one felt to me as if there were certain paths that we started traveling down with City, and we’ve gone further down those paths with Projection Room.”
It’s remarkable that the sound is created by just two people: Sult on drums and Brubeck on most everything else, including guitar, keys, loops, and vocals. The sound is never thin, and the hooks shine through with a variety of influences; sounds of joyous ’90s indie pop spring up alongside girl-group harmonies and even occasional bursts of the blues.
“I kind of feel that since we get out of St. Louis so much, one thing that’s exciting to us is telling people outside of St. Louis about St. Louis,” Sult says. “It’s a really good time to let people know what’s going on here. And we can use this [album] as an example of what’s going on.”
Since their move here from Chicago, Sleepy Kitty has kept remarkably busy, with much of that activity headquartered in their loft space, which has served as an art studio, practice space, and apartment. Earlier this year, Brubeck and Sult began the process of organizing life differently, founding a small gallery and workspace on Wisconsin Avenue.
“We’re taking another step into the city with that space,” Sult says. “We’re getting deeper.”
And again, note that it’s only two people keeping their many efforts afloat: the songwriting, demoing, poster design and printing, booking, magazine design…
“On the road, I do all the driving, and Paige does all the other stuff,” Sult says. “We have people who help us out, but when we’re on the road, there are only so many hours, and it’s always a challenge. It’s exciting that we have been able to do it so far. It’s cool. Half the battle of being in a band is being active and living in such a way as to go on tour; it’s not like teachers, who have their summers free. As a freelancer who can work from the road, you do whatever it takes to make it work, to build in that calendar flexibility. We’ve built our whole lives around being able to do that, but it’s a constant challenge.”
To date, the hard work’s proven beneficial to the St. Louis scene as a whole, with Sleepy Kitty continually pushing artistic boundaries through sharp ideas. Before Projection Room was released with the usual club show, the band hosted two laser shows at the James S. McDonnell Planetarium, while letting the album leak to the public in small doses, via significant advance play on KDHX-FM for months prior.
Calling 2014 “a pivotal year” for the band, Sult links their musical growth to the organic progress he sees on the street outside their windows.
“Even in a few years, we’ve watched it go from potential to kinetic,” he says. “That’s what we’re trying to do for ourselves.”
Now Hear This
Tommy Halloran’s Guerrilla Swing, Under the Catalpa Trees: Tommy Halloran’s a busy guy, usually working an average of a gig a day during the busy months, frequently doubling up on jobs over the weekend. To maximize his availability, he alternately plays as a solo artist, in a duo with talented violinist Alyssa Avery, and with his band Guerrilla Swing, which comprises a young crew of equally busy musicians: bassist Mark Wallace, drummer Kaleb Kirby, and brass player/accordionist Kristian Baarsvik.
As a quartet, their debut is Under the Catalpa Trees, which was self-released with a show at Mad Art Gallery in late January. The 13-song album, recorded by active local songwriter Jeremy Joyce, features 10 originals, plus three standards: “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,” “God Bless the Child,” and “My Walking Stick.”
Built on solid foundations of jazz, blues, swing, and the great American songbook, Halloran and company create a pleasing style of music that hails from another era. As Wallace told SLM last year, “The originals that [Tommy] comes up with have the feel, harmony, and lyricism of a different time. The majority of us performing jazz really weren’t aware of the music until our teens or later. Tommy feels like the only genuine exception to this rule that I’ve had the pleasure to work with. He’s really done his homework.”
Under the Catalpa Trees is available in local record shops and, of course, at Halloran’s myriad gigs. Find out more at facebook.com/guerrillaswing.
