Link: http://www.mittensonstrings.net/

Being in a band, there is more to just the business aspect of day-to-day procedures. On most occasions, being in a band is a result of friends coming together to form a creative bond and be something greater as a whole than each individual parts.

For Mittens on Strings, it goes far beyond just a group of friends with some simple DIY strategies. This band is their life, and everything that they do reflects on the nature of the group.

“There are a million bands out there, and we are trying to do something interesting in one way or another,” said Alex Preston.

For the Indiana native (he grew up in New Albany), he says that they are always looking for ways to bring the band closer to the audience and their fans. For example, with their T-Shirt merchandise, the band produces one-of-a kind, handmade shirt designs where the image is used only once and never again. They do this to add a personalized touch and accentuation to the experience as a whole.

“You buy that shirt, you own that image,” said Preston. “We flipped the idea of intellectual property. It’s about making something that is precious. It becomes a valuable product.”

Another example of an eclectic experiment was a raffle at one of their shows where they gave away prizes. The only catch was that instead of handing out actual raffle tickets at the door, they handed them out during the performance.

“The hardest thing is for people to give your music a chance,” he said. “I’ve noticed that when I do these silly things, people perk up and become more interested. The people participating are the ones who are really paying attention and giving it a chance.”

This shows a distinct devotion for the band as each individual member taps into their own talent to make the machine. Beyond Preston’s work, Jacob Daneman works the promotions side of things, and Jonathan Schenke is a sound recording engineer.

All of this is on the surface, but for Preston, his deep devotion for the band led him to leave a PhD program in Bio-Chemistry.

“The band is something you can do when you are younger. I can always go back and finish my PhD.”

At first, Mittens On Strings was a casual summertime project, but after releasing Look Up The Sky!!! on Emperor Jones Records, the band took more prominence and became not only a summer project but a winter one, as well.

“People don’t take two weeks off in grad school,” he said. “Sneaking away to go on tour and attributing it to academic conferences, it all finally caught up with me. They were like what the hell are you doing?”

Leaving University of Texas to join the band in Chicago, they began focusing fully on the band and working on material for a new album which became Let’s Go To Baba’s on SOUNGS.

Let’s Go To Baba’s continues with a respectable no-nonsense approach that offers simplistic yet expressive songs that meander through lo-fi ethics in the most complimenting way accentuated with raw yet melodic pop songs. It will have you tapping your toes and appreciating the organic value to this band. Sure not every song may pull you in on the first try, but there is something there that will make you consider going back and listening to more.

“If you try to impress someone with flashy antics, you see that is all there is. With us, I want the listener to come to appreciate something deeper within our music. We didn’t put an orchestra or use digital reverb or echoes. It’s mics set up in a hallway. What you hear is what we sound like.”

With Let’s Go To Baba’s, Mittens On Strings are on the right track. The band is healthy, the creativity is diverse (an upbringing of artists from Neil Young to ‘90s DC punk), and the ideas are fresh. You never know exactly what to expect when you graze through their music or show up at a show. But what you can expect is something enlightening, interesting, and fun.

“We don’t want to say our music is run of the mill, but it’s not avant garde either,” he said. “Hopefully it’s something interesting and valuable. We are getting that opportunity to present something and if they like it they like it. At least we can say that we gave it a fair shot.”

Origin: Austin, Texas
Style: Space Rock, Indie Pop, Dream Pop

On their debut release, American Analog Set had a completely different agenda than the blissful pop style that dominated most of their career. This album became a silent winner of the late ’90s and propelled the Austin-based band into the 21st Century as gentle indie giants. Although not drifting too far from their later sound construction, The Fun Of Watching Fireworks builds upon a long, drawn-out series of droney jams that are simple and elegant; a My Bloody Valentine in reverse.

Amanset has divulged on the concept of the anti-album. There are no songs that stand out, no singles, even though there are moments that come to the forefront. An album like this must be treated as a whole in order to understand the full intentions of the band, where it is not so apparent where one song ends and the next begins. The album meanders on flawlessly like a road trip, building experience upon experience with no real destination in site. There is no build up. the sometimes monotonous, sometimes repetitive sound actually does wonders to this album as guitars softly orbit around a farfisa. And the album ends just as easy as it began.

It was a concept that caught the attention of people like Option who had this to say: “…this group does slow better than many, effectively mixing and matching instrumentation without sounding desperate for novelty” (January/February, 1997, p. 75). It blew Alternative Press away by giving it a four out of five stars: “The American Analog Set do what many of the latest swarm of space rockers cannot: They craft beautiful songs and then layer them in waves of soothing effects…” (January 1997, p. 64).

Amanset did a brilliant job at making each song flow into each other, sometimes drifting off into elongated yet structured jams but always coming back to quaint dream pop numbers much like Book Of Love, if they were more interested in the sound of The Fairport Convention.

Built upon the constraints of a rock opera without a direct conscience of being one, The Fun Of Watching Fireworks is what it is, delicate songs that flow freely as the listener sits back and soaks up the view. The lushness and elegance will keep the attention of dreamy-eyed listeners who like to dust off their Galaxie 500 box set or revisit Stereolab’s earlier work.

This is the basis for the band, and a firm one that established them in the indie scene as the album remains to have a strong presence on the Internet that people still gravitate toward.

Cross-Reference: Book Of Love, Stereolab, Galaxie 500