The Friendly Skies
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The Friendly Skies

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"The Friendly Skies"

The New Scheme, Issue #18
The Friendly Skies are a new instrumental duo from Portland. Their sound mostly consists of solid, hypnotic drumming and winding baritone guitar lines. Melodic keyboard leads and guitar loops appear often as well. There are a lot of bands with similar lineups and general ideas about music. But The Friendly Skies have a much more organic approach than the current crop of laptop-dependent cut and paste artists. It lands between the winding, slow motion riffs of Tristeza records and a more angular approach ala Tortoise.

In all, the six songs here cover just over 15 minutes. If there's one thing that unites all the bands that inform The Friendly Skies' sound, it tends to be long songs and 60-70 minute releases. But this concise demo is a good introduction to an intriguing new band. I rarely review demos, but The Friendly Skies are onto something here. This is a solid, complete set of songs that may only be a demo, but has a lot more impact than most demos-or, a set of songs on a MySpace profile-which is more common these days. (Anderson)

- The New Scheme


"Record Release"

When not avoiding calls from United Airlines' legal counsel, local instrumental duo the Friendly Skies like to spend some time in the recording studio. The results—a split 7-inch with showmates Post Harbor—will be released to you tonight, and to your record needle the very second you get home from the show. Both bands care not for the vocals; the Friendly Skies, with their thick slab of rolling bass and technical drumming, are purely instrumental, while Seattle's Post Harbor use vocals sparingly in their mix of quiet/loud indie rock, which sounds similar to the spacious builds and monumental crashes of Sharks Keep Moving. EZRA ACE CARAEFF - Portland Mercury


"The Friendly Skies - Interview"

With all of the mindless, self-important, ego-driven music floating around on the airwaves today, it’s refreshing to stumble upon a band that goes back to putting value on creating a solid song structure without the worthless paraphernalia of most popular contemporary music. The Friendly Skies, a new instrumental duo from Portland, OR, believes in taking a more organic approach to songwriting, breaking away from the laptop-dependent cut-and-paste artists of today.

The two-man band consists of drummer, Jason Drost, and multi-instrumentalist, David Breese—two extremely talented musicians with a penchant for injecting the music scene with quality compositions. Tired of the egos of guitarists and singers, Breese came up with the idea for The Friendly Skies while scooping ice cream and finishing grad school in Pittsburgh. One summer, he abandoned the bass for a baritone guitar and began writing material for what would eventually become the duo’s first release. When Drost and Breese teamed up in March 2008, they decided to avoid the trappings of current instrumental artists, creating music that showcases their vision and musicianship without destroying the organization of the music itself.

When it comes to recording, The Friendly Skies take the punk rock approach, taking quality over quantity and stressing simplicity of process. “We love how all those punk bands from the eighties would release records and put in the liner notes that it was recorded for $300!” explains Drost.

With only two days in the studio, they knew they couldn’t spend lots of time experimenting with ideas. They went into Soundhouse Studios in Seattle, guided by engineer, David Dressel, and knocked out the songs quickly so they’d have plenty of time to mix. “It seems like every band thinks all you have to do is put a bunch of delay over a guitar line and it’s a masterpiece,” says Breese. “We try to develop songs around melodies rather than using giant pedal boards of effects to create mood.” He then wryly adds, “No matter how great your equipment is, you can’t polish a turd.” Clearly, the crew delegated their time wisely and worked their equipment well, producing six solid songs to be placed on their first self-titled EP. The EP itself spans fifteen minutes, but provides the band with a concise, stimulating intro onto the music scene and firm footing for later development.

The Friendly Skies demo combines a steady, lulling drumbeat and meandering, hypnotic baritone guitar riffs, looping haunting keyboard melodies and guitar to add chilling layering to the music. The Friendly Skies use real-time loops and buck the current trend of laptop-dependent artists with their utterly real performances. Drost and Breese compare their music to an ice cream sundae (an unsurprising analogy, considering Breese spent summers in Pittsburgh scooping the stuff for pocket change). Drost’s drumming is like the scoops that lay the foundation for the sound, solid and steady. Breese’s rolling baritone lines are like a layer of thick hot fudge. Loops of keyboard and guitar melodies are sprinkled on top like nuts and jimmies. It is an audibly-intriguing combination, but some find the missing standards of popular music (like bass and vocals) disconcerting. “I think of our music almost like pop songs without the vocals,” Drost comments. “We actually had a guy come up to the stage the other night after our first song and say, ‘you guys are good… but do you have a singer?”

But The Friendly Skies is quite content with their current set up and has no plans on changing. “We keep getting MySpace messages from people asking if we want to add another guitarist to the group. I always reply, ‘we’re a happily married duo,’” says Breese. “We like the simple approach… Jason and I are pretty laid back so songwriting comes easy. I go into practice with three or four riffs, and Jason helps me arrange them into songs. Then, once we have the structure of the song figured out, I come up with the guitar and the keyboard melodies.”

Despite their move to Portland, The Friendly Skies still maintains ties to their origins in Pittsburgh. Their new 7” was released on former band mate, Sean Finn’s label, Polar Recordings. Drost and Breese will be out in late June to tour in support of their new release. The duo has two LA shows scheduled for their summer tour—the first is at Mr. T’s Bowl on June 18th. The second is an all-ages show at The Smell on June 20th, where the group plans to have an ice cream social before they take the stage (to keep with the band’s ice cream motif). They plan to release a full-length follow up to their EP in mid 2009.

The Friendly Skies are off to a solid start, presenting a new face and quality to contemporary instrumental music.

- Wide Eyed Nation


Discography

1. Debut EP - released January 2008
2. 7" Record - release May 2008

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