HT017

Author: Martin Brown
Source: uwishunu.com

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For their debut, self-titled release on Philadelphia based label High Two, Public Record seamlessly fuses everything from Afro-beat to Scottish Postcard pop without pressure or pretension. Public Record started in 2001 as a recording project between guitarist Gareth Duffield and bassist Brent Bohan, soon expanding into a band to perform their compositions live. Now having a line-up of saxophone, two guitars, bass, two drummers, and often a third percussionist, the band is capable of throwing down quite the entertaining live dance party.

The thirteen instrumental tracks on Public Record bring to fruition the band’s unique composite with great intricacy and cohesion and a pretty plethora of riffs ripe for the sampling. The full-band pieces are augmented on the album by a number of more esoteric compositions. After a long time in the making, Public Record has created a masterful debut album that instantly has established the band as one of the best instrumental bands in the U.S. and has set the table for even more innovation in the near future.

Author: Royce Epstein
Source: Philly Girl About Town

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Public Record is indeed, for the record, from our fair city of Philadelphia.  They are a seven piece that lays on the rhythms without any vocals.  The band is a smorgasbord of sounds – Funk, Northern Soul, Shoegaze, Afro-beat, Krautrock, Post Rock, Dub, and even Disco.  If you listen closely you may hear faint late 70s/early 80s Factory Records bliss along with Scottish Postcard Records -era pop (think Edwyn Collins and Orange Juice).  No surprise here, for they count among their many and diverse influences Aztec Camera, The Fall, Jimmy Cliff, Alton Ellis, Can, The Clash, The Style Council, James Brown, Fela Kuti, and Galaxie 500.  No doubt this record will have universal appeal.  And yes, you can dance to it.

This record is all about versatility, agility, complexity, and diversity.  Even though the songs are dance-able, this isn’t a vacant pop record.  It’s rich with jams – both long and short, layered with texture, and engaging – so much so that one could argue that it’s anti-pop in all the right ways.  Repeated listens are in order at first to get aquainted with Public Record.  The music is thoroughly unique but also reminsicent of so many things.  Here’s what came to our minds: dubby reggae from Gregory Issacs; “Smooth Operator” from Sade; the horns of Psychedelic Furs; John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards; and Eno era Talking Heads.

Their self-titled debut album was released by Philly based High Two Records on April 8th.  The album was recorded by Jeff Zeigler (known to many in Philly as the man behind band Relay).  Founded in 2001 by Gareth Duffield (guitar) and Brent Bohan (bass), the band didn’t really gel until 2005 when a concrete lineup came together and a solid group of songs emerged.  Adding a second guitarist, two drummers, a saxophonist, and a third percussonist, the band found its stride.  All this makes for a mighty presence and one not to be missed, especially since the drums and horns are exhilirating and the beat is righteous.

Public Record – myspace / high two

Posted by  in Music Reviews |

Author: Maggie Serota
Source: Washington City Paper April 9, 2008

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Many bands that number more than six members have a tendency to create soundscapes that border on excessive. However, Philadelphia septet Public Record has a way of making every saxophone note and stroke of the keyboard count. To be fair, the vast range of musical ground they artfully cover requires the extra manpower. Plus, how many bands can seamlessly merge elements of shoegaze with Northern Soul? (In case anyone was wondering, the answer is not too many.) The result is subtle and well-orchestrated instrumental riffs that don’t fade into the background as comfortable dinner party music. Public Record advertises to those who use music as an entrancing conduit for getting lost inside their own heads as well as those who are prone to shaking hips and shuffling feet. PUblic Record performs with the mantras at 9:30 p.m. at the Velvet Lounge, 915 U St. NW. $7. (202) 462-3213.

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WHEN PUBLIC RECORD’S Gareth Duffield and Brent Bohan talk about music, they’re all over the map. The two toss around artist names from Nigerian highlife, Jamaican reggae, Motown soul, Australian indie rock and British post-punk like they’re as common as The Beatles or Johnny Cash.

After nearly seven years together, Public Record has finally released its first CD, bringing Duffield and Bohan’s crazed genre-quotation game into fruition as a solid and cohesive album.

“It’s monumental,” Duffield said with a laugh.

The band’s self-titled, all-instrumental debut, released earlier this month on hometown Philadelphia label High Two, is a different beast than the music Duffield and Bohan created when they started the band in 2001. After taking a couple years off and reuniting in 2005, the two have added five members to the group and created an identity for Public Record that transcends easy genre-tagging.

“The Public Record sound is really hard for us to pinpoint — it’s just tendencies,” Duffield said. “Not too many people are talking about doing a Bohannon beat or incorporating Jamaican rhythms with something My Bloody Valentine-esque, and I think that helps us.”

The band’s debut exemplifies Duffield and Bohan’s belief in both moderation and experimentation.

While the sound of an alto sax carrying the melody might call to mind painful memories of smooth jazz, saxophonist Hilary Baker assuages that notion with an edgier sound — and she’s like free jazzman Peter Brotzmann on the blaring “Ca Purange.” There are also two drummers (three when performing live), a pair of guitarists and a bass player who do their part to weave the group’s disparate influences into a 45-minute album. The CD seamlessly incorporates the reggae-influenced “Fake Rain” (which calls to mind The Clash‘s “Guns of Brixton”) with the cool funk of “Mermaid’s Purse” and Tortoise-like avant-garde jazz in “Heavy Ornament.”

Though Public Record may be an instrumental group primarily — they’ve started including a few vocals in newer songs — don’t go thinking it’s a jam band, or even a jazz group. Duffield and Bohan know better than to let their musical imaginations run away from them.

“That’s a bad word for us — jam band,” Bohan said with a laugh. “We’re not really learned musicians or anything like that. We do have to painstakingly consider what we’re doing and how one thing will react to the other. In that sense, we’re not really good enough to be a jam band, or a jazz band.”

Public Record’s “free” approach is more sleight of hand.

“One nice thing about what we do is it often allows people to think that what they’re hearing is a lot freer than what it is. The truth is that each song — I’m not saying that it’s uncomfortable, but it is a bit of a painstaking process and a lot of consideration into each part and change,” said Duffield.

“An incredible discourse takes place at practice,” Bohan said. “That’s probably our favorite time — putting together these ideas and those sounds just trying to make it out our own.”

“A lot of name-dropping goes on,” Duffield said about the way Public Record’s musicians communicate its compositional ideas to one another — and to inquiring journalists. The Bohannon beat — a 1970s disco groove made famous by its eponymous percussionist creator — for example, is a recurring theme in the interview, and Duffield and Bohan later wax poetic on the influence of Jamaican rocksteady godfather Alton Ellis.

But even the biggest music nerd might be thrown for a loop with some of Duffield and Bohan’s references, but the name-dropping that goes on at band practice can sometimes create unexpected results.

“Sometimes it’s not so important that [bandmates] have the same exposure,” Duffield said. “I think what gives it a distinct creative feel is maybe somebody might not be familiar with the same idea you have, but then they bring something else to the table that kind of turns it on its side and makes it into its own thing.”

Source: Philebrity.com

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For the love of all that is right and holy in music GO SEE PUBLIC RECORD. Whereas so many indie bands are dividers, cordoning music off into precious little microniches, Public Record stand out to us as kind of representing everything that’s great about music. Multi-gender, multi-race, and pulling from as diverse a pool of influences as Orange Juice and afrobeat. Live, they are revelation in grooves, and anyone can get into them: drum circle nerds, indie kids, boomers, old timers, whoever. The band operates on that greatest, most general music level, and it’s just as evident on their new record, which came out yesterday and which you can listen to in its entirety above. They play Johnny Brenda’s tonight with Mahogany, Arc In Round, and Ravens And Vultures, all of whom are plenty worthy in their own respective rites. Seriously, we do not pull this card often, but trust us: Public Record are your new favorite band, and the best thing is, you don’t even know it yet.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 5:07 pm.

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Source: Dream Magazine

This Philadephia sextet mix up a heady combination of soul pop, ska, jazz, funk, a dash of krautrock, icy cool, and lots of human warmth. Refreshingly all-instrumental with guitars, keyboards, bass, alto sax, and two excellent drummers these guys stir up a truly joyful noise that will have you dancing even if you’re sitting down, but it’s just as effective to be hypnotized by, as it is to groove to. This outfit is making universally appealing music that will delight even the most jaded hipsters as much as it does dancefloor divas.