The Glass Bead Band is:
Matt Stadelmann
Marshall Yarbrough
Recorded and mixed by Martin Bisi at BC Studio, Gowanus, BK, March 2023
Mastered by Fred Kevorkian
Cover Photograph by Tom Jarmusch
All songs by The Glass Bead Band save for "I Am a Computer" by Mad Virgins
Thank you: Alex Kilgore, Sal Robinson, John Paul Murray, Paisley Fields, Kristin Stadelmann Ferreira, Dennie Hausen, Loveletter, Ryan Spencer, Ben Lasman, Flear Vaknin, Gillian Belbin, Chris Suterko, John Stanier, Chris Wells, and Jim Tozzi.
Luftmensch Records - LUFT 014
luftmenschrecords@posteo.net
There’s something uniquely cerebral and forward-thinking about this record. It doesn’t bang and it doesn’t moan. It manages to come on subtly with an implicit knowledge without forcing itself into your consciousness rudely; but the lyrics, the melodies and instrumental harmonies and rhythms and counter-rhythms betray a certain depth of understanding of the history of myriad underground music cultures often relegated to the margins or grossly infantilized or just plain ignored. For many of us, though, music of this ilk has been (and will forever be) sustenance.
We cut our teeth on all sorts of Garage, Proto-Punk, Punk and Post-Punk, D.C. and L.A. Hardcore, New York Noise and the first few generations of truly independent rock; but that’s not what this is. This is something evolved from but beyond that, something that is somehow at once fully fucking formed and eloquently nascent and downright beautifully human. It’s a music, in short, for right now, and it’s excellently executed.
There’s nothing derivative about The Glass Bead Band. They don’t play into rock clichés. There’s no schtick here masking itself up as art. There’s just a sincere voice, a guitar and a set of drums and two real people playing them very skillfully and innovatively—people who display an informed affection for the pantheon of recorded music and reflect that without feeling the need to be bound by it creatively. I am certain that this music will find its audience.
- John Paul Murray
released March 15, 2024