Altered Zones

By Michael Pollock

MP3: Secret Colors: "Heavy Sleeper"

MP3: Expensive Looks: "Vanishers"

Two months ago, Group Tightener Records was a single genre label. Co-founders Sam Hockley-Smith and Jamie Granato had created a stable of 7 inch singles with blown-out vocals and reverberating guitar--a go-to for fast-hitting, distorted pop-rock and powerful summer vibes that amplify with a 32 oz. Styrofoam cup of frozen margarita. They built their label off the lo-fi riffs of Best Coast, Fluffy Lumbers, and Cloud Nothings. These days though, classifying this Brooklyn-based label is a bit harder; a string of new summer releases doesn't so much break the mold as complicate it.

Our audiophilic duo is from Washington State. Sam is from Seattle and Jamie is from Bainbridge--an island just off the city's coast. Bainbridge Island is also home to the label’s eponym, a rudimentary drinking game. Jamie supplies an example: "You’re with all your friends and you say, 'We got to group tighten this bottle of whiskey.'" The peers then collectively drink the alcohol in a hurried fashion--usually on a beach or before attending a party. Even with its connotations of peer pressure and binge drinking, Jamie and Sam like to focus on the community and goal-oriented aspects of 'group tightening.'

They met at Olympia’s Evergreen College. They had classes together; Jamie had a ponytail. After graduation they both ended up in New York. Jamie was DJing by night and working at Kim’s Video and Music as Music Buyer by day. Sam was interning at The FADER, and visiting Jamie at Kim’s during his lunch break. With the entire record store at their disposal, they spun the rock and rap they grew up listening to and came across the likes of Detroit techno producer Richie Hawtin, ambient artists from Kranky Records, and German minimal electronic label Raster-Noton. They were bonded by their interest in music of all genres. "I have a distinct memory of listening to Excepter records with Jamie at like 7:00 a.m., after staying up all night with [him] when I first moved to New York," Sam says.

Along with being a scruffy ginger, Sam is a music journalist. He knows an intern is going to transcribe the recording of the interview. He knows what the publishable story is, and he tells it straight-up. Jamie is less concerned with narratives and talking points, but smiles as scenes from their past pop into his head. Both get schoolgirl-giddy when talking about music.

Nathan of Wavves was hanging out at Jamie’s apartment and mentioned to Sam that Bethany Cosentino (Nathan’s girlfriend and Sam’s former co-worker at the FADER) had been working on some music since she'd moved back to Los Angeles. "We were all excited about it and came up with the record label that night," Sam says. Again, this was the spring of 2009, before anyone had heard of Best Coast. The demo tracks triggered an instantaneous "Oh, ok," for Jamie and Sam. "No one was really talking about it. We liked it, I knew her--we knew it would be an easy thing to set up," Sam remembers. From there, the dominos fell. "It was one of those things where that one [demo] worked out so well for us that we were like, 'Let’s do another one and another one and another one.'"

After the release of GT’s first record and Best Coast’s "Make You Mine" 7", they released 7" vinyls from Cloud Nothings, Real Estate bassist Alex Bleeker, Coasting, Fluffy Lumbers, and Fungi Girls. GT001 to GT006 are all pretty similar and sit on the lo-fi end of the spectrum with the exception of Bleeker’s "These Days," in which the singles all recall the pristine pop abrasiveness of Psychocandy and Bee Thousand. Jamie and Sam see these records as great one-off projects. Part of GT’s goal--besides pressuring their friends to drink to the point of vomiting--is to support those musicians who might not be on traditional career paths but still want to record, produce, and promote their music--or professional musicians like Alex Bleeker and Big Troubles drummer and Fluffy Lumbers mastermind Sam Franklin, who are looking for an outlet for their solo material.

Since purging Kim’s of customers with "Giorgio Moroder and other sleazy disco," Jamie has moved on to focus on the label, DJing, and Cascaders, a music project of his own. Sam has been hired as an editor at The FADER. They DJ at their monthly event, "I’m in Charge of Celebrations," which bounces between various New York City clubs and bars. "You’re not going to be thinking about Group Tightener on a daily basis," Sam says. "You’re going to think about it when we do something, so [these parties are] a good way for us to do something while we are waiting for the next release." Jamie adds, "And we’d be doing the same thing in my living room with three people so we might as well make 20 bucks, have some free drinks, and use a better sound system." To see Jamie and Sam DJ, you’d think they were rolling; they are stern-faced when readying the next song, then nothing but smiles when they are asked what’s being spun. They have a sincere interest not only in music, but in being part of the community music creates. Sam says, "I really always liked going to regular parties. You know the DJ, you know the people, you know the vibe. That doesn’t happen as much as it used to in 2006 or 2005, and I miss it."

Most of the time, they operate out of an office set up in Jamie’s Greenpoint apartment and in various post offices in New York City. "The secret of small labels is that we spend so much time in the post office," Sam says. A new release equals hundreds of personal orders that the boys must individually hand package late at night, only to haul them to their full-time jobs and mail them during the lunch hour. Greenpoint’s US Post Office is "aggro as fuck," Jamie says. "Seriously, every time I go in there, people are yelling and screaming."

MP3: Fluffy Lumbers: "On The Twist"

To celebrate GT’s second birthday and the night Jamie blew chunks off his own roof, Jamie and Sam spent most of May DJing in Europe, and are re-releasing Best Coast’s "Make You Mine." Year two also sees the label exploring new sonic territory, branching out from the distressed guitar rock they have relied on in the past. The new releases are exciting ones and more fully represent GT’s eclectic tastes.

First up is a 7", "Vanishers," by Expensive Looks. This New York bedroom project retains the grit of previous GT releases but is also highly influenced by and made for the dance floor. Samplers and sequencers replace traditional rock instruments and pedals. Sam points out that the 19-year-old Alec Feld grew up with the hypnotic, contrapuntal melodies and rhythms of Animal Collective and Black Dice. Whereas the label duo say they have come to acquire a taste for such music, to Feld the whippersnapper it comes quite naturally. A full LP, Dark Matters, is to follow in early September. Expect remixes aplenty.

Next is a 12" split between High Wolf and Annapurna Illusion. Both sides come from the same French-born artist but they are bylined with different monikers. Confusing, I know. Made with analog synthesizers, High Wolf’s long-form, unstructured psych intrigued GT. Jamie describes the project as "progressive in the way it's taking the history of improv music that was big in the early 2000s and applying newer sounds." They knew they wanted two different projects for this record, and "were trying to figure out who to do the split with. Then High Wolf suggested himself." Out of Annapurna Illusion’s relatively harsher repertoire, which tends to drone and scratch worse than an addict, Jamie and Sam found the perfect b-side for this split. Make sure you are with a good friend and properly zoned before putting the needle to the vinyl, or you’ll go places that you are just not ready for.

MP3: Coasting: "Coasting"

Another 12", Water Mirror, comes from Seattle’s Secret Colors. It creates a euphoric atmosphere that could easily soundtrack a clip from "Planet Earth." As the name suggests, it's lakeside music. It creates a calm, albeit one much different from that of GT’s hazy surf-punk 7" from Texas trio, The Fungi Girls. Exploring larger formats and more ambient territories lets Jamie and Sam take on more executive production responsibilities by shaping and organizing the songs.

New sounds are appearing, but there is no need to be afraid. GT is importing Australian surf rockers, The Twerps, and their 7", "She Didn’t Know." Though they are coming from as far away from NYC as one can possibly get (while remaining earthbound, that is), they rock the combination of delayed guitars and filtered vocals that put GT on the map. Very similar, but, you know, with accents.

So what is a record label to do? How does one move forward with new sonic aesthetics while remaining a reliable producer of quality pop music? How do Jamie and Sam avoid a Dylan-gone-electric-like backlash or worse, a Dylan-gone-preacher-like abandonment? Jamie explains that while the majority of their new releases might seem odd for GT, they do share "experimental aspects and a similar murkiness" with their previous records. Sam believes that their early record store discoveries of experimental and electronic music are "only now starting to manifest in [their] records, definitely in High Wolf and Secret Colors and in a more abstract way, with Expensive Looks." He adds, "We grew up not just listening to rock music, but our label, because of what we put out first, is pretty much straight rock. We want to naturally transition into doing other stuff in addition."