Texas Tea - 'Lily'

TEXAS TEA - 'SAD SUMMER HITS'


www.texastea.bandcamp.com
www.texastea.com.au
www.facebook.com/texasteamusic


In stores October 12th through Mere Noise Records, indie-folk come country-soul duo Texas Tea are proud to announce the release of their third long player “Sad Summer Hits”. The album was recorded at the beginning of last summer with legendary producer Lachlan 'Magoo' Goold at his Applewood Studios, an old converted church in the country about an hour outside of Brisbane.

Texas Tea is Benjamin P. Dougherty and Kate Jacobson. Their 2006 debut album “Take A Sip”, 2008 follow up “Junkship Recordings”, and a reputation for stellar live performance, has seen the duo strongly establish themselves not only in their home town of Brisbane but right across Australia and indeed the world. Treasured locally, they have taken out the #1 spot on Brisbane’s 4ZZZfm’s Hot 100 two years in a row.

The creation and gestation of “Sad Summer Hits” was an exercise in balancing change with the familiar for Texas Tea. For starters the duo enlisted a rhythm section for the first time in their career. Holing up at Applewood for six days with Myka Wallace on drums and Jo Muller on upright/double bass (the engine room behind Laneous & The Family Yah and many other amazing bands, not to mention two of the finest executors of their instruments in the country), was uncharted territory for Texas Tea. Dougherty explains:

“For starters, recording wise, it had been a fair while between drinks, and adding in a rhythm section was something we were totally unfamiliar with for Texas Tea. We always made up for a ‘band’ by using our enthusiasm. 'Don’t have a drummer?' ‘I could play this drum with my foot while I play the guitar and you play that other thing with your foot while you sing.' But we had high ambitions for this album. I know everyone says it, but we wanted there to be continuity between the songs – not just a bunch of them thrown together. To be honest it was an insecure time – 'did we do that right? Is this totally different to what we normally do?' It was a very different experience. More people involved means more questions too, ‘What do you want me to do here? Did we speed up that time? Did we succeed?”

The idea of continuity across a theme came up often across the formulation of “Sad Summer Hits”, not only in the actual recording, but indeed across the entire period of gestation, for both members. Again, Dougherty explains: “We were up to that pretentious time in a (every?) band’s life, where we wanted the album to be an ‘experience’ I suppose. We wanted people to listen to the whole album. We’d been working on the songs for this record for a long time.”

Jacobson picks up the thread: “We spent about 3 years casually working on new songs, and then most of 2011 sorting through them, rearranging and discovering a common theme and direction for the record. With some imminent doom still lurking in the shadows, we came out with what I feel is a slightly, not necessarily lighter, but somewhat paradoxical side to Texas Tea. There’s depth, but its often addressed in a more light hearted fashion.”

Like continuity, paradoxical is also another good word for “Sad Summer Hits”. If the album name itself doesn’t give it away, the titles and lyrical themes of tracks like opener The Merry Blues or the auspicious I Love You Like I love This Black Eye leave no question. Though the juxtaposition of The Merry Blues eases the album in, it’s the simultaneously deft and yet devastatingly abrasive guile of second track Lily, that both lyrically and musically, sets the real scene for “Sad Summer Hits”.

From the suggestive doo-wop warmth of Heart Says Yes (Head Says No) through the simplistic anarchy of Alphabet Song, the growl of I Don’t Write No Sad Songs through to the breathy haze of closer The Old Swing, “Sad Summer Hits” is distinctively unpretentious. Bolstered by the addition of the rhythm section, musically, the Texas Tea hallmarks all remain front and centre. Laid atop of his own husky vocals and Jacobson’s emphatic soar, Dougherty’s guitar lines dominate throughout the album, sauntering from dark reverb echo to gruntbucket distortion, sometimes wild jangle, sometimes desperate plea.

Jacobson sums it up well: “All-in-all, I think we've been able to take the vintage county pop idea and conceptualise it a little further. With our tongues placed firmly in our cheeks, it’s a combination of retro country, blues and 50's pop, all with the typical Texas Tea sparkle dust. Although we take a lot of influence from American music, I think we have always been able to Australianise and contextualise our music.”.

Dougherty continues: “I think it’s a fairly big departure from anything we’ve done previously. It’s a bigger record, it’s more ambitious. Musically and sonically we wanted a nostalgic feel – old electric sounds and equipment. It’s not what we thought it would be, but these things never are. It became its own thing, not something that could’ve been planned.”

Texas Tea have played all over Australia and have also toured quite frequently to Europe, where they have a strong fan base, particularly in the northern regions of France. To date, they have shared the stage with everyone from Ben Kweller (USA), Cold War Kids (USA), Iron and Wine (USA),Justin Townes Earle (USA), Charlie Parr (USA), The Handsome Family (USA), The Mountain Goats (USA), Mick Thomas (Weddings, Parties, Anything), The Darling Downs (Kim Salmon and Ron Peno) and Abbe May to The Gin Club, The Art of Fighting, The Devastations and many more.

To celebrate the release of “Sad Summer Hits”, the duo are hitting the road with the full band to launch it right across the country. Catch them:

Thursday 18th October
Brisbane Hotel, Hobart
Tickets $10 on the door

Friday 19th October
Old Bar, Melbourne
With Buried Horses and Jimmy Tait, The Nymphs
$10 + bf presale/$15 on door

Sunday 21st October
Grace Emily, Adelaide
With Carla Lippis and special guests
$10 + bf presale/$12 on door

Friday 26th October
The Zoo, Brisbane
With special guests: The Gin Club, The Madisons and James X. Boyd & The CEOs
$12 + bf presale/$15 on door

Saturday 27th October
The Loft, Gold Coast
With special guests: Adam & Dusty, Turner and Karl Williams
$10 on door

Sunday 28th October - afternoon show
Spotted Cow, Toowoomba
With special guests: Suicide Swans

Saturday 3rd November
The Newsagency, Sydney(BYO SHOW)
With special guests: Maples and Achoo Bless You
Tickets $15 on door


When it comes to the formats via which they release their music, Texas Tea has a penchant for the alternative, from 7” flexi-disc vinyl limited editions through to the humble cassingle. “Sad Summer Hits” will be available both on cd and vinyl.


Sad Summer Hits Is Out October 12th through Mere Noise Records

"When Kate sings her voice sticks a knife in the sky so hard it nearly rains. Ben’s voice is like a warm blanket you’d wrap gun parts up in."
Rave Magazine