Los Angeles musician Tracy Bryant is no stranger to going it alone. As the frontman and founder of post-punk experimentalistsCorners, he recorded the group’s first album, Beyond Way, in his Echo Park apartment with just a four-track tape recorder, a few guitars and a snare drum. While the follow-up LP, Maxed out on Distractions, was very much a group effort, Bryant has continued to cultivate the haunted, solitary sounds that permeate through Beyond Way on his own.
Tracy Bryant’s solo debut was the well-received 2014 split cassette with Corners compatriot Billy Changer, which was released on Lolipop Records and Burger Records before quickly selling out. Imbued with the studied swagger of Nikki Sudden and the emotionally damaged earnestness of Johnny Thunders, his songs are a logical extension of Beyond Way’s dark Americana, with layered acoustic guitars, hypnotic electric leads and hushed vocals setting an eerily inviting tone.
For his next effort, Subterranean (out early 2016 on Burger Records), Bryant decamped to the Arizona desert to record with The Resonars’ Matt Rendon. Tracked mostly live with the help of friends Joo-Joo Ashworth and Jeremy Katz (Froth), and Cameron Gartung (Mystic Braves), the album feels informed by the bottomless, barren canyons and still, black nights that stretch across the American Southwest. Deftly switching gears between The Gun Club’s piercing howl and Peter Murphy’s brooding goth-pop, Bryant showcases an affinity for the anti-hero and the outcast in his ramshackle rock ‘n’ roll. While Tracy Bryant’s music may call out as a memento from the lonely highway, we can’t help but wish to join him on his journey.
