Pray For Rain

Pray For Rain

To hear Sarah Versprille and Daniel Hindman tell it, their Portland, OR-based band Pure Bathing Culture has always evolved naturally and at a steady pace. â€œThatâ€™s really the path weâ€™ve been on as a band, always putting one foot in front of the other as opportunities presented themselves,â€ Versprille said. â€œThe music just revealed itself to us as we kept going.â€ But for Pure Bathing Cultureâ€™s second album, Pray for Rain, the band has taken a big leap forward. You can hear it from the opening notes of their anthemic title track: in Hindmanâ€™s clean yet serpentine guitar lines interacting with the live rhythm section and Versprilleâ€™s lucid vocals cutting through it all as she asks: â€œIs it pleasure? Is it pain? Did you pray for rain?â€ Pray for Rain is the sound of the group confidently taking a step up to the next level and finding their footing as a true band. â€œWe needed to make a big step and our version of that was to cut the cord from our previous albums,â€ Hindman said of the process, then confesses: â€œI was nervous all the way through. It was nerve-wracking and almost antagonizing at times.â€ The roots of Pure Bathing Culture stretch back to 1999, when Versprille and Hindman befriended one another on the first day of freshman orientation at William Patterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. A decade later, they became bandmates when they both joined Vetiver for their Sub-Pop albums Tight Knit and The Errant Charm. It was while playing in Vetiver that Pure Bathing Culture emerged as its own entity. â€œDan was working on some instrumentals that he would make on a looping pedal,â€ Sarah said. â€œOne night he was out and I just listened to this loop and wrote some lyrics to it. He came home and I showed it to him. We laughed at first, as we didnâ€™t have some grand plan to start a band. It just happened naturally.â€ That song â€œLucky One,â€ wound up in the hands of Richard Swift, who encouraged the duo to keep writing. â€œRichard pushed us along and became an inspiration,â€ Dan said. Swift wound up producing the bandâ€™s first EP and dreamy full-length, 2013â€™s Moon Tides at his National Freedom studio. â€œJohn pushed us to not make clichÃ©s, to not play into the style of other bands,â€ Dan said. The challenges came right away as Congleton pressed the group into unfamiliar and at times uncomfortable territory in the studio. â€œHe tricked me with the guitars on the album,â€ Dan said. â€œWe got the basic tracks down and he asked me to do scratch guitar and then John wouldnâ€™t let me go back and do the guitars again. He refused to do any layering.â€ As a result, everything on Pray for Rain is pretty much as Pure Bathing Culture actually sounds, all analog gear, with virtually no plug-ins or effects added afterwards, no hiding behind multiple layers. â€œThere arenâ€™t a lot of tricks; What you hear is naturally whatâ€™s there,â€ Dan said. Sarah summarizes the Pray for Rain experience as one of â€œstepping into the realm of discovering who we are as a band and as songwriters,â€ echoing a theme of the album itself, the process of change and transition. â€œYou can find the best version of yourself in those hardest moments,â€ she said. To which Dan adds: â€œYou have to be backed up against the wall in order to really feel those feelings and respond to them.â€ Pray for Rain is the sound of Pure Bathing Culture transforming from who they were to who they will be, of finding their way, ready to take steps both small and momentous on their musical path.
Country USA
Artist Pure Bathing Culture
Binding Audio CD
EAN 0720841212423
Label PTKF
Manufacturer PTKF
NumberOfDiscs 1
NumberOfItems 1
PublicationDate 2015
Publisher PTKF
ReleaseDate 2015-10-23
Studio PTKF

Country	USA
Artist	Pure Bathing Culture
Binding	Audio CD
EAN	0720841212423
Label	PTKF
Manufacturer	PTKF
NumberOfDiscs	1
NumberOfItems	1
PublicationDate	2015
Publisher	PTKF
ReleaseDate	2015-10-23
Studio	PTKF

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