Pitchfork

Pitchfork's been crushing on Austin, Texas indie pop quintet Voxtrot for well over a year now, so it's hard to believe they've yet to actually release a full-length record. Oh, they've got EPs alright-- three thus far, including last fall's Your Biggest Fan. And they've got a pretty sweet record deal. So what's going on with that inaugural full-length foray?

Well, it won't be long now. With the band in New York City mixing their debut, Pitchfork caught up with Voxtrot frontman Ramesh Srivastava, who generously disclosed some of the album's dark secrets, shared his thoughts on the record-making process, considered the blogosphere, and revealed just what took so long with that record.

First, the essentials: Beggars Group imprint Playlouder will deliver the Voxtrot full-length worldwide on (or around, as the case may be) May 22. It was produced and mixed by Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Mojave 3) and recorded in December and January at Premier and Cacophony studios in Austin. To tide over fans in the UK, Beggars/Playlouder will release "Trouble" backed by "Your Biggest Fan" as a limited edition 7" and download single on February 26.

The album doesn't have a name yet, but Ramesh is leaning toward either a self-titled affair ("I guess it's the first time we're presenting ourselves to a lot of people, so maybe we'll just name it after us") or (said in jest) Remember Us From the Blogs? At least we think he's joking.

As an added treat to Voxtrot's biggest fans who've held their breath for nearly two years now anticipating the full-length, the record will contain "12 or 13" entirely new Voxtrot songs (i.e., nothing from the three EPs or the seven inches) drawn from a pool of 16 new jams. Among them, Ramesh's present favorites: "Kids Gloves", "Blood Red Blood", and "Firecracker".

In particular, Ramesh loves "Firecracker" because it sounds the least like his band's previous material. "It's kind of like an odd marriage of styles," he said. "Beats that we haven't used before. I just like the bigness of it, sonically."

The tune, as it turns out, is autobiographical. "In a way it's sort of about the intense experience we've had making a record for the first time with a record label, and what that's been like, and how it affects your self-confidence."

Srivastava and confidence, it seems, have an on-again/off-again thing going on-- and when the band released the Your Biggest Fan EP late last year, Ramesh and self-confidence were on the outs. "I like [the EP], and I like the songs on it, but I wasn't overjoyed with the way that it sounded, because it all had to be done in this very rushed environment. I think when that came out I was overly terrified of critical response, because I thought that we'd gone against ourselves-- because we didn't have time to do it right."

Fortunately, they made up: "In the end, it ended up not being that big of a deal. Now I like it, and I realize it's just songs. I like the songs, and it really doesn't matter that much, the sound of every instrument and every note."

Still, Ramesh is deeply invested in providing Voxtrot's fans with quality sounds. "The whole thing is, you always want to keep making music [while] thinking about how you're connecting to an audience, but not thinking about critical response. And that's a hard balance to strike."

Ultimately, said Ramesh, "I think honesty is the thing that you always want to try to achieve. And you try to remember, 'What did I love about music originally, and how can I foster that same thing?' It's kind of this constant battle-- for me anyways-- to keep out external forces-- to know that you're moving forward and being relevant, but without letting external forces determine the way that you do it. It's a catch-22."

That said, Voxtrot welcomed at least one external force with open arms: producer Van Vugt. "It was cool," said Srivastava, "because he didn't come in and demand that we do certain things with the songs to make them more commercially viable or whatever. But as far as sounds of instruments that he got, it's such a leap.

"With stuff we've done in the past, I have thought, 'Oh, that sounds really good.' And you can record your own stuff. But especially the drums-- we came in that first day and he mic'd the drums, and he played it back to me, and I was like, 'Holy shit, that's an amazingly huge drum sound that goes straight to your stomach.' That's something I've always wanted."

Pleased with the use of strings on Your Biggest Fan's closing track "Sway", Voxtrot also welcomed the Tosca String Quartet to contribute extensively to the LP. "I think we might have done nine or ten [songs] with the strings. I guess there are one or two that feature them really heavily-- but they're on there, with little accents all over the place."

Recording for the Beggars-affiliated Playlouder label has proven a blessing for the previously self-financed band. "It's the first time that we had a little bit of a budget to do a little more," said Ramesh. "I don't know if it will sound that much different to other people. It sounds a lot different to me, but I guess we'll have to see."

So what took so long? "I think, basically, we were waiting for enough support to do it right. To be able to really just [work on the album] all day every day, and to be able to afford to have string players come in and play on ten songs, and stuff like that...I'm really proud of those EPs, but I really wanted the album to be a step up sonically, and I knew if we had done that by ourselves, we couldn't have made it sound the way that we wanted it to."

Because Voxtrot, quite early in their careers, found an eager audience among bloggers, the band has often been called a "blog band"-- a tag that doesn't much concern Ramesh, a blogger himself. "It's a label I'm proud of, I guess," the Voxtrot Kid told Pitchfork, "because that's the new, subversive media, right? So it's cool, it's really cool."

"But then it has a downside...do people have emotional loyalty to a band when music comes so fast? With blog bands, the shelf life of a song in people's minds is a lot shorter. Sometimes I think maybe that's good, because it puts less emphasis on the record industry half of things, but then maybe it's bad because it's hard to cultivate any kind of scene anywhere or any history, because everything is exposed so immediately."

He continued, "I remember when I was little, going to a record store and buying a record that you'd heard about, and then because you bought it you really labor over it for a long time-- the whole thing of becoming connected with it and sacrificing yourself to it. I don't think people do that anymore."

Perhaps Cult Hero-- Voxtrot's own imprint (not to be confused with the New Jersey label), on which the quintet delivered its first two EPs-- can serve up some new discs that prompt sacrificial love? While the label is presently dormant, Srivastava has hopes for a revival soon.

"It still exists in our hearts," Ramesh said in jest. "No, I really have a couple things that I want to put out. There are a couple of awesome bands-- Finally Punk and Yellow Fever are two bands that I really want to put stuff out by...but I can't really do it 'til we have more money. Which I always think is right around the bend. Not a lot of money, just enough to where I could live and then put out a couple of records. So as soon as that becomes an option, I think we'll start putting some things out again."

Srivastava describes Finally Punk as "kind of like the Raincoats-- very chaotic on stage, but somehow it's this chaos that totally works. It's not exactly musical precision, but amazing energy." He recently big-upped Yellow Fever on his personal blog as well, calling them "wonderful." The Austin-based trio includes Jennifer Moore, who lent backing vocals to several Voxtrot jams, including "Sway" and "Raised by Wolves".

Folks will likely hear those tunes-- and, hopefully, quite a few of the new ones-- as Voxtrot takes to the road next month. They'll hit up the UK (including an NME Awards show with the Shins) and Europe, then head home for some SXSW appearances and tour the U.S. through June with Au Revoir Simone.

Voxtrot:

02-21 London, England - Water Rats
02-22 Manchester, England - Night and Day
02-24 Glasgow, Scotland - The Hold
02-25 London, England - Astoria (NME Awards Show) *
02-28 Paris, France - La Fleche d'Or
03-02 Berlin, Germany - Mudd Club
03-03 Hamburg, Germany - Molotov
03-14-15 Austin, TX - SXSW
05-25 Austin, TX - Emo's #
05-29 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey #
05-30 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall #
06-01 Portland, OR - Doug Fir #
06-02 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe #
06-05 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock #
06-06 Grand Rapids, MI - Intersection #
06-07 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick #
06-08 Toronto, Ontario - Sneaky Dee's #
06-11 Cleveland, OH - Beachland #
06-12 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar #
06-13 Washington, DC - Black Cat #
06-14 Boston, MA - Middle East #
06-15 New York, NY - Webster Hall #
06-16 Philadelphia, PA - Pure

* with the Shins
# with Au Revoir Simone