Spectator

(Song featured in 2 promotional videos for the national Citizen Jane Film Festival, featuring independent films by independent women.) - Citizen Jane Film Festival

If @spectatorstl plays the soundtrack to St. Louis, I want to go. —Jen. - Bandcamp Staff Picks

(One month in the #1 spot on the KDHX CMJ Top 30 chart) - KDHX.org

At the core of Spectator are Megan Rooney and Jeff Albert, two St. Louis musicians who have been writing songs together for five years, but who only recently founded the band, which features Laren Loveless on drums on percussion and Luke Berry on bass. Combining flute-like keyboards, guitar and even electronic autoharp, the band has developed a sound that's both lonesome and comforting, and should appeal to fans of the eerie, jazzy style of Mazzy Star and Cotton Jones. The band is currently working on its first album in Columbia, Mo. at Centro Cellar Studios. - KDHX.org

Opening the show was Spectator, a four-piece ensemble that is relatively new band to the St. Louis music scene. The set was perfectly matched to the weather outside the venue, with notes from the guitarist rhythmically falling like raindrops while the keyboard, bass and violin swirled like leaves around vocals that both whispered through the branches and kicked up a forceful gale. Although its sound was quite a departure from the main act, Spectator was a fantastic addition to the evening and provided a great amount of atmosphere for everyone in attendance. - KDHX.org

I absolutely love being introduced to a band by way of their live show. It’s a special occurrence that doesn’t happen for me very often these days. I tend look up and listen to an artist’s music prior to seeing them play, whether it be an opener for a band I already like or a local show or whatever. In the case of St. Louis band Spectator, this (kind of) happened. I saw them play a show with Golden Curls, and though I didn’t actively look up their music before seeing them play, I had heard their song “We’ve Been Through This Before” on KDHX a few days prior to the show. But the thing is: I didn’t know it was their song until I recognized it in the middle of their set. And by that point, I was already mesmerized by their moody, dreamlike folk sound filling the stale air of the small bar, so it was just as if I had never heard the band before.
I’ve gone on that mini-ramble to preface this statement: Whether your introduction to Spectator is their live show or listening to In the Brick, you’re sure to be transfixed all the same. The songs on the EP range from twangy folk to 50s doo-wop to moody dream pop over the course of 26 minutes, melding each of their influences to create a very contemporary, very Mid-Western sound. Listen to it! - Three Dollars & Sixty-Three Cents

Autumn in its adolescence incorporates rare warm nights and pumpkin ale in its bid as winter’s suitor. The combination muffles the senses, or heightens them in preparation of evening’s palette: bruised blue-black and dull, streetlight yellow. The evening’s dark colors worked their way inside Off Broadway. Comfortable darkness is a worthy backdrop for Spectator, who performed with lights down low. St. Louis’s dream-pop act is a midnight kiss on record, and anointed with a country balm live. The harmonies of vocalists Megan Rooney and Jeffery Albert coaxed the room with sultry pillow talk. When Rooney bid the audience farewell with a sweet “We’ll see you later,” it was impossible not to think, “Hope so.” - Eleven Magazine

Despite the graphic horror and general barrenness that was the movie Natural Born Killers, it did one truly great thing for me (well, two really if count showing me just how twisted Oliver Stone’s wheelhouse is). The one thing was to introduce me to Cowboy Junkie’s Sweet Jane.

I instantly thought of them when listening to Spectator. Their slow and sweet dream pop seems proper for an intimate night (whether it’s you with that someone special or you alone with your good friend Jack Daniels).

Check out the Official Spectator Facebook page for more.

Off the box,
mike EP - Sound Junkie Soapbox

Show Me Love: NOT that one Robyn song, y’all. But instead, some affection from us in honor of a Missouri band. A really fucking stellar Missouri band.
Here’s a list of things about this song that are breaking my heart every other time I hear it and then healing it all up on the in between listens.
Megan Rooney, the owner of the bellows wafting through your speakers, sings so g’damn pretty I almost can’t take it. Please see 2:40 for reference and just try to disagree.
The band here — Jeffrey Albert, Luke Berry, and Laren Loveless — raise up that aforementioned voice of Megan’s with near perfect arrangement.
I once loved this dude, about 8 years ago or so, and it was so overwhelming that I almost died. That part where we are gifted the lyrics, “Oh no, I won’t come around here no more,” slays my soul. If I’d had this song back then, I’m not sure if it would have compelled me to leave as I should have but it would have been a tourniquet for the tears, I think.
This band is from St Louis. HOLY SHIT, that’s awesome.
I’ve been on a super, hardcore, real fucking serious rock kick lately. I’m concocting a summer mixtape that centers around that very genre and though I can always find these kind of emotions in a rock jam too, it’s really glorious to find it laid out so perfectly with nary an electric guitar in sight. Love live rock ‘n roll, yeah, but long live this too.
At 6 songs, I’d call In The Brick an EP before I’d call it an album but sweet baby Jesus, it’s worth your $4. GO GET IT. - Folk Hive blog

Dream-pop bands rarely get both sides of the hyphen right. Beach House may wrap its organ-fired whims in a beautiful, engrossing gauze, but you're more likely to bliss out than bop your head along. So it's a comfort that Spectator, a relatively new quartet, makes its recording debut with such a rich, elegantly produced piece of mood music. The songs on this six-track EP reverberate with the plucks of hollow-body guitars and the gentle pulse of warm keyboard tones. Megan Rooney leads this band with a deft hand on the keyboard and an assured, if restrained, approach to her vocals. She honed her craft singing with local Latin-inspired groups, but the only obvious nod to her past comes in the light Tropicalia of "Daytime." On the EP, Rooney holds court with a controlled quaver that has enough body to be the center of songs that are, by design, patient constructions of ambient space and more aggressive push/pull dynamics. Opening track "We've Been Through This Before" displays this artful tension beautifully. Earmark it for your next post-breakup playlist.

But dream-pop is still pop music, and Spectator never shirks on bright hooks and smart melodies. The boy/girl harmonies and wandering organ chords give "It Comes Too Early" a fittingly somnambulatory vibe, where even the pain of yearning feels like a balm. That type of pre-Beatles pop comes through clearest on "Walk With Me," with plinking piano chords and Rooney's multi-tracked cooing vocals that make the Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes for You" feel like the song's guardian angel. It's not hard to fall into the easy breeze of Spectator, but be prepared to stay in that seductive sway throughout -- the mood carries through all six tracks and never shifts tempos or tinkers with the sonic palette. The acoustic waltz "In the Night" closes the disc with a darker tint than is found elsewhere on the disc, though its Mellotron-led outro sounds like a lost transmission from your grandparents' radio. - Spectator's Dreamy New EP: Listen Now, Before the July 13 Release