Raven Love and the 27's

Sweet, smooth, psychedelic soul, minimalist mood music and spacey indie-pop... Raven Love & The 27's have a melodic and intimate composite of cool, starry-sky swooners and gritter rock gliders. The arrangements give so much space to breathe, especially on a song like "Wine Red," where guitars vine and thread their surfy tones over a measured and mellow rhythm, while the vocals, like a candle, soak up the surplus oxygen growing warmer, brighter.

What I dig about The 27's are their subtlety; the musicality is audibly there, but there's this tasteful dedication in every phrase, part or run that's rendered with careful intention, to serve the song. The guitar and vocal melodies often tango in a transfixing slow dance while the rhythm section slides from a tight jazz strut to a more primal rock slam.

Music for the mellow evenings, music for the cool blue spotlight of a classy club, music that can be as cerebral and as chic as trip-hop or as endearing and poetic as folk, yet rendered as a slick, spare rock quartet. And I do mean quartet--like a chamber quartet grasping guitars instead of violas--the chemistry between the four players, here, is palpable in each tune. I can definitely hear the connections to a group like Eleanora! I can't wait to see this lineup, live this weekend...! - Jeff Milo (Deep Cutz, Detroit Free Press)

Sometimes it’s better just to keep things simple. This up and coming Detroit band operate with just the bare bones of heavy blues. Raven’s vocals have a great tone, I’m sure she could belt it out with the best of them but she knows when to hold back. Tracks like ‘Venice Beach’ and ‘John R’ have some great psychedelic guitar, the slow and simple riffs are more than enough to add a world of colour. Everything is built around the driving bass line, a steady rumble that you can feel down to your very core. The overall effect is to take you back to the kaleidoscopic sixties and evoke acts such as Iron Butterfly and Jefferson Airplane. Just sit back, relax, let the music wash over you and you’re bound to be hit by the Wow factor.

The Intro EP is out now and is available on their bandcamp page for anyone that wants to join the trip. - Belwood Music

Bluesy glam grunge. Sounds about right. -Raven Love and the 27s

Before the old soul is drained completely from this city, let me introduce you to Raven Love and the 27s. Guitarist Marcus Johnson, bassist David Baker and drummer Sean Burden, combined with vocalist Raven Love, make up Detroit's premier up and coming quintessential alternative band.

Formed in 2015, the band has devoted the past year to developing their sound with the help of Fleetwood Mac, Interpol, Laura Nyro, PJ Harvey, Fiona Apple, and pretty much any 60s and 70s classic rock. Other inspiration drips from art, literature and culture from greats such as Isadora Duncan, Evelyn Nesbit, Lilian Evanti..."birds, books, and all things free and flowing have a way of muscling into the music."

Last week, The Intro EP was released. Their first full project gives the listener true notes that don't appear much anymore. They have found a sound that compliments the mosaic of story-filled lyrics, beautiful with just five tracks, including "John R" and "Sugar Daddy". Raven and the 27s display a vintage vibe that can be enjoyed by the old, the new, the happy, the lonely, and anyone in need of auditory awe. Experience the mix of classic rock drags, jazzy riffs, seething bass, and sandy vocals; you'll be propelled to a better time, I assure you.

Listen and download on Bandcamp! - Black Bottom Archives

Rob: Who is Raven Love and the 27’s?

Raven Love and the 27’s: Probably Mozart in each of our own minds, but really, we’re just four young folks tinkering with instruments and hoping it sounds good in the end. David and Raven were elementary school classmates who reconnected in December of 2014. Marcus was a longtime friend and collaborator with David. And Sean sort of fell out of the sky and into our laps in the summer of 2015. Since then, we’ve been playing out shows all over our hometown Detroit and the metro area. Bluesy-psychedelic-rock something, something…we’re still figuring it out, but that sums up who we are in more ways than one.

Rob: What inspired your name?

Raven Love and the 27’s: It was literally picked out of a hat. We couldn’t figure out what we wanted to be called, so we each wrote down three words on little pieces of paper, threw them into a hat, then drew one word each. When we pulled “27,” something Marcus had written, he didn’t have an explanation for what it meant. “It’s just 27,” he said. And it stuck. We’re just 27.

Rob: Where does the title for your EP come from?



Raven Love and the 27’s: “The Intro EP” is named as such because as our first recording together, it really was acting as a way of us introducing ourselves to the world outside of David’s basement. Narrowing down which songs to use, all the way down to how we wanted to write our name for the cover, it was all part of the final package of how we wanted to present ourselves. Since we’ve put what we feel is our best foot forward on the EP, it gives us the chance to build from there on future recordings.

Rob: What is your songwriting process?

Raven Love and the 27’s: All of the songs we’ve done thus far are actually reworked versions of Raven’s solo material from before the 27’s came about. Since the bones of each song are already in place in terms of lyrics, melody, and so forth, it’s a relatively fast process for us to arrange the rest of the instrumentation. New material takes a little bit longer, as expected. There are ton of fragments of songs floating about, which will hopefully get finished eventually. But it’s all very organic. When an idea comes it comes, and when it doesn’t, it’s okay to wait.

Rob: How has being from Detroit inspired your sound?

Raven Love and the 27’s: Detroit has a rich musical history. We all grew up with the Motown music of our parents and grandparents, and it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to say that you can hear remnants of that influence in our music. But the city itself is such an amazing place with so much to talk about. A lot of local references make their way into the songs, some covert and some a bit more obvious (like “John R”), but it’s just writing about what’s familiar and what stands out in the moment.

Rob: What is the best thing about being from Detroit?

Raven Love and the 27’s: Being able to say you’re from Detroit. Honestly. It has its highs and its lows, but as clichéd as it may sound, there really is no other city like it in our book.

Rob: What are your plans for 2016?

Raven Love and the 27’s: Shows, shows, recording, and more shows. We’re playing out all over the Metro Detroit area this summer, and hoping to maybe travel out a bit beyond that before the season ends. Additionally, we begin recording our first LP at the end of July, which should be ready for a fall release. We just got a brand new website, we’re making new merch, and overall trying to take a big step forward as a group.

Go purchase “The Intro EP” on Bandcamp. - Anchor Music News