See also: Hearts & Plugs, Paradise of Bachelors, The Foreign Exchange Music, and Sorry State Records

By Linnie Greene

On the table in front of Cory Rayborn is a beautifully packaged LP. The cover — a matchbook style sleeve with a silky screenprint of a cowboy on horseback — is a perfect fit for the wandering acoustic melodies found within. Rayborn gazes down and remembers assembling it by hand, along with several hundred of its counterparts, as the deadline loomed for last year’s Record Store Day.

“Despite thinking I had planned everything super early, I ended up driving things to (the distributor) the last possible day,” he recalls, visibly tensing at the memory. The record, Eight Trails, One Path, unites several of the label’s heavyweight regulars — Steve Gunn, Lee Ranaldo, William Tyler, and others, artists with names that record nerds bandy like well-polished swords.

The founder of High Point’s Three Lobed Recordings, Rayborn, a business lawyer by day, lines the inside of his home with the fruits of his labor. In a basement-turned-warehouse-turned-listening lounge, he stores the limited-run pressings of artists like Jack Rose, MV & EE, Sun City Girls, and Bardo Pond, the band whose 10-inch marked the label’s first release in the summer of 2000.

Three Lobed was built on Rayborn’s own status as a collector: “I want to put things out and have things look the way they’d look if I wanted to buy them,” he says. That means heavily weighted vinyl, pristine sound, and small runs of albums whose contributors run from relative unknowns to eye-poppers such as Glacial’s On Jones Beach, a 2012 LP of bagpipe-infused experiments created by Lee Ranaldo, David Watson and Tony Buck.

As such, balancing between a niche of vinyl fanatics and the general public has been important to the label’s longevity. “I don’t want to ever make things that are so small that people get frustrated and end up not getting them, but I don’t want to make them so big that people are like, ‘Oh, I can get this anytime, because it’ll be around for awhile,’” Rayborn explains.

The time it takes to move product from his basement warehouse to a fan’s home or neighborhood record store is Rayborn’s best indicator of success — a year from initial pressing to selling out means copies don’t gather too much basement dust, but fans still aren’t forced to hunt a release down in a matter of weeks.

Well-schooled by his day job in the pitfalls of business ownership, Rayborn makes sure the label is self-contained, reinvesting the profits of each release back into the next project. His financial successes materialize in release after release, a self-perpetuating model that’s served Three Lobed well.

But to say that this is a labor of love would belittle the boxes of vinyl stacked in the basement, and transform something physical into a wispy ideal. Rayborn’s work with Three Lobed is nothing if not real. The screen-printed matchbook packaging on the table before him testifies to that fact.

Calling him a hobbyist is equally trivializing. No release nails that point home better than 2011’s1 multi-LP box set, Not The Spaces You Know, But Between Them. The belated and star-studded celebration of Three Lobed’s first 10 years features Sonic Youth, Eternal Tapesty, Wooden Wand and others, and quickly sold through its 1000 copies.

But business-centric words like “entrepreneur” belie the chances he’s taken on albums from relative unknowns, or the label’s very ethos — that nothing is a cash cow, that the records worth doing are worth the ephemera of letter-press packaging or hand-numbering, despite the inefficiencies.

Fellow label-owners’ and fans’ response to that 2011 box set gave Rayborn a chance to contemplate the esteem his enterprise has garnered. “People talked to me about the label side of things; like, ‘I started this label a few years ago, and I really liked what you did,’” he says. “It’s been kind of weird the last few years realizing that I’ve created this big thing that I didn’t realize I’d created.”

Despite —or because of — Rayborn’s insistence on products worthy of repeated spins and a display place on a shelf, Three Lobed’s finances are solid. Collectors have given the label sea legs through a recession and the era of the mp3. Three Lobed gives the people what they want —even if that happens to be a 10-minute bagpipe instrumental on a limited vinyl run.

Estrangers
Season of 1000 Colors
(self-released)

Sometimes, it only takes one record for a band to truly find themselves, one record that suddenly solves every issue that was holding them back. For Winston-Salem’s Estrangers, Season of 1000 Colors is that album. At 12 songs, it’s the first proper LP from the adaptable pop-rock ensemble and the first to receive a physical release following two EPs offered up as pay-what-you-will downloads.

It was a wise move; the music on those small platters — the Love Language-aping theatrics of 2011′s Black Ballroom, the charmingly dilapidated psych rock of 2012′s Sunmelt — was bumpy, bruised and marred by developing chops that strained to keep up with the band’s seemingly boundless ambition. They were worth a few bucks, sure, but you couldn’t blame anyone who held out for a more sound investment.

Now, it’s time to pay up. Season corrects each and every one of Estrangers’ past errors. Philip Pledger’s voice — earnest and emotional, but ill-equipped for the unadorned belts on Black Ballroom — is an asset here. He stays well within his own range, bolstering bolder moments with richly appointed effects, and laying bare the fractured nature of his throaty croon — somewhat akin to Morrisey’s, but with a rougher edge — to accentuate the record’s more delicate moments. Also gone are the half-baked genre experiments and in-state copycatting. Season is diverse and daring in a way that never inhibits its immediacy.

As Black Ballroom displayed, Estrangers are keenly aware of their regional peers. But Season sees them expanding their circle of influences and borrowing inspiration from various Carolina pop bands. Opening instrumental “El Paradiso” lilts to life with far-off sleigh bells and a guitar drenched in watery reverb, making an appropriate nod to The Love Language’s 2010 effort, Libraries — and inhabiting the style more comfortably than even that record was capable. Addictive lead single, “Love’s Pure Light,” embeds an entrancing riff within gorgeous shoegaze textures, and enlivens it with a relentless New Wave bass line that calls to mind Triad neighbor Jenny Besetzt.

But no part of Season is quite so wowing as the middle-album trio of “Dayzd,” “Moonraker” and “Monarchs.” The first song snaps and pops with dense but deftly controlled bass, chiming synths, and pleasantly syncopated drumming, lending blissful energy to Pledger’s determined flirting: “We could have it if we wanted to/ Live our days out in the summer hue,” he offers, his voice artificially lightened to convey Beach Boys-level sincerity. The song evaporates into comfortable distortion that then solidifies into “Moonraker”‘s psychedelic stomp, where a dense and disorienting riff contrasts agreeably with crisp organ fills. The new-found darkness sets up perfectly for “Monarchs,” which utilizes its skyward-seeking guitars and sparkling synthesizers to contrast the exploits of a repentant but irremediable fuck-up: “I’m always wasted in the back of borrowed cars,” Pledger passionately quips. “I’m always blacking out before the party starts.”

Occasionally dense but always light on its feet, sometimes sorrowful but constantly redeemed by its sense of joyous discovery, Season is confident and cohesive, revealing a skilled outfit that has advanced light years since its 2011 debut. No problems here. —Jordan Lawrence

Some Army

Mount Moriah

William Tyler

Spider Bags

Hiss Golden Messenger

Elim Bolt

The Love Language

Estrangers

Lost in the Trees

The Mark Tobeys

Invisible Hand

Wilde Blood

The Lollipops

White Laces

IYEZ

For many keeping tabs on Raleigh’s Hopscotch Music Festival from other outposts in the Carolinas, it might often seem like the Triangle has all the fun. That’s not the case this year. To celebrate its line-up announcement on April 24, Hopscotch is sponsoring a series of six “Road Shows” between April 25 and May 4 in Chapel Hill, Winston-Salem, Wilmington, Asheville, Charlotte and Richmond (No S.C. dates, which is admittedly a bummer).  Each bill leans heavily on local talent, emphasizing Hopscotch’s impressive feel for its home state — and parts of Virginia. The Charlotte show on May 3 might be the most exciting as it features a performance from Bo White y Su Orquesta, one of the Yardwork member’s few solo appearances with a full band since putting out last year’s Same Deal/New Patrones. The album utilizes an enormous cast of musicians in its combinations of traditional Latin sounds and experimental pop, making any attempt at a live recreation a must-see. He’s supported by the searing punk trio Joint D≠ and the buoyant pop outfit Blossoms, making Charlotte’s bill entirely homegrown. The rest of the intriguing line-ups are listed on the poster below. Each show costs $5, all of which goes directly to the performers. Who’s up for a road trip? —Jordan Lawrence

Come Record Store Day, High Point’s Three Lobed Recordings will have something special waiting for those brave enough to wade through the early morning crowds. Hiss Golden Messenger, the mercurial folk-rock outfit instigated by Durham songwriter M.C. Taylor, and Steve Gunn, a Brooklyn-based guitarist who brings an otherworldly edge to reverent blues stunners, have teamed to produce a collaborative LP, available via Three Lobed on April 20. The name of the project and album is Golden Gunn, a play on words that is in every way equal to this excellent release.  That’s the album art at the top of the post.

Though both artists write songs, and Taylor is best known for his words, much of the record is bereft of singing. Instead, the album takes a mystifying journey through ethereal funk and oddball cosmic country, each delicious experimental nugget melting patiently into the next. Proof of the album’s greatness can be found on “The Sun Comes Up a Purple Diamond,” which Shuffle is happy to premiere. Streaming below, the song features a subdued vocal performance from Gunn and plays like something out of a space-age honky-tonk, processed drums underpinning effect-enriched slide guitar and reverb-drenched organ that instill a nervy twang.

Shuffle‘s Jordan Lawrence caught up with Taylor via e-mail to ask him a few questions about this exciting collaboration.

Shuffle: How did this collaboration come about?

M.C. Taylor: Cory Rayborn at Three Lobed suggested it as a collaboration he’d like to hear. I have no idea why, other than he is a musical omnivore and is good friends with both Steve and I. I was thrilled with the idea, as I’d been a fan of Steve’s music since he was a member of GHQ, and I love his solo records and his duo work with John Truscinski. And then in September of 2012, Scott Hirsch (of HGM) and I did a long drive from Durham to Monkton, Md., with Steve and his girlfriend Heidi to attend the wedding of our friends Chris and Constance, and it became clear that it would be a really fun collaboration. We all have similar musical backgrounds and senses of humor. I kept facetiously warning Cory that he might not like the record and might want to reconsider, but that guy’s taste knows very few bounds and he was game for just about anything. Which is what he got.

Shuffle: I think the most surprising thing about the release for me was that it relies less on lyrics and songs. There are really only two tracks that fit that bill with the rest focusing on textures and atmosphere. How did you guys end up pushing in that direction?

MCT: Hiss Golden Messenger is generally a songwriting project, but having come off a multi-year stretch of making Bad Debt, Poor Moon, Lord I Love the Rain and Haw, I was a little tired of the sound of my own voice. And I was pretty happy to let Steve and Scott guide the project, or at least have it be an equal-parts collaboration. Plus, so much of the music that Scott and I are inspired by is instrumental — from Popol Vuh to Taj Mahal Travellers to Terry Riley — or rhythmically focused in such a way that the lyrics are arguably less critical to the overall vibe (such as records by J.J. Cale or Waylon Jennings or certain dub records); I think we felt like this was a way for us to have fun and exorcise this stuff in a way that we might not get to otherwise.

Shuffle: That’s especially different for you as your work as Hiss Golden Messenger focuses on your words and melodies. What was it like for you to expand into that other territory for once?

MCT: As Hiss Golden Messenger, we’re always recording instrumental stuff, but so little of it makes it onto proper HGM records, maybe because it doesn’t fit into the arc or narrative of the record at hand. So there wasn’t anything new about recording largely instrumental/rhythmic material, but knowing that it was going to be an album and that Three Lobed was enthusiastic about the project, however it ended up sounding, was rejuvenating. And it was a thrill to work with Steve. He’s an incredible guitarist, singer and writer, and he’s just on his own trip. It was nice to be close to that for a while. And Scott Hirsch really deserves a lot of credit. I think the hardest part about finishing the album was stitching all the disparate vibrations together — I was totally not prepared to do that and couldn’t conceive of how it could work as a cohesive whole — and Scott had this vision in his head of how it would play out and he executed it so well. A lot of the Rhythm Ace rhythms are all Scott’s doing.

Shuffle: I gotta say, the name is almost as exciting as the album itself. How did you come up with it? Was there an “ah ha” moment where it kind of came to you guys?

MCT: Thanks. I can’t speak for the others, but it seemed like a functional name to me, like maybe we’d change it if we thought of something better. But it does work pretty well, yeah. The alliteration is satisfying, I guess.

Shuffle: What works about your chemistry together? What do you each bring to the table?

MCT: I think all of us — Scott and I, plus Terry Lonergan (who plays drums/percussion in HGM and on the Golden Gunn record), Phil Cook (who plays a lot of the keys and some guitar as well), and Steve — all share a lot of the same ideas about rhythm, and a lot of the same musical impulses and influences. This record draws and depends on blue notes throughout, but it’s not “the blues,” and it takes a specific cast of musicians to understand and execute that. There is a blue feeling on the record that is oftentimes very drifting and diffuse.

Shuffle: Is this a collaboration you’ll revisit, or do you think you’ll let this record be it?

MCT: We’ll see. We’re working for Dickie Silk now.

Of all the bright, young pop-rock bands bursting onto the Carolina scene, Winston-Salem’s Estrangers might be the most ambitious. In their first two years, they released two albums that were as different from each other as they could be while still maintaining the group’s lively personality. 2011′s Black Ballroom was a purposefully bombastic slab of old-school pop that recalled The Love Language in its ragged intensity. Last year’s Sunmelt EP subverted that formula, twisting songs with lo-fi psychedelics like a tape that had been miraculously warped when left out in the sun.

Today, Shuffle is proud to premiere “Love’s Pure Light,” the first single from Estrangers’ forthcoming third effort. The currently untitled LP will be self-released as a digital download on April 22 with a vinyl pressing arriving in time for the group’s May 11 release show at Krankies in Winston-Salem. The song (streaming below and available as a pay-what-you-will download) pushes in a steely, New Wave-inspired direction, propelled by the cutting loop of the main guitar riff, the chugging muscle of its relentless bass line, and the comforting gauze of fuzzy synthesizers and stately piano. Philip Pledger’s earnest croon is built up with effects and overdubs, accentuating the emotional potency of his lovelorn lyrics. All told, it’s an assured offering that finds the Estrangers coming into their own after three years of experimentation. —Jordan Lawrence

In its first two years, Winston-Salem’s Phuzz Phest set itself apart as one of the Carolinas’ more intriguing festivals, a showcase for one of the region’s most under-appreciated scenes and a celebration of rock and pop that’s willing to get weird. Phuzz returns this spring with a line-up that should increase its profile considerably. Hitting downtown Winston April 4, 5 and 6, the event will feature more than 30 bands, including premiere regional talents and buzz-worthy national inclusions. Baltimore’s Lower Dens headline with lush psych-pop that pairs enthralling guitar gauze with rhythms that ensnare listeners without overpowering them. Other noteworthy national acts include the endlessly propulsive Invisible Hand and the effervescent Eternal Summers, both from Virginia, as well as IYEZ, an exuberant psych-punk group from Brooklyn, and William Tyler, a brilliant and ambitious guitar player from Nashville.

This year’s Phest also includes a host of Carolina bands that are beginning to get national attention. Durham’s Mount Moriah, who releases a second slab of smoldering folk-rock on Merge Records in February, will play alongside the NPR-approved orchestral folk of Lost in the Trees and Hiss Golden Messenger, who combines the poetic musings of singer M.C. Taylor with a hypnotic distillation of various roots rock strains, often with the help of William Tyler. Also on the menu are the explosive emotionalism of The Love Language and the masterfully controlled garage chaos of Spider Bags. In addition, the festival includes one band from the Palmetto State, Charleston’s Elim Bolt, who dirties up dreamy ’50s pop with indie rock fuzz. The full line-up, listed below, is filled out with a host of other exciting out-of-towners and a slate of local bands that will surely change the minds of anyone who doubts the relevance of the Triad music scene. Tickets are available now. —Jordan Lawrence

Phuzz Phest 2013
April 4-6 @ Various Venues, Winston-Salem

Airstrip (Carrboro)
Alligator Indian (Asheville)
Blood Waves (Winston-Salem)
Bolmongani (Winston-Salem)
Burglar Fucker (Winston-Salem)
Dark Prophet Tongueless Monk (Winston-Salem)
Drag Sounds (Greensboro)
Elim Bolt (Charleston)
Estrangers (Winston-Salem)
Eternal Summers (Roanoke, Va.)
Hiss Golden Messenger (Durham)
Invisible Hand (Charlottesville, Va.)
IYEZ (Brooklyn)
Joint D≠ (Charlotte)
Kill Devil Hills (Brooklyn)
Late Bloomer (Charlotte)
Lilac Shadows (Carrboro)
The Lollipops (Raleigh)
Lost In The Trees (Chapel Hill)
The Love Language (Raleigh)
Lower Dens (Baltimore)
Motorist (Winston-Salem)
Mount Moriah (Durham)
Nightdogs (Brooklyn)
Robes (Carrboro)
Some Army (Carrboro)
Spider Bags (Chapel Hill)
Toddlers (Carrboro)
Torch Runner (Greensboro)
White Laces (Richmond, Va.)
Wilde Blood (Winston-Salem)
William Tyler (Nashville)

Photo by Tom Roughton

Surf’s Up may well be The Beach Boys‘ most under-appreciated offering. Floating along on heartbroken flotsam left over from the aborted Smile and filled out with some of the weirdest and most harrowing experiments in the outfit’s catalog, it’s a somber and stunningly mature album from a band best known for their “Good Vibrations.” “‘Til I Die” is a wonderful example of the album’s power. Wandering with wistful pop melodies and filled out with gorgeous harmonies, it plays to the Boys’ traditional strengths. But the stakes here are higher: The narrator pictures himself as “a cork on the ocean, floating over the raging sea” as he contemplates his mortality.

Casual Curious, Greensboro’s resident electro-jazz ensemble, retains few elements from the original in its newly released cover, but the band still manages to approximate The Beach Boys’ melancholic mood.  Sexy sax fills lend a sense of sensual detachment as reverb-rich electronics heighten the loneliness inherent in the lyrics. T. Lee Gunselman’s fragile vocal sits low in the mix, obscured by effects, but still present enough to be heard. He sings the lines with incredible passion, leading the track into a beautiful interlude where saxophone and synthesizer modernize the Boys’ bittersweet tune without losing its essence.

Gunselman is dedicating the track to his late friend Mario Boni:

Mario introduced me to my favorite Beach Boys’ records and specifically this song back in high school when I lived in Durham. On an afternoon when Will and I were mixing this cover, I received the news that Mario had died the night before in a head on collision in between Durham and Chapel Hill. It was surreal and shocking to hear this. RIP Mario.

The song is available to stream (below) or download, both free of charge. —Jordan Lawrence

Hit with an abrupt cease and desist letter from a Chicago band with whom they’d unknowingly shared a name, the emotive Greensboro rock quartet Future Ghosts decided to change their name to Unifier and, well, get on with their lives.

Per a statement from the band:

Due to the unfortunate events surrounding the name Future Ghosts in the past week, we have elected to seek out a new name and brand for ourselves. We had originally hoped to come to some sort of understanding in a timely manner that would allow us to retrieve our sites and move forward. However, it became clear to us that there would be no quick or easy resolution, and also seemed apparent that we would not be taken to court over the issue.

Our only focus as a band should be to write, play and release music — goals which this situation was seriously obstructing. All of our plans for the release of the new album were being strained, and we did not want to push the date back any longer. Rather than waste any more time, we began work to find a new name, alter artwork, create new websites, and remove the sour taste from our mouths…

…Thank you all so much for the support you showed us during this last week. All of the input, whether positive or not, was ultimately appreciated and has brought us to an even more determined place as a band. As a name, Future Ghosts will forever tie us to an unsettling event in our careers, one that we do not wish to be solely known for. It simply does not hold the same personal meaning for us that it once did, so we want to distance ourselves from that relationship and move past it.

That being said, we have chosen to adopt the new name Unifier. Not only is it a powerful word in and of itself, it has taken on a special meaning to us now as well. Looking past the situation’s negative nature at all of the support we received, we see a result which is much more positive than we ever could have hoped for. Unifier pays homage to the new unity of the four of us as a band, as well as what we hope will become a greater unity of our fans and our home state’s music scene.

With the announcement of their new name, Unifier have released the first single from the forthcoming Colorado, due Feb. 12 via Autumn + Color and Round Kids Records. “Shadows” promises a broad and bold approach to rock, suggestive of the introspective musings of early-00s emo bands like Midtown or Taking Back Sunday with the arena rock bombast of the Kings of Leon. Stream it below.—Bryan C. Reed

Shadows by Unifier

Photo courtesy of Phillip Pledger

Phillip Pledger leads the Winston-Salem pop-rock outfit Estrangers. He also books shows at Krankies Coffee.

Chairlift — Something (Columbia/Young Turks)

Whether or not this qualifies as “bubblegum” pop is irrelevant. Her voice still destroys me at least four or fives times on this album. So smooth. Who knew claiming Cyndi Lauper’s throne would be so fun to listen to…

Chromatics — Kill For Love (Italians Do It Better)

I guess this 80s revivalist stuff is in vogue right now, but I can’t resist it. And why should I??? This album is so good, a glossy soundtrack for the idyllic summer whose sun burnt out too soon. “Back from the Grave” is one of my favorite songs of the past few years.

Divine Fits — A Thing Called Divine Fits (Merge)

I love Spoon, so liking this isn’t a big shock. It’s fun to hear Britt Daniel’s minimalist tendencies incorporate more synths into the palette.

Grizzly Bear — Shields (Warp)

Hearing a great band try to expand their horizons can at times be either inspiring or hazardous, but Grizzly Bear seemed to find their way with Shields. Their seamless merging of light and shadowy elements is masterful and makes this album a dark and stormy gem.

Mac DeMarco — 2 (Captured Tracks)

Our keyboardist David-Todd played this for me last night, and I was immediately into it. I hope talented, straightforward pop songwriting never goes out of style.

T0W3RS — If All We Have Is Time (DiggUp Tapes)

This record came out and hit me at just the right time. How they’re able to blend such seemingly scatterbrained styles and aesthetics is beyond me, but the result is colorful, dynamic and beautiful. One of the records I’ve enjoyed most this year.

Tame Impala — Lonerism (Modular)

Is this some forgotten psychedelic artifact of an alternate 1970′s universe? Tame Impala have riffs for days and “Elephant” is one of the best real rock songs in awhile.

Thee Oh Sees — Putrifiers II (In the Red)

When they came and played Krankies last year I had no idea I was about to see one of the greatest live bands on the planet. They’re prolific, but I’ll listen to this record as much as any other from them.

Twin Shadow — Confess (4AD)

While I immediately loved his first album, this one took longer to grow on me. Still, it’s hard to deny his exceptional arrangements and impeccable production, and this album has some true hits.

Ty Segall & White Fence — Hair (Drag City)

Tim Presley’s mellow and Ty Segall’s rowdy make for an unsurprisingly good album, blurring the chemically-altered lines between gritty garage and quirky mod rock.

See also: Our annual critics’ poll, plus more guest lists from Greenhorn Studios director Molly Brown, Coma Cinema’s Mat Cothran, Karmessiah, Floating Action’s Seth Kauffman, and Sorry State Records head Daniel Lupton.