usLights’ expansive, shimmering psych-rock is linked by a golden thread of melody to a firm foundation of pop songwriting. Assembled in 2014 by Matt Nastri and former HERRA TERRA members Gregg Kusumah-Atmadja and Shawn Pelkey, the band crafts dreamy, often cinematic music that counterpoises heady sonics with a knack for the immediately engaging chorus.
Pelkey and Kusumah-Atmadja left HERRA TERRA in 2014 to focus on usLights. All three members, though accomplished instrumentalists, had little vocal experience. Facing the challenge head on, they dove in and began a rigorous regime of writing and rehearsals. When going back to the originally instrumental compositions, adding vocal lines in a way that was natural and organic posed a major challenge – the band wound up having to rewrite the bulk of their material, and even abandon favorites that just weren’t meant to feature a vocal component.
Preparing their music for live performance proved an additional challenge. “In a live setting, everything is run from one keyboard workstation” explains Kusumah-Atmadja. “A hellish amount of programming went into this transition as well. So between all of that and juggling our personal lives, it took a bit to get this off the ground.”
Out of that epic effort came waes, a record that deftly captures the creative spark, balanced at the intersection of the fearlessly avant and intimately familiar – and placed the band as finalists in Boston’s 2016 Rock & Roll Rumble. Written and recorded at the band’s home studio in Fitchburg, MA, and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound in New York, the record is a study in contrasts. Thematically, the record is focused on the sparks of positivity that can be found in the midst of existential anxiety and heartache. “This record was written during a very tense and stressful part of my life, and I think it shows,” says Kusumah-Atmadja.
Though the end result is a complex, multi-layered mélange of iridescent washes of sound, soaring melody, and gripping songwriting, the music comes from simple beginnings. “All of our songs start off as jams and are true collaborations between the three of us” relates Kusumah-Atmadja. “To me, this record is me taking my clothes off for the first time at thirty-five and looking in the mirror. I hope that rawness and honesty is received by the listener. If someone truly wanted to get their head into this record, my advice would be to drive to an empty parking lot at dusk, get high and slowly undress. Now, rub peanut butter all over your body and calmly walk in front of your headlights. One by one, the moths will consume you. Only then will you know.”
Glide is premiering “Fumes” an enlightening composition that blurs the lines between brainy art rock and pure pop pleasures. It’s cliche to profess a song demands repeated listens, but “Fumes” earnestly uncovers something novel with each spin.
“Fumes is one of the first tracks that we wrote together while I was learning how to sing. It’s about knowing that the end has come and not wanting to let go. But it’s also about finding forgiveness within the downward spiral. I don’t like to give out too much about my lyrical content – the meaning of a song can be subjective depending on who’s listening and what state of mind they’re in – so I much prefer the listener to read along and have an unbiased understanding about what they think it’s about, or what it means to them personally.
