Courtesy Release New Album “Check The Milk”
Out Now
Courtesy are celebrating the release of their phenomenal new record, the immersive 11 track album “Check The Milk” which dropped Friday 19th November via Seasick Records. The new album is easily of the most refreshing and inventive releases we’ve discovered. “Check The Milk” solidifies Courtesy as one of the most ambitious creatives around.
For those unfamiliar with the outfit, Courtesy began in Memphis, Tennessee with a chance encounter via Craigslist. Drew Ryan and Kirk Rawlings met in 2009 to jam, but things derailed once they started trading 4-track scraps, voice memos and dictaphone ideas too embarrassing for band rehearsal. Drums and guitars were resampled, chopped and screwed as the two figured out how to produce tracks. In 2011, the duo released Idmatic—a collection of collage-based pop songs constructed via email, crammed with blown out drumming and stretched cassette wonk. By 2012, they added A/V wizkid Alex Pilkington and relocated to Chicago, where they recorded and released Slow Bruise in 2015—an aggressive mix of swampy meditation with pastel highlights.
Alex moved to NYC and was replaced by audio engineer Doug Malone to release HEY in 2018, “an unclassifiable electronic blend of off-kilter atmospheric synths, otherworldly vocal harmonies, deep-house grooves, and weirdo-funk bass lines all sewn together via a persistent Oberheim DX drum machine.” (Steve Rosborough, Moon Glyph).
Throughout Courtesy’s catalogue, there is a loose thread that mirrors each album with the evolution of life—beginning with an amorphous single-celled Idmatic, to the cold, lizard-like crawl represented in Slow Bruise, to the exaggerated stumbling toddler of HEY. The instinctual theme is always impulsive and thoughtless—much like the music itself. Back to the core duo, 2021’s Check The Milk explores the flip side of convenience and safety through a funhouse lens of candied funk.
From the first listen to the record, the audience is in for this intimate voyage with experimental contours meandering through this landscape of mystery. Each track builds an entirely new atmosphere which becomes this essential world you wish to stay. The unrelenting bass and haunting production allow this fierce detail to captivate all throughout.
“Check The Milk” is a truly innovative and ambitious body of work. Kicking the album off with “Shell Shock” immediately greets the audience with this compelling composition executing this flawless collaboration of experimental elements and lo-fi energy. Gliding through to “Spots”, Courtesy develops this unique vibe within their creation, the outlook of this track crafts this bountiful atmosphere, the audience embraces this feeling of freedom and sunlight within this track, a real upbeat character cements itself as the crucial aspect of this track. This commitment continues and develops as each track flows one into the other. “Don’t Ask Me Why” has the drama of the SUUNS earlier work but adds such intoxicating energy into the track, alternating time signatures and upfront vocal tones. Elsewhere on the record tracks such as “King Cave” ooze this sultry appeal with a nod to some jazz influence amongst the expressive environment. When that track ends and flows into “Lebron James” you once again start afresh as these piercing tones ignite the aura as the outfit start to sculpt this intriguing effort.
Throughout the album, which is a truly immersive record that deserves to be listened to in full, the remarkable detail that flourishes is that this is the work from 2 musicians. The album bursts with this plentiful infliction, the pair merge minimalist verses with a cadence of intricate elements and vibrant textures. They establish the intensity within their work which brings this unpredictable push to their work, keeping the audience hooked and waiting for the next dynamic twist and turn within their vision.
Bursts of raw tonality, a landscape filled with contemporary hip-hop attributes, vicious bass notes, and endless complex depth. The vocal notes capture such attitude, in all this record is outright addictive. Each track starts with a refreshing cull to the ambiance that came before, Courtesy then brings this striking appeal to the forefront of their instrumentations. Glitchy attributes delayed drums and devilish squelchy bass parts. Moments of moving melody push into the instrumentation and bring with it a new emotive current, relatable and compelling.
Utterly mesmerizing.
https://idmatic.bandcamp.com/album/check-the-milk
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