An exclusive download for our Kickstarter backers. A collection of recordings from 2010 – 2012 of voice memos, rehearsal recordings, and studio demos leading up to the recording of Aloud's fourth LP, It's Got To Be Now. Also includes demos for two unreleased songs, "Edge City" and "(I Just Want) To Be Free".
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A long time ago, before Aloud was Aloud, teenaged facsimiles of Jen and Henry set out to begin and complete a full-length record in the span of 24 hours using a TASCAM 4-track machine, a passable drummer, Radio Shack microphones, and a half-eaten tin of Pringles (don’t ask). Looking back on this experience, the idea was nearly as foolish as actually distributing the subpar results to friends, family, and anyone willing to fork over $5 USD. Several years later, as I was asking a dear friend to destroy the evidence, she told me—in no uncertain terms—that she would do no such thing. “Look at it this way,” I remember her telling me, “you’ve frozen your learning curve.” (Also: blackmail.)
So here we are, a good 14 years after the release of an “album” we’d rather forget and two months ahead of the release of one we couldn’t be prouder of, foolishly circulating another learning curve on ice.
The tunes in this collection were culled from a variety of sources ranging from voice memos recorded in the blink of an eye to demos at our rehearsal space that took days to arrange.
Though the songs here are in various stages of completion and rife with imperfections, bum notes, bad ideas, and mouth noises that are downright puzzling, we hope they give you a deeper appreciation of the long road to It’s Got To Be Now and how your support truly helped us cross the finish line on this one. As ever: thank you for listening.
To anyone who still owns a copy of Our Expensive Hobby, please destroy it immediately.
Cheers,
Henry
February 16, 2014
credits
released April 1, 2014
All songs written by de la Osa/Beguiristain
Henry Beguiristain: vocals, guitars, keys, percussion
Jen de la Osa: vocals, guitars, keys, percussion
Charles Murphy: bass, backing vocals, percussion
Frank Hegyi: drums, percussion
Michelle Tucker: drums, percussion (tracks 3 and 5)
Track 2: recorded by Matthew Girard at Elephant Music Group, Arlington, MA
Tracks 3, 5, 7, 9, 10: recorded by Charles Murphy at Aloud HQ, Boston, MA
Aloud is, in the parlance of our times, a rock n’ roll band. Since our founding in Boston in the early 2000s we’ve released
5 albums, toured coast-to-coast several times, and even landed music in a few films. We’ve called L.A. home since 2017.
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