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Gourd — Vol. 1
While the rest of us were baking bread and watching Tiger King, Edmonton’s Brent Underschultz used his pandemic downtime to create a home recording project he’s dubbed Gourd. Exploring psychedelic pop rock, the project has morphed into a live entity, which can sometimes consist of just Underschultz utilizing loopers and drum machines to its current formation as a power trio.
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Underschultz is not a rookie to the music scene, having spent time making music with Labradoodle, It’s AlwaysFuzzy and Fake Lake, but Gourd is very much his brainchild. Vol. 1 is Gourd’s first release, an EP which explores the many corners of his musical expertise, from folk to new wave to electronica.
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Vol. 1 delves into the lo-fi sandbox acts such as Grandaddy and R. Stevie Moore have been known to play in, where greenhorn production techniques merely serve to highlight an uncanny sense of melody. A plodding, looping beat eases the listener into the EP on Around. The track slowly builds up through a bass line holding the bottom while a piercing synth pulsates as Underschultz slack-songs about being lost and left adrift.
The Figure transverses on top a garage-rock-worthy guitar line with skittering percussion in the background. In Where My Heart Goes, Underschultz’s vocals are given the psychedelic treatment that pairs well with reverb-heavy guitar through the song that comes across as a sketch that begs to be filled out. Shape Shifter is a funky, punky nugget of a track with heaps of guitar heroics throughout.
And ending the EP is Witches Walk Alone, a track heavy on atmosphere with Underschultz chanting, “All that is lost can never be found,” over an ominous musical backdrop that culminates in an organ-powered breakdown.
Gourd’s Vol. 1 is a tantalizing taste of, hopefully, more to come. Stream it on various platforms.
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