Pollens with Brainstorm and Appetite

Pollens

Pollens started as the baby of composers Hanna Benn and Jeff Aaron Bryant in 2008 when they met at Cornish College of the Arts. From a droney, mantra-like starting point, their sound evolved to consist of well-crafted pop songs. They came to incorporate drum machines, guitars, signature harmonies and catchy, repetitive melodies that stuck in the ears of listeners. Over the course the next couple years Pollens went through many permutations, experimenting with large choral ensembles, percussion groups and whatever keyboards and other sounds were at their disposal. This period also saw the Pollens' first EP, released to a wide array of praise and instantly picked up by local radio station KEXP. In early 2011, Pollens finally materialized in its current, stable six member lineup. Computers were discarded in place of a bassist, keyboardist, two guitars, live drums and percussion, and vocals by every musician in the group. The result is lush, organic and infectious as documented on a full length recording slated for a winter 2011 release. The sound has been described as middle era Talking Heads-meets-Dirty Projectors-meets-Paul Simon-meets-The Books. 

Brainstorm

Brainstorm is like an eight-dollar smoothie of ecstatic art rock, gospel spirituals, and African highlife. This high energy 2-piece manages to seam together a variety of influences into one coherent onslaught of shimmering pop, which will put a smile on your face and a tune in your head. Crushing riffs, explosive percussion, old world chanting, casio disco, and jaunty tuba lines make Brainstorm one of the most exhilarating and unique bands around.

Multi-instrumentalists Adam Baz and Patrick Phillips formed Brainstorm in the summer of 2008, when they were recording with Portland’s Ohioan and the Native Kin. They exchanged a mix tape, featuring such bands as USAisaMonster, Tinariwen, Ponytail, Sam Cooke, and Lightning Bolt, and quickly realized the extent of their musical compatibility. Now, two years into the project, their influences have synthesized into a fleshed-out brand of noise-pop that they can truly call their own.

Brainstorm released their first record Battling Giants on Lasercave in 2009. Received well by local press, the band toured throughout the following year. Their second release, a 7-inch EP called Beast in the Sky, was co-released on High Scores & Records and Lasercave in October 2010, and has been highly acclaimed by blogs, papers, and critics throughout the US and Europe. 

Appetite

Appetite is a project created by Teddy Briggs as a means to share the music he writes in his spare time.  Beginning drums lesson at the age of 13, Teddy performed in the Jazz Ensemble of his Los Angeles high school for four years and also joined up with fellow classmates to form the band now known as Rooney.  After high school he attended UC Davis and continued to play drums with local groups such as the Zim-Zims, Canseco, and Gnartoon.  After acquiring an 8-track digital recorder, Teddy began experimenting more and more with other instruments, resulting in a 2005 cd-r called “Torture! Joy!” under the name ‘Chief Briggum’, which he shared with friends and family, as well as colleagues at his campus radio station KDVS.  He did not expect such enthusiastic response to his experiments and felt encouraged to keep it up.  Also around this time he helped form the band Boss the Big Bit, where he gained more responsibilities as a song writer, helping arrange, produce and write songs; he also sang lead vocals on a number of tracks.  Three years later, after having moved to Sacramento, he released a follow up Chief Briggum CD-R called “The Ambiguous Garment.”  These records were always self-released and mostly a means to share his personal arrangements with friends.  With the “Ambiguous Garment,” there seemed to be even more enthusiasm from those with whom he shared this new material.  He then joined the post-prog-instrumental-pop outfit What’s Up? playing drums and keyboard, which actively toured and performed for roughly two years in support of their LP “Content Imagination” on the indie Obey Your Brain label.  After this project disbanded, their success instilled a new sense of artistic confidence in Teddy to take his own project more seriously.  Changing the project name to Appetite, Teddy has been performing and writing music much more actively since Fall of 2009.  His new record “Scattered Smothered Covered,” recorded at the infamous Hangar studio in Sacramento by Raleigh Moncrief (Dirty Projectors, Ganglians, Pregnant), represents a new side of Briggs’ songwriting, one clearly more deliberate and honest.  Again, he has performed and written all the music by himself, although Moncrief tracked instrumentation here and there, contributing to the arrangements, as well as a collaboration with Mason Lindahl on the track Little While.  Although much different than his previous solo endeavors, he hopes to receive more positive feedback on this new material.

Upon and prior to the release of Scattered Smothered Covered, Briggs along with a live band will perform as Appetite, featuring Jesse Phillips (Ellie Fortune), Carson McWhirter (Everybody, Hella, The Advantage, Ent), Sam Coe (Se of Bees, Two Sheds), and Addison Quarles (Chelsea Wolfe, Embrace the End).