On August 3rd, 2018, New no wave, noise rock freaks Spring Breeding came from Las Vegas, to play at Midway Craft House with Nobody Nose the Band, Flesh Narc, and Reliant K2. Spring Breeding and Nobody Nose also released their split EP Shut Up and Take My Money that evening. 

The first four tracks of the 7 track split are performed by Spring Breeding.  These tracks are both skronky and chaotic to say the least. The album kicks off with "Long Nose," which has shrill sporadic vocals layered with steady rhythmic bass lines, and percussion with elements of cowbell. The second track "Dart Song" begins with blast beat percussion and shrill saxophone notes along with rhythmic bass lines, and sporadic guitar overtones."Dickwasher" has aggressive vocals and a skronky guitar melody with blast beat synth elements, and deep bass undertones that crescendo and decrescendo through out. Their final track "Ffffffff"starts with synth elements and heavy kick drum blast beats, and then goes into a groove with cacophonous cowbell and a looped bass melody.

The last three tracks on the split were performed by 2018 DAM award winners for best new noise rock band, formerly known as Nobody Nose and the Troubles. Track 5 "Lull a bile" begins with a chaotic synth progression into non descript vocals. Their vocalist, Ruben Arthur, seems to have a vocal delivery style that is reminiscent of Lou Reed. On "Today Is Gonna Be The Day" Arthur’s vocal style shines through with conversational like vocals layered over skronky guitar and bass lines with static like synth layered throughout the song. The final track of the EP entitled "The Usual Furniture of Emptiness" starts with synth done by Leslie Gilson, and crescendos into a full on cacophony of skronky, chaotic, and visceral guitar and bass lines.

The Dentonite also had a chance to talk with Spring Breeding. Most of Spring Breeding’s influence when working on something, especially ethos wise, stems from the late 90s/2000s noise rock boom. Groups like Fat Worm of Error with their undulating wonky chaos, Arab on Radar with their mixture of shrill abrasion and sweaty dance beats, and Guerilla Toss with their liquid funk grooves topped with angular paranoia. So many more groups have a significant impact on them when writing but these are the top 3 groups that they draw from the most.

The members of Spring Breeding summed up their sound as trying to fit a triangle piece into the circle slot but somehow still making it work. They've got your standard discordant angular shrill sounds and rhythms of noise rock but adding a distinct level of wonkiness, funk, and danceability into it. They prefer to go by the tag of noise funk or noise wonk. Spring Breeding keeps the noise element, and takes the rock out of it, while adding the funk by being a very bass and drum driven band instead of your typical rock guitar driven music. By being very discordant it's much more focused on rhythm as opposed to melody. It's almost like a very bouncy game of tug of war with constantly moving rhythms going back and forth like pieces in a machine with their own seemingly unimportant isolated nature being given purpose when all working together to get it all running.

They also commented on their favorite city while on tour. In an email they said, “being in the first week of our tour there are still so many left to compete but so far Denton, TX has been the most wild and memorable show this tour so far. Being able to play with some of our favorite bands and good friends Flesh Narc and Nobody Nose in a makeshift venue inside of a convenience store definitely left an impression on us.”

When asked what it was like to record with The Nobody Nose, they said, “making a split with them is something we're really stoked about having happened. We got in contact with Ruben Arthur from Nobody Nose sometime earlier this year and we were both into each others stuff and had similar ideals so we figured we might as well do something. The recording process being us in Vegas and them in Denton had to be a pen pal kind of situation just sending tracks we made back and forth til we felt it was ready. Nobody Nose is a real wild skronky band so it really pushed us to make something way more fucked than our usual dance wonk, it was fun to have that kind of push to compete almost in a way and step up how wild we can really get.”

Spring Breeding’s favorite type of venues to play in are typically house venues. They find them to be the most fun, Tyler Gutleben, drummer/vocalist, said “I think it has to do with the usually very tight and cramped nature of house shows and lack of places to hide like at a bar show. When you're at a house show you're there y’know, you can't go hide at the bar or something, you're in it and it's sweaty and hot and it really adds a lot to the kind of music we make especially. Also stages are just lame, we hate them. Being only feet away and on the same level from the people you're playing to adds a certain kind of intimacy. Convenience store shows definitely come in a close second though.”

Spring Breeding defines the music scene in Las Vegas as “pretty barren when it comes to anything out of the ordinary. It's honestly super pathetic. Besides your typical harsh noise dribble that lingers around, we're the only band we're aware of doing anything in the wonky noise realm of things. We're usually subjected to playing with completely unfitting groups out there besides the occasional band on tour we're able to get come through. It's mainly filled with punk bands and stock hardcore which we have absolutely no interest in being involved with at all. Hence why going on tour is such an amazing thing for us because we finally get a chance to play with bands with a similar ethos and sound which is very exciting. It's also great being excited to stay and watch the other bands and not just stay for some lame punk band we've heard a million times because we don't wanna be rude.”

A few of the members of Spring Breeding also have side projects. Wes, the bass player, has a really tight techno project called Chasm Rove. He's constantly working on this project and consistently putting stuff out for it. Luke, the guitar player has a self proclaimed "shittronics" project called Mrs. Flex. Gutleben, the drummer and vocalist, has a kind of on and off noise project called Masuwokaku that only every now and then gets touched on but other than that it's mainly spring breeding they all focus on.

Gutleben says “The name Spring Breeding is a play on words of spring cleaning. It's an idea of realization of how outnumbered people like us with interest in left field wonky art and music really are. It's an encouragement for all us people with these obscure interests to have as much sex and children as we can try to and keep up with the disposable common people. It's like a cleaning up of the culture and infiltrating the lames with numbers by breeding.”

Spring Breeding has just wrapped up their summer tour. Their music is available on Bandcamp, and they can be followed via their Facebook page. 
 

Header image courtesy of Spring Breeding and The Nobody Nose
Header image layout designed by Mateo Granados