Star Party’s new album Meadow Flower is an album written over the course of 2021 with the band consisting of Carolyn Brennan and Ian Corrigan who had formed as a home recording project in Seattle the year before. The album is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it-sonic-rocket-ride with a lo-fi assault of scuzzed and fuzzed guitars, whirlpools of feedback and the kind of vocals that sound like they are being broadcast from the bottom of a deep well. It has the glorious feel of the Shangri-Las filtered through the Jesus and Mary Chain with light, breezy tunes skipping over gravel.
The album is a blistering delight and Star Party were kind enough to give Joyzine a track by track breakdown:
You and me – Climbing out from the primordial ooze of a young romance this song poses the question, “ if Darwinism is/has been erroneously projected onto completely unrelated subjects in some braindead/opportunistic fashion over the past 160 years (sociology, psychology, ethnicity, etc…), what would it look like if it were projected it onto love?”. This one was written after listening to Disorder’s “Mental Disorder” EP and ‘84-’86 Chaos UK EPs.
Living a lie – Day in, day out, trying to manage a relationship is a double edged sword, we all know how much work it is, or can’t stand how much work it is. Whatever your alignment, you know they’re work. That said, being in one of these social contracts with someone can start to feel like a one way system if they don’t figure out how to motivate themselves. The lyrics speak from the perspective of someone who is at the end of their rope. The vocal tracking was fun because we did staggered vocal takes ala Career Suicide to allow Carrie for maximum precision and speed.
Push You Aside – A bit cheeky this one. Riffing on the thematic structure of the previous songs on how frustrating and confusing it is to navigate relationships. This one puts forward the perspective of someone who isn’t willing or wanting to validate the emotions of someone who never asked the narrator if they wanted to be in love. It felt right to turn the solo into an Alice Cooperesque meltdown instead of trying to impress people with slick chops, what a cheeky little mess.
Meadow Flower – An ode to the magnificent and unparalleled beauty of Washington State. A bouquet of Alpine NorthWestern flowers cut through the telling of the seasonal changes that drift season to season above the beautiful blessed peaks of Snoqualmie, The Chinook pass, and Mount Tahoma (nothing should have been named after Peter Rainier, what a dunce). Tried to make this one sound like a Janice Long session, quick, pretty, not thinking too hard.
Shot Down – Can’t seem to get the day started? Winter got you down? Try having 250 days of cloud cover a year. Sound wonderful? You bet, let me tell you, we love it, but sometimes though, we wish that the sun would come out and heat up the ground. Sometimes I wonder if the Pacific Northwest weather creates clammy moody people or if clammy moody people move to the Pacific Northwest as a way to have an excuse to be clammy and moody, either way, there’s a lot of them here. Heavy Shop Assistants and Alex Taylor vibes on this one, we worship your memory Alex!
No Excuse – A prequel to living a lie, we find our protagonist (maybe antagonist, at any rate, an agonist) adrift in a sea of excuses as to why their love won’t control themselves. They’re fed up with excuses, an explanation for how someone is not always justification for how they act. Tried to do a little cross over from Confuse (JP) to X (LA) on this one.
Veil of Gauze – Written about a collapsing romance and a broken windshield on a winter’s day in White Sands, New Mexico. The lyrics have a repurposing of imagery from Charles Baudelaire’s poem about Ernst Christophe’s sculpture Le Masque where he (baudelaire) refers to Humanity’s dainty face as being framed in a comedic veil of gauze. Trying to reignite a damaged love is like trying to dig a joke out of frozen ground on the tundra. Solo was written under extreme intoxication between pick up basketball games.
A Trip Home – This song tracks a person who is trying their best to hold in ambivalence towards their family. Most story arcs similar to this one try to showcase how resolving family issues can lead to catharsis, but in reality sometimes addressing issues just leads to more stress, more resentment, more problems. The character finds it best to seek the inner peace and strength to take a trip home than to expel their energy on “being known” or “being seen”. It was interesting to explore a muted and unromantic route instead of a cathartic one. The effect on Carrie’s vocals at the end really helped simulate rising internal tension and thought distortion.
You can buy Star Party’s album Meadow Flower here as a digital download or on limited edition pastel green vinyl