The Other Bones

I remember being shocked immediately at what was going on. There was a guitar loop that sounded something like the Tower Jam at IT, followed by a brilliant sounding looped drum beat, synth rhythm, and vocal track, in that order. One minute into the track, I was hooked. I knew that this band was going to be the most original thing out of Portland in the past 10 years, maybe ever.

Since then, I’ve been hovering around their website like Quimby hovers around my feet waiting for me to drop some food. Slowly but surely, 2 more songs came out. The River, and the Christmas song “What Are You Doing New Years Eve?” Both as equally impressive, yet these were just crumbs. I wanted a fucking sandwich, and finally it’s been delivered.

Hinges is a 5 track EP that comes out on Tuesday, May 8th. It starts aggressively with “Not This Way.” It is a stark contrast to the acoustic version that was released in late March. There are layers of tastefully blended electronics and even some vocodoer/autotuning. It is followed by the harmony rich “Say That To Me.” It’s peaks and valleys of varying intensity, with a sweet ass synth bass and some very tasteful less is more guitar work. It becomes clear very quickly that although The Other Bones are a relatively new band, they already know exactly what they want to sound like, and it sounds awesome. Hinges continues with the insanely catchy and memorable Feels Like Home, an building intensely pissed off little number called The Bad In Goodbye, and In/Out/Over, another harmony filled almost club-esque track. Maybe it’s not suited for a club, it’s not like I go to clubs. Just know that it’s good. It’s all good. Fuck, it’s all great really.

Eric, Andrew and Loretta have created music that is like no other trio I’ve ever heard. I have a hard time putting it into a category. It’s a blend of so many genres that I can’t describe it accurately. This is what I always envisioned the music of the future sounding like. This is by far the best EP that I’ve heard in 2012. Go get Hinges on May 8th. Grab your jetpacks and check them out at Slantie on Saturday May 5th. I have yet to see these guys live, but I’m sure it’s fantastic.
- Old Port Jingles

Bangor native Andrew Mead and Loretta Allen, an Illinois transplant, met while paddling a canoe through the waters of Lake Mooselookmeguntic, near Rangeley in western Maine. Ironic, considering that their low-tech beginning preceded a high-tech present. The pair now make up two-thirds of the Portland based electronic rock trio The Other Bones — the other third being guitarist Eric Bruce — and with their array of digital gadgets and instruments, they’re a band set squarely in 2012. The Other Bones will play with seven other Maine bands starting at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21 at the Bear Brew Pub in Orono, as part of the latest WPC Presents show. It will be their first live performance with their full technological set up.
“I don’t think what we do really makes sense to people until they see us do it live,” said Mead, who for years played in a number of bands seen regularly in Bangor, like the Andy Mead Band and People & Things. “It’s hard to really get all the things we do with sequencers and loop pedals and the iPad just by listening to it. You have to see it. That’s why we’re so excited for this show.”
But back to the beginning. Mead, now 24, and Allen, now 23, were in that canoe together, on an orientation trip for new students at Tufts University in Boston. That was 2006, but for three years after that, their paths never crossed. Mead played guitar and sang in his bands, and Allen studied media at Tufts, all the while honing her big, beautiful, soulful voice. Both have musical backgrounds — Mead’s father is a guitarist, and Allen sang in church and did musical theater as a girl. But it wasn’t until the end of college that the two reconnected, after both took music classes at Tufts. Allen sang for a People & Things EP. They graduated, they decided to keep playing together, they both moved to Portland, and then, most importantly, Mead underwent a creative reinvention.
Bangor audiences knew Mead as an acoustic indie pop troubadour — a bit of Dave Matthews here, some Beatles melodiousness there. With The Other Bones, he’s put that aside in favor of a warm, lush, electronic sound that bears far more resemblance to bands like MGMT, Yeasayer, Passion Pit and even early Bjork or Depeche Mode. In other words: light years from the Andy Mead Band.
“It’s a pretty dramatic switch for me from what I was interested in before,” said Mead. “I’ve always been interested in the production side of things and into electronic music, and I just decided that that’s where I wanted to go with my music. I had an electronic setup all on my own, and it seemed like vocals would fill it out perfectly. Thankfully, there’s Lori and Eric, or else it wouldn’t go much further than that.”
Allen’s voice is a gorgeous instrument, influenced by r&b/soul and able to soar high above and hold its own with the highly dance-able clicks and thumps and propulsive synth and guitar sounds of Mead and Bruce.
“I think it helps make us distinctive, from other bands that have a more electronic style,” said Allen. “And singing in this kind of soulful way is by far the most fun thing for me. It’s the style of singing that is most rewarding for me.”
Bruce joined the band this past year, after Mead and Allen knew they needed a third member to fill out their sound. With the duel guitar attack thanks to Bruce, Mead’s programming and Allen’s shimmering vocals, the three knew they had a sound to stick with. Within a few weeks of auditioning, Bruce was playing with them at a gig last summer at Ipanema Bar & Grill in Bangor.
An album is in the works for later this year, but in the meantime, The Other Bones have released a string of music videos, directed by Portland videographer Jason Bosch. The videos give a glimpse of their performing technique, which, as we said earlier, will have its full live debut this Saturday at the Bear Brew.
“It’s a little nerve-wracking, yes, because we’ve been working on this for a long time and we’re just so excited to really show it off to people - Bangor Daily News

I got a CD from this band in the mail and I must say that I was at first skeptical as they are a self-described “Electro Soul/Rock trio from Portland, ME”

Not really my cup of tea. But as with anything I get from artists, I sat down to give it a spin. The CD was not playable so I was tempted just to let it go and forget I ever heard about these guys. After all, a non-working CD is a great excuse. Couldn’t do that though so I went to their Facebook page, web page and looked them up.

In the process I came across some of their songs on youtube. So I played a couple and I easily determined why it was so easy for magazines like, and including, The Phoenix to give them a great review. This is a young and spirited group of musicians. The drive of the band keeps your attention and the vocals and musical arrangements simply add to their presence, style and commitment to the art of music.

I really liked this band and have no problems suggesting that you would do. If they are in your area, drop by and take a listen. You just may well agree with me. - The Valley Voice

For too long has dance pop been solely occupied by commercial beat-makers like Dr. Luke. Now it's time for the indie occupation of the sound. While Dean Ford is trying to beat them at their own game by glamming up like early Bowie, and Crunk Witch give it a hardcore/screamo twist, the brand-new Other Bones do it up indie style. On their debut EP, Hinges, the trio essentially make the album Madonna wishes she had just released, with brassy, commanding front-woman presence from Loretta Allen, thundering beats for the dancefloor, and just enough electric guitar to give rock fans a rope to hold on to.

"Feels like Home" even has a full-blown Madonna call-out, the namesake chorus aping the "feels like home" delivery from "Like a Prayer," which, as it was released in 1989, there's a chance Allen never actually heard unless she was watching the Super Bowl half-time show this past year. Her vocal opening is even buoyed by the kind of almost-Latin/almost-Caribbean beat that backed "La Isla Bonita."

Of course, Allen's a better natural singer than Madonna ever was, with range enough to pull off both the delicate high-register stuff and the sinister strut that infuses the bridge here, where she gets plenty bold in encouraging the listener to "walk alone/And you can know what it feels like."

Make sure you hit up YouTube or see these three live to see how they put this stuff together. I love that the "acoustic" video version of the opening "Not This Way" has Andrew Mead sitting on a stool playing an MPC (you know, the thing with all the little pads you hit with your fingers, triggering keyboard-like sounds and beats), but then switching to an egg shaker. Allen does a fair amount of vocal looping while Eric Bruce plays the role of fairly traditional guitarist/bassist, as the song may desire.

His four-note guitar breakdown at the finish of "Not This Way" brings the song full circle from the digital swirl of the open and the punch of the chorus, which ought to really fire people up live. Bruce really stars in "The Bad in Goodbye," though, where he opens like a snake charmer before Mead brings in a snare-driven beat and a sonar bloop. Then the guitar snarls along with Allen: "I didn't come over here to just get in the way/So don't be surprised when I call you to explain."

While the song could maybe explode a little more forcefully in the chorus, the build creates strong tension and the "hey-ee-ay-ee-ay-ee-ay" vocal pyrotechnics by Allen should throw a bolt of energy right down your spine before she reaches right down to the soles of her shoes for the "fuck you, goodbye" slap in the face that serves as the song's crescendo peak. The vibrato that leads into the fading atmospheric keyboards in the finish ain't bad either.

She can be sultry and R&B, too, as on "Say That to Me," where I can never quite tell if she's issuing a challenge or a summons. Some of the drum breakdowns sound like they could have come right off an Asia album, but the menacing bassy swirl behind the guitar and high-mixed snare keep things sounding contemporary even when the chorus gets fairly balladic. There's a nice switch-up with the acoustic guitar here, too, in the bridge before the song chimes to a finish.

Probably the most pure pop tune here is the finishing "In Out Over," which features especially tight backing-vocal samples, punctuations of "tell me how you're feelin' now," like old-school Beyoncé. In the chorus, this driving force is underlined by a languid guitar picking out single notes while the rest of the song is in full-on rave-up, putting a bit of a governor on the energy but making this much more interesting than your average dance-pop fare. The song gets dark still later, with Vaderish synths and a fairly heavy electric guitar that's mixed to the back a bit to keep things from getting too grungy.

"Think I'm gonna lose it!," Allen nearly screams, but that's hard to believe. This five-song introduction is so nicely orchestrated and constr - The Portland Phoenix