Ace Reporter

Chris Snyder is something really special. The creative force behind Ace Reporter has done it all: has a degree from Harvard, was a classical violinist, and spent half a decade playing the New York club-circuit as the frontman of The States. After The States went their separate ways, Snyder didn't want to just jump into another musical relationship. Instead, he took to songwriting every day for a year to make a project that was truly meaningful to him: it became something of a musical diary. Now, the Chicago by way of Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter is finally ready to share his songwriting with the world—his debut record, Yearling XL, comes out next week.

"Weights" is one of the tracks from Snyder's upcoming record that is raw and honest, with gorgeous harmonies that straddles the line of upbeat and melancholy with grace, and we're excited to share it with the Interview audience. We also talked to Chris Snyder about feeling like a wallflower, literary songwriting, and starting over again. - Interview Magazine

After a band breakup, musician Chris Snyder consoled himself with the challenge of what he called "the threesixfive project": a challenge to write a song every day for a year. This one-man band ended up with 10 songs that stuck, and those formed his debut album, Yearling.

The Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist eventually got a chance to revisit the recordings, which initially were little more than sketches, in an upstate New York studio. Listen to two songs from Yearling here. - NPR

Ace Reporter’s Supernaturally Enchanting ‘Stick To’ Video by Luke O Neil

A close up slow motion shot of a moth spreading its wings and taking off, a soot-covered book, and a man riding his bike through the abandoned streets leaving a trail of ash, not to mention Alex Gehring of Ringo Deathstarr wielding some sparkling magic in her hands set the tone for what is a supernaturally enchanting video for Ace Reporter’s “Stick To.” The video is considerably darker than directors Peter Simonite and Annie Gunn’s previous, ”Postcard from 1952″ by Explosions In The Sky anyway.

“”Stick To” is one of the darker and more energetic songs on Yearling, so we wanted to bring to the video a sense of crazed motion, a sort of nihilistic tumbling towards your fate, whatever that might be,” the band’s Chris Snyder explained. “We had just watched C’etait un Rendezvous, which is this amazing short film of a high-speed drive through a pre-dawn Paris in 1976, and we sort of transposed that premise onto New York, with some twists. I wanted to make sure that the video didn’t give itself away, and as much as it follows a simple plot–boy wants girl, boy rides bike to girl, boy finds girl–there’s this creepy ambiguity that underlies the whole thing. Knowing what or who you want isn’t enough if what you want turns out to be, you know, evil.” - BULLETT

In early 2011, we noted the mind-boggling, ear-tickling ThreeSixFive Project undertaken by Brooklyn-based Ace Reporter. There, the songwriter born Chris Synder had written and released a song every day for the entirety of 2010, and the result was not only a feat of quantity and persistence but of remarkable quality. [The best of ThreeSixFive still resides here.] It’s nice to see someone beyond his online faithful noticed — Ace Reporter was picked up by Brooklyn imprint Ooh La La Records, which will release the album “Yearling” on Feb. 26. Stylistically varied and lyrically vivid, “Yearling” features 10 songs from the yearlong project — all re-recorded by Snyder (a Los Angeles native and former frontman of the band The States) last year. The first single was from Day 75 of Snyder’s journey; it must’ve been a very good day. - Buzz Bands

“Untouched And Arrived” feels like a song straight out of the golden era of Duran Duran or Tears For Fears, yet it’s got a timeless feel to it and an undeniable melody. - Bruce Warren (Program Director, WXPN) - The Key (WXPN)

"Sounds like The Shins and Broken Bells" - AOL Spinner

We’re delighted to announce that for the third year running, TVD will be taking SXSW. In tandem with our partners Audible Treats and Flüd Watches, we’re presenting Speakers Push Air, an official SXSW artist showcase this Friday night (3/15) at Austin’s Parish Underground. This week we’ll be introducing you to the evening’s line up and talking what else, but vinyl.

“My first record player was made of colorful red and white plastic. It was a Fisher Price Model 825, complete with an orange turntable and a built-in handle to carry it from room to room. It was brand new in 1984, and I loved it.”

“My taste in records at the time was, as you might expect for a toddler, fairly pedestrian. I had singles of most of the classic Disney tunes, a few kids books-on-vinyl, and a few truly random records in wild colors that featured sultry Brazilian chanteuses—records from my mom’s own childhood in Brazil. On weekends, I could be happily occupied for hours just lying on my stomach in front of that Fisher Price, pulling one record and then another out of a box of 7?s, most of them much older than me.

At some point, though, my memories switch abruptly to the other record player in the house, my dad’s. It was a Technics, a serious hi-fi instrument. Not a toy, and definitely not for kids. More precious than the record player, though, was his collection of jazz records. My dad played a decent jazz piano, but he was an absolute aficionado when it came to recordings of the Greats. Miles, Trane, Bird, Monk, Duke, Brubeck, Corea, Hayden, Hancock, Evans, Guaraldi… He had them all on permanent rotation.

Sometimes he’d talk about the records that were playing — Bill Evans’ Explorations, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew, John Coltrane’s Giant Steps — but more often than not, I’d just wake up on a Saturday morning to the sounds of jazz. (For a while, my favorite thing about these grownup records was using the special brush to clean each one before playing it.) It was only much later that I started connecting these powerful memories of certain records to the actual artists who recorded them.

But then I got a CD player, and then an iPod, and then an iPhone. It took me a decade after heading off to college to rediscover vinyl. Not that I ever forgot about it, of course, but in the years since junior high the world had gone digital, and digital was easy and fit in your pocket. So what was the point?

The point, I think, is that when I listened to records on my Fisher Price, it was a totally immersive experience. I wasn’t walking through midtown Manhattan half-listening to some record on earbuds. I was there. And when my dad played Miles on a Saturday morning, it was the whole record, start to finish. The music was all you needed.

Which is why it gets me excited to walk into a record store, whether it’s Culture Clash in Toledo, Ohio, or Sound Fix, in Brooklyn. Those places are still alive. And it’s why I’m even more excited to finally be putting out a record of my own, almost 30 years after listening to my first.”

—Chris Snyder - The Vinyl District

Ace Reporter is the brainchild of Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Chris Snyder. Culled from what Snyder called a “threesixfive project”, which had him work on a track a day for a year is Ace Reporter’s debut album Yearling. “Stick To”, a track from the forthcoming full-length, offers a good sampling of Ace Reporter’s sound, which recalls the moody drive of the National, just a little more immediate in its scale. It helps, too, that Snyder’s melodic baritone brings Matt Berninger’s to mind and that Ace Reporter’s detailed, vignette-based songwriting flashes glimpses of the National.

Ace Reporter will be performing the following dates at SXSW:

Fri. Mar 15 - The Parish Underground, 7:30pm
Sat. Mar 16 - Ooh La La Records Best of Brooklyn Day Party, 3:00pm

Yearling comes out on Ooh La La Records on 2/26/13. - PopMatters

Ace Reporter is the brainchild of Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Chris Snyder. Culled from what Snyder called a “threesixfive project”, which had him work on a track a day for a year is Ace Reporter’s debut album Yearling. “Stick To”, a track from the forthcoming full-length, offers a good sampling of Ace Reporter’s sound, which recalls the moody drive of the National, just a little more immediate in its scale. It helps, too, that Snyder’s melodic baritone brings Matt Berninger’s to mind and that Ace Reporter’s detailed, vignette-based songwriting flashes glimpses of the National.

Ace Reporter will be performing the following dates at SXSW:

Fri. Mar 15 - The Parish Underground, 7:30pm
Sat. Mar 16 - Ooh La La Records Best of Brooklyn Day Party, 3:00pm

Yearling comes out on Ooh La La Records on 2/26/13. - PopMatters

Ace Reporter is the brainchild of Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Chris Snyder. Culled from what Snyder called a “threesixfive project”, which had him work on a track a day for a year is Ace Reporter’s debut album Yearling. “Stick To”, a track from the forthcoming full-length, offers a good sampling of Ace Reporter’s sound, which recalls the moody drive of the National, just a little more immediate in its scale. It helps, too, that Snyder’s melodic baritone brings Matt Berninger’s to mind and that Ace Reporter’s detailed, vignette-based songwriting flashes glimpses of the National.

Ace Reporter will be performing the following dates at SXSW:

Fri. Mar 15 - The Parish Underground, 7:30pm
Sat. Mar 16 - Ooh La La Records Best of Brooklyn Day Party, 3:00pm

Yearling comes out on Ooh La La Records on 2/26/13. - PopMatters

Ace Reporter is the brainchild of Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Chris Snyder. Culled from what Snyder called a “threesixfive project”, which had him work on a track a day for a year is Ace Reporter’s debut album Yearling. “Stick To”, a track from the forthcoming full-length, offers a good sampling of Ace Reporter’s sound, which recalls the moody drive of the National, just a little more immediate in its scale. It helps, too, that Snyder’s melodic baritone brings Matt Berninger’s to mind and that Ace Reporter’s detailed, vignette-based songwriting flashes glimpses of the National.

Ace Reporter will be performing the following dates at SXSW:

Fri. Mar 15 - The Parish Underground, 7:30pm
Sat. Mar 16 - Ooh La La Records Best of Brooklyn Day Party, 3:00pm

Yearling comes out on Ooh La La Records on 2/26/13. - PopMatters

We’re halfway through the year. Answer honestly: Did you keep up with your New Year’s resolution? No? That’s ok—who the hell does. Actually, Chris Snyder, known now as Ace Reporter, the hell does. To say Ace Reporter had a busy 2010 is an understatement on the shoulders of his impressive if not unbelievable New Year’s resolve.

“It was December 31 of 2009. I was with a group of friends and we were locked in by a snow storm. I had my guitar with me and I wrote a song. I sent it out to some friends and said that over the next year they could expect 364 more.” What became known as the 365 Project to Chris and his friends, the newly minted Ace Reporter challenged himself to write one song every day for an entire year.

“I spent my entire adult life in my last band [The States, a Muse-style rock band]. Since 2002 it was three members writing, touring, playing together. By 2009 we just couldn’t write together anymore. We put this intense pressure on ourselves, and basically it stopped being fun. When [The States] ended, I felt lost. I thought, ‘Who am I? Am I still a musician without a band?’”

While watching a band he had poured everything into implode was a punch in the gut, the turnaround was fast, and Chris almost immediately saw the plus side to forming the project that would grow to be called Ace Reporter.

“My last band was a rock band, we never did much in the way of pushing our genre. [The 365 project] allowed me to try other genres. I experimented with electric, pop, alternative and sub-genres of rock. It was about writing good songs, whatever came to mind.”
Soon, the drive that kept The States going for 7 years would keep Chris going during the biggest musical undertaking he ever tried. He made the vow to keep focused and writing, one new song each day for one year.

While working in Times Square as a “9-5 desk monkey” and maintaining a social life, he managed to stick to his self-imposed schedule, posting a new song online daily to “keep him honest.” Some songs were a full day’s work. The shortest time spent on one was just under 30 minutes.

“I had a very small window. I had to shower and be out the door in 45 minutes, and I wouldn’t have been back until after midnight. I wrote some chords, the first lyrics that came to mind, gave it a quick mix and posted it. It actually wasn’t that bad, you know. Solidly average.”

Most are short, a few are unique covers (including Arcade Fire and a remix to a Laurie Anderson song), and “a select few were good.” Of the hit tracks he liked the most, Ace Reporter compiled collections of songs into four EPs that he made available for free download. The EPs, Lean Honey Lean, Sleepyhead, Untouched and Arrived and Arcadia in that order, truly show the musician’s growth. Each EP is start-to-finish great, with hooks and lyrics that many artists would spend days, weeks or months trying to excavate from their subconscious.

Lean Honey Lean is the first, a quiet mix of new wave pop and rock. In the second track, “PepsicoSign,” Chris sings a tune of gratitude to his modest situation. He’s spent tireless years fighting to break his music to the masses, but is still a working nine-to-five-er. Where most musicians eventually leave behind these aspirations in the face of monotony, he sings “As it is I am lucky enough/I have my friends and I have my health/I have my job and it keeps us fed/As I sing I can see you sleeping in our bed.” Chris isn’t worried about the next step anymore, different from his days fronting The States, pushing and promoting hard.

“I’m at the point now where I’m happy that anyone would dig these songs, because it was a very selfish project. I wrote for myself.”

The second EP, Sleepyhead features the staggeringly beautiful title track and “If I see you again.”

“Sleepyhead is a love song to the night. The idea came to my head first thing in the morning after a night out with my girlfriend. I quietly walked over to the next room and wrote and recorded the song on the spot, watching her sleep all along.” The second track features the quiet harmonies of violins and acoustic guitars with a gentle vibrato and simple but powerful, lyrics of longing. Sleepyhead is an appropriate title, with all of the songs serving as melodic lullabies. This EP is a step forward in songwriting from Lean Honey Lean, relying on Ace Reporter’s arrangements and strumming and less on dancey, electronic-based backgrounds.

The best of the bunch is Untouched and Arrived, a fantastic example of how this project yielded the results Ace Reporter was looking for. The third EP showcases the five strongest tracks and kicks the energy up from the first two releases. Songs “Untouched and Arrived,” “Caught in the Middle” and “The World is on Fire” are standouts, with catchy choruses sung in a Yorke-ian tenor.

Now that 2010 is long done, Ace Reporter has released every single song, available for streaming or (for the brave) download.

“100 of the songs are listenable. - Popstache.com