Eternal Summers with Bleeding Rainbow and Zebra Hunt

Eternal Summers

WHAT DO YOU DO when the guitar you wrote all your songs on gets stolen mid-tour and you’re too practical to run out and jack up your credit? This might not seem like a major problem for most bands, but when you’re the sparse duo of Eternal Summers and you are relying on that Parker Nitefly to compensate for high and low end, you can’t help feeling a bit exposed.
After a futile appeal for sponsorship, Nicole Yun experiments with the Fender Telecaster she has on hand. She recognizes that while it cuts like a knife and has a gorgeous high range, it is missing that low edge. Suddenly glad that she and Daniel Cundiff never made a pact to remain solely a two-piece, they decide it is time to add a bassist. Daniel says, “Nicole and I had been bouncing the idea of adding a bassist around for a year or so because we were writing more complex songs and it seemed a disservice to the songs not to have the low tonal quality that a bass would provide.” Given the recent circumstances, they move into action.
Luckily for them, they live in the tight knit Magic Twig community of Roanoke, Virginia. Enter Jonathan Woods, who plays with Daniel in other bands and is, after all, the one responsible for introducing Nicole to Daniel. Jonathan is exactly what they need, a fast learner.
Eternal Summers is set to record 17 songs in 2 weeks spending 12 hours a day at the Magic Twig recording studio. Daniel catches the flu, but powers through. Nicole is off to Korea and the recordings are sent to Sune Rose Wagner (the Raveonettes) and Alonzo Vargas in NYC for mixing.
Though apprehensive, Eternal Summers is opening themselves up to outside contributions for the first time. And how does that go? Nicole says, “I was in Korea when I got the bulk of the songs so I was literally in a different world when I heard their take on our songs. It was mind blowing!”
The result is their sophomore album Correct Behavior. It is, as you would expect with the addition of a new member, sonically fuller than their debut Silver and earlier EPs. Until now, Eternal Summers was writing jangly post-punk stompers (Pogo, Able To) and languid dream pop ballads (Safe at Home, Lightswitch); hitting opposite ends of the spectrum was evoking confusion for some. And while Correct Behavior still reaches the upbeats (I Love You) and the slowbeats (Good as You), album opener (Millions) blends the disparate aspects of their back catalog into a coherent sound that is uniquely theirs. It is bright, fresh and bridges any gaps that might arise from what they once lovingly called dream-punk.
By the time you’re a few songs in (You Kill), those that have followed Eternal Summers will still easily identify what they loved about the duo: the quirks that graced their previous efforts, their brevity, their teen-angst lyrics, their hooks, their power and volume, and their sometimes tongue-in-cheekness, (Girls in the City). But you should also notice, a rounded out sound that more accurately reflects their eclectic tastes and influences, namely: Smashing Pumpkins, the Sundays, the Troggs, Yo La Tengo, Ride and Black Sabbath.
With Silver, Eternal Summers received comparisons to a barrage of 80s & 90s era lo-fi indie bands. With Correct Behavior, Eternal Summers is letting go of the things that once defined them, their status as a duo, their attachment to a specific instrument, and their need to remain insular, to create their most realized album.

Bleeding Rainbow

When we first saw Philadelphia's Bleeding Rainbow at a house party in Texas earlier this year, their ultra-primitive live show was a bolt from the blue. Nothing short of beautiful bashing beats, mesmerizing melodies, and an overall crushing display of songwriting simplicity done right, when it seems so easy to do wrong. Just a two-piece boy and girl couple, utilizing a captivating and metronomic drum beat underneath a scaly and spidery, yet irresistible guitar crunch, it was impossible to resist then, and we still haven't been able to shake off the shivers they induced to this day. One of a handful of new bands with an instantly unique and penetrating sound all their own, Bleeding Rainbow drive a deep groove down the center of each well-beaten track on the Prism Eyes LP, creating the addicting and awe-inspiring hum of fuzz-laden pop noise that will have your heart palpitating in seconds.

The incredibly bright and sparkling hooks interlaced on each track of Prism Eyes, jaunt ecstatically between erotic and neurotic, with the wall of soaring vocals and stunning guitar/keyboard interplay knocking out hit after glorious hit. Scraping up equal parts scuzz-chug guitar and sugar beats never felt so good as it does here, further locking in Bleeding Rainbow's solid reputation as the pop masters that they've truly become. It's just track after track of chill-inducing, feverishly-angelic, heavenly dark pop hits that you couldn't remove from your head without some serious brain surgery, obviously letting you know that it's time to crack open that candy-coated skull of yours, and dump this record right in. - VictimofTime.com

Zebra Hunt

From Treasure State's ashes comes Zebra Hunt, a Seattle trio that plays jangly pop songs that sound like they belong in a Wes Anderson movie. Seriously. Their song "Half Right" is begging to be the soundtrack to a montage of a weirdly handsome kid with a bad haircut trying to win a girl's heart while mowing a poem into her front lawn and decorating it with handmade paper flowers or something.