GUMSHEN

Hello Friends -
September is here – time for that back to school shopping music once again. For that, shoppers, we present Gumshen as our AotM. For me this started with Rich Hinklin. I’ve known Rich for a long time. He used to send me tapes of his band the Colleagues back in GMR Mach 1 and we released a cassette of his sound collage solo stuff – Contradiction in ‘88 or so. More recently Rich has contributed trax to our Xmas albums, both as a solo dude and with the Gumshen collective. Rich first sent me the guys EP Stew, which he had just recorded and mixed. He ended up joining the G-team on bass and has done the last few EPs as an band member. These guys like to do the EP thing, they’ve knocked ‘em out – done 6 of them now, each with 5-7 songs or so. Charmingly, they have numbered them 1-6 on the front of each EP, so there is not confusion about what happened when. If you want to start with one, I recommend #4 What You Make It as a fine starting point….read more…

Original Article – http://allaccessmagazine.com/2012/08/23/gumshen-everything-what-we-recorded/

How would you describe Seattle’s Gumshen? That’s a good question. At first they sound like pop/rock, but it doesn’t take long for their progressive rock, funk, electronic, and garage rock influences to take over. “Their new album “Everything What We Recorded” is an undeniably ambitious release showing both songwriting discipline and an unbridled sense of musical adventure. Album opener “Hammer & Nails” dishes out contemporary wisdom with an extremely catchy/poppy arrangement that will get your head bobbing without question. “Too Much Good Times” rocks harder, taking on a more punk rock influence, and the eccentricity is starting to show.

“Jag it Up” is where things really get strange in the best possible way, and within about 10 seconds you can tell that this is the song that’s going to stick with people. Like Devo jamming with Arcade Fire (?), there is something undescribably addictive about this track. It ends and you listen again. When was the last time you could say that? After the main part of the song is over, with it’s funk/rock/pop mastery, the band slow the tempo for about 4 minutes of straight progressive rock that would make King Crimson proud.

“Gooch Machine” funks things up like early Red Hot Chili Peppers. Not many bands bring out the slap bass with such efficiency, and the song screams personality. There are more surprises on the album, with the intensely emotional ballad “Every Drop of Rain”, and the dance-able “Say What You Want”, which even features rapping. Yes, rapping. This is an adventurous band, and it’s commendable. It all works.

Gumshen is a great listen for fans of King Crimson, Devo, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Moby, Pink Floyd, and…the list goes on.