The Argentine
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The Argentine

New York City, New York, United States | SELF

New York City, New York, United States | SELF
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"Unmistakable: Brooklyn's The Argentine puts out a sound unlike any other"

The self-proclaimed products of the recession (a positive turn of events: there’s a lot more time to milk the imagination when one is out of work) are crafting a sound unlike any other on the indie circuit today. Brooklyn, New York-bred The Argentine combines driving piano rhythms, wailing jazz instrumentals, elements of tribal drums, and rousing yet haunting banjos to make music that is almost otherworldly. Each song from the band has its own personality, but an encompassing theme prevails as a commentary on our day and age.

Despite being so-called products of the MP3 generation, they’re returning to the days of creating albums which are meant to be listened to as a whole work. Flowing together, tracks one through eight of their self-titled debut record—produced by Bill Moriarty (Dr. Dog, The Sheepdogs, Lotus, Josh Ritter)—speak to the wayward times of the past few years. Lyrics within the very first track, such as, “The sun disappeared and the fog in the morning grew gray,” set the stage for a gripping and inquisitive piece of art.

The Argentine comprises Mike Cades (guitar, piano, banjo, vocal), Tim Graves (guitar), Gary Guarinello (drums), Tara Haggerty (bass), and Philip Panos (piano, guitar, vocal). encore had the opportunity to speak with Cades and Graves about their 2011 release and how their music came to be so unique.

encore (e): Tell me how the band came together.
Mike Cades (MC): I think in many ways we’re a product of the recession. I lost my job (along with half the people I know) in early 2009. A few months after that, my friends started reminding me of the considerable amount of time I had spent complaining about not having any time to play music while I was working. So, I put an ad out on Craigslist and met Tara and Philip; Tim was a friend of a friend who was dating Gary’s cousin at the time. I think at that time, Tim was the only one of us who had steady work, so we had a lot of time to practice and flesh out ideas.

e: How do you all complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses?
Tim Graves (TG): Philip has perfect pitch and an excellent sense of rhythm, so he basically makes up for all of our musical shortcomings. Overall, I think we achieve the sound we have by knowing each other’s styles. Tara’s bass playing and my guitar favor rhythm over melody, while Mike and Philip’s playing tend to be more melodically inclined. Gary is good at finding rhythmic elements that aren’t being expressed by other instruments. I think that, by this point, each of us has a sense of each other’s playing, and we are able to write our parts in order to complement the other players.

e: Tell me about your experience recording with Bill Moriarty.
MC: We all loved the Dr. Dog records and were working with similar instrumentation (piano, guitars, etc.). I had friends from high school who had worked with Bill in the past and highly recommended him. It was a great experience! He was very direct about what was working and what wasn’t, and kept us on task in a way we often are not capable of doing ourselves. We loved the way the record came out and Bill was a huge part of that.

e: You say the album is intended to be listened to as a whole. Explain why and your concept.
MC: Despite some of the disparate sounds of the album, we had a vision early on of what we wanted the end-product to sound like. Of course, we’re all products of the MP3 generation and have the same tendencies to skip from song to song and not necessarily listen to an album from start to finish. While being guilty of this myself, I really love albums like “Harvest” [Neil Young], or “Mutations” [Beck], “Sumday” by Grandaddy, and “The Moon and Antarctica” [Modest Mouse] that sound like complete works of art with an overarching idea and sound.

In terms of concept, most of these songs were written in 2009 and 2010, when it felt like the country/world was in a complete free fall. My life, and the lives of my friends, mirrored this reality and the songs reflect that, some more melodramatically than others.

e: Your sound is so varied. What musicians influence you all?
MC: When we started working on these songs, I had completely hit a wall in terms of writing songs for the guitar and was fascinated by the possibilities of the piano. I had inherited one from my grandmother the year before and found a book of blues and jazz standards in the piano bench, which I began aggressively stealing chord progressions from. At the same time I was totally obsessed with Elvis Costello’s “Almost Blue” and Duke Ellington’s “I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)” (the Nina Simone version is incredible!) and started learning those progressions which are all based in sevenths, and these lovely diminished and augmented chords. Learning even a little about that style of writing opened all sorts of doors.

e: How has Brooklyn affected you as musicians?
TG: I can’t speak for Mike’s songwriting, but I don’t feel a strong influence from geography in our p - Encore Magazine


"Unmistakable: Brooklyn's The Argentine puts out a sound unlike any other"

The self-proclaimed products of the recession (a positive turn of events: there’s a lot more time to milk the imagination when one is out of work) are crafting a sound unlike any other on the indie circuit today. Brooklyn, New York-bred The Argentine combines driving piano rhythms, wailing jazz instrumentals, elements of tribal drums, and rousing yet haunting banjos to make music that is almost otherworldly. Each song from the band has its own personality, but an encompassing theme prevails as a commentary on our day and age.

Despite being so-called products of the MP3 generation, they’re returning to the days of creating albums which are meant to be listened to as a whole work. Flowing together, tracks one through eight of their self-titled debut record—produced by Bill Moriarty (Dr. Dog, The Sheepdogs, Lotus, Josh Ritter)—speak to the wayward times of the past few years. Lyrics within the very first track, such as, “The sun disappeared and the fog in the morning grew gray,” set the stage for a gripping and inquisitive piece of art.

The Argentine comprises Mike Cades (guitar, piano, banjo, vocal), Tim Graves (guitar), Gary Guarinello (drums), Tara Haggerty (bass), and Philip Panos (piano, guitar, vocal). encore had the opportunity to speak with Cades and Graves about their 2011 release and how their music came to be so unique.

encore (e): Tell me how the band came together.
Mike Cades (MC): I think in many ways we’re a product of the recession. I lost my job (along with half the people I know) in early 2009. A few months after that, my friends started reminding me of the considerable amount of time I had spent complaining about not having any time to play music while I was working. So, I put an ad out on Craigslist and met Tara and Philip; Tim was a friend of a friend who was dating Gary’s cousin at the time. I think at that time, Tim was the only one of us who had steady work, so we had a lot of time to practice and flesh out ideas.

e: How do you all complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses?
Tim Graves (TG): Philip has perfect pitch and an excellent sense of rhythm, so he basically makes up for all of our musical shortcomings. Overall, I think we achieve the sound we have by knowing each other’s styles. Tara’s bass playing and my guitar favor rhythm over melody, while Mike and Philip’s playing tend to be more melodically inclined. Gary is good at finding rhythmic elements that aren’t being expressed by other instruments. I think that, by this point, each of us has a sense of each other’s playing, and we are able to write our parts in order to complement the other players.

e: Tell me about your experience recording with Bill Moriarty.
MC: We all loved the Dr. Dog records and were working with similar instrumentation (piano, guitars, etc.). I had friends from high school who had worked with Bill in the past and highly recommended him. It was a great experience! He was very direct about what was working and what wasn’t, and kept us on task in a way we often are not capable of doing ourselves. We loved the way the record came out and Bill was a huge part of that.

e: You say the album is intended to be listened to as a whole. Explain why and your concept.
MC: Despite some of the disparate sounds of the album, we had a vision early on of what we wanted the end-product to sound like. Of course, we’re all products of the MP3 generation and have the same tendencies to skip from song to song and not necessarily listen to an album from start to finish. While being guilty of this myself, I really love albums like “Harvest” [Neil Young], or “Mutations” [Beck], “Sumday” by Grandaddy, and “The Moon and Antarctica” [Modest Mouse] that sound like complete works of art with an overarching idea and sound.

In terms of concept, most of these songs were written in 2009 and 2010, when it felt like the country/world was in a complete free fall. My life, and the lives of my friends, mirrored this reality and the songs reflect that, some more melodramatically than others.

e: Your sound is so varied. What musicians influence you all?
MC: When we started working on these songs, I had completely hit a wall in terms of writing songs for the guitar and was fascinated by the possibilities of the piano. I had inherited one from my grandmother the year before and found a book of blues and jazz standards in the piano bench, which I began aggressively stealing chord progressions from. At the same time I was totally obsessed with Elvis Costello’s “Almost Blue” and Duke Ellington’s “I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)” (the Nina Simone version is incredible!) and started learning those progressions which are all based in sevenths, and these lovely diminished and augmented chords. Learning even a little about that style of writing opened all sorts of doors.

e: How has Brooklyn affected you as musicians?
TG: I can’t speak for Mike’s songwriting, but I don’t feel a strong influence from geography in our p - Encore Magazine


"Emerging NYC Bands: The Argentine at The Studio on 10.06"

When the first song of an EP is called 'How it Ends,' you know things are about to get deep. The Argentine's debut, self-titled album takes you far back through history to explore Scottish-sounding ballads (How it Ends) and Weimar-era acid jazz (The Argentine), and back again with haunting bangers like Red Flesh Dogs. Not a simple thing, but singer Mike Cades and company manage to pull these disparate worlds together, ending up with something William S. Burroughs might have had in his car while waxing lyrical. Buy the ticket, and take the ride.

See the band when they play Webster Hall's studio on Saturday, October 6. - Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets) - The Deli Magazine NYC


"Emerging NYC Bands: The Argentine at The Studio on 10.06"

When the first song of an EP is called 'How it Ends,' you know things are about to get deep. The Argentine's debut, self-titled album takes you far back through history to explore Scottish-sounding ballads (How it Ends) and Weimar-era acid jazz (The Argentine), and back again with haunting bangers like Red Flesh Dogs. Not a simple thing, but singer Mike Cades and company manage to pull these disparate worlds together, ending up with something William S. Burroughs might have had in his car while waxing lyrical. Buy the ticket, and take the ride.

See the band when they play Webster Hall's studio on Saturday, October 6. - Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets) - The Deli Magazine NYC


"Teru’ah: Mad Kids In The Holy City [Album Review]"

by Joshua Britton

Sound the mighty, holy trumpets for Teru’ah as they return with Mad Kids in the Holy City, their follow-up to 2006’s Calvin Names the Mountain. Teru’ah is Mike Cades, residing in Brooklyn, and John Killeen, who lives in Asheville. Finally firmly planted in their respective cities, the stability has provided the duo with a clearer vision for this album and, therefore, finely-executed tracks again reminiscent of 70’s soft rock, early 80’s punk and the 90’s alternative scene the two grasped a hold of in order to survive through the decade. Their first effort out, while produced together in Maryland, was a collection of songs mainly performed entirely by each of them alone, save for some overdubs and a few live takes. This LP, however, found the two writing alone but collaborating on every song via mail or visits, and inviting many more people to contribute drums.

Present are the two-minute odes to loved ones that populated the first album: opener “Postcard to Meg” and the lullaby “So Long, Little Mouse” are like bookends to a bittersweet story, and “Stephanie” is aptly named, as it seems like a Velvet Underground B-side. Here, too, are the amazing surprises in time shift and melody: “In a plane o’er Niger”, the surfiest of the rockers, is another song you’d expect to be two minutes, straight-forward in its rockabilly easiness. But something happens. When Killeen sings I’ll snap on my radio, there’s literally a snap of his fingers and what sounds like an old French tune from the 1930’s comes pouring out of a Victorola. This intermission ends in luscious oohs and ahhs coming in from outer space, then cracks back into the present to complete the beginning jam. These types of interferences made the first album disjointed, but here the songs are whole, and it helps the album sound intended rather than a pasting together of recordings made in solitary.

While Ter’uah’s new songs provide a fresh feeling to their unique combination of styles, they also seem to have culled some songs from their past: “Billy Makes a Rough Mix” sounds a lot like Mike’s first solo disc released under the name Anthony Tutelli, both in structure and production (though the use of reverb at the end is pristine), and “The Prairie” recalls the duo’s previous band, the less-accessible Steel Point Archery Club, with the opening riff sounding like some marriage of Neil Young and Pixies. However out of place “The Prairie” might be, it sets up a beautiful juxtaposition for the next song, “Edward”. From its banjo opening to the amazing horn outro, it’s the crown jewel of the album. Never has Mike’s vocals exited so serenely from his mouth as they do throughout this song, the bass work is downright flawless, and the live horn section (perfectly arranged and co-executed by Greg Glassman) howls like a burning scarecrow.

There are still certain songs that take patience; after all, you can’t expect a smorgasbord to be full of everything you like. Part of the melody from “Interlude” reminds me of “A Groovy Kind of Love” by Phil Collins, which is weird, and the jangliness of “Somewhere Uptown” gets a bit tired if you can’t hang for the subtleties like hand claps and harmonious aches. But songs like “Long-winded Mockingbird B” and “The Miracle of Cars” save the album from its meanderings; they’re perfect pop ballads and Shins-like sing-a-longs. One could even imagine “Spanish Music for Easy Listening” being featured as a bridge during NPR segments, or “John Vincent Moon” used in a Jared Hess movie. The album ends (like the first album) with a Southern rock number, though “City Song” has less to do with the Reverend Horton Heat and shares a bed more with Lynyrd Skynyrd. And that shouldn’t scare you — just replace the masochism and Confederate pride with communion and acceptance of things past, both of which describe the majority of this LP — especially since the last thing heard is a bird singing. All in all, this album will not be ignored, particularly by anyone with a wide appreciation for song structure, melody and experimentation.

Best lines of Mike’s: –
“The comeback never comes in time”;
“Do your passions give way to the chores of the day?”;
“It’s a pirate’s life for me / sails both aft and fro / each memory a slave upon the shore”;
“Oh, the pleasures of amplifiers and strings / It’s God’s voice that’s speaking when I sing.”

Best lines of John’s: –
“Time wore you out and I don’t doubt that it was good to even have a chance”;
“You’ve a mighty sword, you’ve a mighty catapult / archangelic wings, something to destory us both”;
“Something tells me I’m going to be one of those guys with the RayBans on.” - FencePost


"Teru’ah: Mad Kids In The Holy City [Album Review]"

by Joshua Britton

Sound the mighty, holy trumpets for Teru’ah as they return with Mad Kids in the Holy City, their follow-up to 2006’s Calvin Names the Mountain. Teru’ah is Mike Cades, residing in Brooklyn, and John Killeen, who lives in Asheville. Finally firmly planted in their respective cities, the stability has provided the duo with a clearer vision for this album and, therefore, finely-executed tracks again reminiscent of 70’s soft rock, early 80’s punk and the 90’s alternative scene the two grasped a hold of in order to survive through the decade. Their first effort out, while produced together in Maryland, was a collection of songs mainly performed entirely by each of them alone, save for some overdubs and a few live takes. This LP, however, found the two writing alone but collaborating on every song via mail or visits, and inviting many more people to contribute drums.

Present are the two-minute odes to loved ones that populated the first album: opener “Postcard to Meg” and the lullaby “So Long, Little Mouse” are like bookends to a bittersweet story, and “Stephanie” is aptly named, as it seems like a Velvet Underground B-side. Here, too, are the amazing surprises in time shift and melody: “In a plane o’er Niger”, the surfiest of the rockers, is another song you’d expect to be two minutes, straight-forward in its rockabilly easiness. But something happens. When Killeen sings I’ll snap on my radio, there’s literally a snap of his fingers and what sounds like an old French tune from the 1930’s comes pouring out of a Victorola. This intermission ends in luscious oohs and ahhs coming in from outer space, then cracks back into the present to complete the beginning jam. These types of interferences made the first album disjointed, but here the songs are whole, and it helps the album sound intended rather than a pasting together of recordings made in solitary.

While Ter’uah’s new songs provide a fresh feeling to their unique combination of styles, they also seem to have culled some songs from their past: “Billy Makes a Rough Mix” sounds a lot like Mike’s first solo disc released under the name Anthony Tutelli, both in structure and production (though the use of reverb at the end is pristine), and “The Prairie” recalls the duo’s previous band, the less-accessible Steel Point Archery Club, with the opening riff sounding like some marriage of Neil Young and Pixies. However out of place “The Prairie” might be, it sets up a beautiful juxtaposition for the next song, “Edward”. From its banjo opening to the amazing horn outro, it’s the crown jewel of the album. Never has Mike’s vocals exited so serenely from his mouth as they do throughout this song, the bass work is downright flawless, and the live horn section (perfectly arranged and co-executed by Greg Glassman) howls like a burning scarecrow.

There are still certain songs that take patience; after all, you can’t expect a smorgasbord to be full of everything you like. Part of the melody from “Interlude” reminds me of “A Groovy Kind of Love” by Phil Collins, which is weird, and the jangliness of “Somewhere Uptown” gets a bit tired if you can’t hang for the subtleties like hand claps and harmonious aches. But songs like “Long-winded Mockingbird B” and “The Miracle of Cars” save the album from its meanderings; they’re perfect pop ballads and Shins-like sing-a-longs. One could even imagine “Spanish Music for Easy Listening” being featured as a bridge during NPR segments, or “John Vincent Moon” used in a Jared Hess movie. The album ends (like the first album) with a Southern rock number, though “City Song” has less to do with the Reverend Horton Heat and shares a bed more with Lynyrd Skynyrd. And that shouldn’t scare you — just replace the masochism and Confederate pride with communion and acceptance of things past, both of which describe the majority of this LP — especially since the last thing heard is a bird singing. All in all, this album will not be ignored, particularly by anyone with a wide appreciation for song structure, melody and experimentation.

Best lines of Mike’s: –
“The comeback never comes in time”;
“Do your passions give way to the chores of the day?”;
“It’s a pirate’s life for me / sails both aft and fro / each memory a slave upon the shore”;
“Oh, the pleasures of amplifiers and strings / It’s God’s voice that’s speaking when I sing.”

Best lines of John’s: –
“Time wore you out and I don’t doubt that it was good to even have a chance”;
“You’ve a mighty sword, you’ve a mighty catapult / archangelic wings, something to destory us both”;
“Something tells me I’m going to be one of those guys with the RayBans on.” - FencePost


Discography

The Argentine 2011

Photos

Bio


The Argentine was formed in 2009 and played several shows under the name Teru'ah including Piano's NYC, Maxwell's, Arlene's Grocery, and Rockwood Music.
The debut record, which is available at http://the-argentine.bandcamp.com/, has been described as "...something William S. Burroughs might have had in his car while waxing lyrical."
The follow-up EP, scheduled to be released in full in early May, is a slightly more aggressive work with a bolder perspective on a similar world described by M. Cades in the debut.