Pitchfork

Some bands come raging out the gates with some landmark debut album, then break up or fizzle off into mediocrity. Some toil for years and years before hitting their stride. And a few just plug along the old fashioned way, learning from their mistakes, growing steadily as songwriters, and improving by degrees with each release. Like Los Angeles rockers Earlimart.

The Aaron Espinoza-fronted combo has four albums under its belt, each building upon the merits of the last. "I think [with] every album I'm getting better [as a producer], and the albums sound better and the songwriting gets better," Espinoza recently told Pitchfork. By that logic, the self-produced, as-yet-untitled latest offering from Earlimart should be the band's best yet. While he's "still tinkering" with the new disc, which has no label or set release date yet, Espinoza was happy to talk about its genesis.

First off, surprise surprise, the latest Earlimart opus tackles "some general themes that I think most rock bands do: relationships and loved ones and broken hearts and all of that stuff." But folks don't listen to Earlimart for thematic innovation-- they come for the jams.

"Sonically," says Espinoza, "I think it's really kind of different than anything we've done before. It's kind of all over the place. [There are] definitely three different kinds of feels to the album in terms of songwriting."

These three "feels" include "typical pop...upbeat stuff," including "Nevermind the Phonecalls", ballad-like songs incorporating strings and more lush orchestration, such as "Don't Think About Me", and straight-up rockers, like "Everybody Knows Everybody". Three styles, three songs, three mp3s: the band have graciously offered to share these tunes with Pitchfork readers over the next trio of weeks. The first, representing the poppier camp-- but not without some string action-- is available below.

"We're actually really excited about putting out these three songs. I think they're really good. I think people that like the band already will like the band after this."

The fifth Earlimart LP-- which Espinoza has half-jokingly considered titling Untitled Album-- almost never happened.

"Everybody gets them," he said, but when it came time to create the new LP, Espinoza was struck with a serious case of writer's block. "This was the one where I thought, 'Okay, that was it, we had a good run, time to hang it up.'"

"But we ended up working through it."

Part of what held Espinoza up was the lack of a strict, label-enforced deadline. This LP has "taken us about a year, which for us is a really long time. We've done records in four months before, but this one has just been really grueling."

Earlimart saw three potential record deals struck down for various bureaucratic, industry-is-shady-type reasons. While they're still shopping around, the band is seriously considering putting out the new album by their own damn selves. "It's kind of scary, a little daunting. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's the time to do it, when we've been fortunate enough to have a little bit of a following already."

Labelless-ness has been, said Espinoza, "a blessing in disguise. Because...in the end we ended up making the album we wanted to make. On our own dime, and on our own time, and we did whatever the fuck we wanted to do. It's a record; it isn't open heart surgery. It's a piece of art, it's supposed to be fun, people are supposed to enjoy it."

Folks will have a chance to enjoy at least some of it live, as Earlimart jet off to New York very soon in the hopes of drumming up some interest in Untitled Album. The disc will also include a new version of "Answers and Questions", the excellent track that appeared on a recent Suicide Squeeze 7" and received a four-star rating from Pitchfork.

Earlimart's last record, Treble & Tremble, garnered more than a few comparisons to Espinoza's late friend, Elliott Smith-- something that provokes mixed feelings from the Earlimart frontman.

"It's tricky," Espinoza told Pitchfork. "I'm never ashamed of my relationship with [Smith] or his effect on me or my life or the band. I just feel very fortunate just to have gotten to know him. I could never think that's a bad thing if people want to put us in the same sentence with him or something.

"But I look forward to the day that I can feel like I'm my own person, my own artist, and people are seeing me as that... Some people really took [Treble] as a concept album or a tribute album to [Smith], and I wouldn't ever say that the album wasn't influenced by him, but it wasn't meant to be a tribute thing."

"But like I said, I can't ever, ever, ever be ashamed of my association with him. I cherish it every day."