Outrageous Cherry
Rock / Alternative
From the same Detroit-based family that gave birth to the Sights, White Stripes, Dirtbombs, and Electric Six comes another rabble of Detroit mainstays: Outrageous Cherry is emerging with SUPERNATURAL EQUINOX. Featuring bassist Courtney Sheedy (The Tiny Steps, The Americans (Detroit)), drummer Carey Gustafson, guitarist Larry Ray (Spike Drivers, The Ivories) and frontman Matthew Smith (whose Detroit resume reads a lot like producer Jim Diamond’s little black book), Outrageous Cherry is back with an orchestral, fuzzed-up, freaked out rock n’ roll juggernaut of a record.
As early albums drew lots of comparisons to the Velvet Underground, presumably because O.C. never allowed any of their various drummers (all female, incidentally) to utilize cymbals or hi-hats. This opened the music up to allow a spacious, textural two-guitar attack to develop over primeval minimalist grooves.
In 2000, O.C. signed with Alan McGee's Poptones label, who released OUT THERE IN THE DARK and THE BOOK OF SPECTRAL PROJECTIONS (U.S. version available on Rainbow Quartz). Around this time, O.C. began to develop into some kind of deeply mystical bubblegum orchestra. Their psychedelic Detroit roots became the focus of a determined effort to create something new for the 21st century. After signing with NYC label Rainbow Quartz, O.C. set out to create their most fully realized musical vision yet.
SUPERNATURAL EQUINOX is arguably Matt Smith's strongest composition to date: a multitude of pure pop gems, like 7" singles from the past, glitter amongst guitar workouts that sound like Hendrix dueling with Fripp.
The songs of SUPERNATURAL EQUINOX are beamed in from some other dimension: pianos, trumpets, sitars and tambourines adorn a squall of guitars and the obligatory driving, primal beats. Smith’s lyrics follow Dylan-esque labyrinths through cathedrals of reverberation and stratospheres of echoplex.
Most of the songs on SUPERNATURAL EQUINOX were fine-tuned through two years of gigs in the heart of Detroit's underground rock n' roll scene. The LP was ultimately recorded at Ghetto Recorders and Tempermill (O.C.'s two favorite Detroit studios) with Matthew Smith overseeing the myriad of production complexities.
SUPERNATURAL EQUINOX still manages to be slightly sunnier, in both texture and content, than Outrageous Cherry’s critically acclaimed THE BOOK OF SPECTRAL PROJECTIONS and OUT THERE IN THE DARK recordings.
SUPERNATURAL EQUINOX is what happens when the spiritual descendants of the Stooges and MC5 confront vintage technology in search of a new kind of pop music.
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