Travels With Brindle takes us down a Cambridge path to ‘Linden Street’
Chelsea Spear’s lo-fi indie-pop project reveals new single on September 2
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New music from Travels With Brindle set for release this fall
Performing live September 17 at Wenham Street Cinema in Jamaica Plain
Photo Credit: Susan Margot Ecker
CAMBRIDGE, MA [September 2, 2022] – Chelsea Spear remembers the day like it was yesterday. It was February 2021, and she just experienced a personal creative setback that would inspire the usual things personal creative setbacks often inspire: Crying into her pillow, stress-eating a sleeve of Thin Mints, and performing some seriously regrettable subtweeting. But from that darkness 18 months ago came a jolt of colorful inspiration, one that would take the songwriter, busker, and ukulelist known as Travels With Brindle out to the streets of Cambridge, and down a path to her own personal “Linden Street.”
And on Friday, September 2, Spear invites us into that world, as “Linden Street” hits the streams as the latest effort from the Massachusetts-based lo-fi indie-pop and ukulele project, following June single “Ivan” and the first of three new EPs set for release through the holidays. On Bandcamp, the Linden Street EP – complete with eye-catching artwork by Chance Brown, inspired by Vintage Contemporaries book cover designer Lorraine Louie – is rounded out by two additional home recording tracks, her own “Castles in the Air,” inspired by the documentary Shirkers, and a cover of “Erica's World” by Game Theory, Scott Miller’s experimental and hyperliterate ‘80s band that had a massive influence on Spear’s recent songwriting spree.
“I wanted to write a power pop-influenced song with a catchy melody and heartbroken lyrics,” Spear says. “While I was going through my anger and sadness, my friend saw that I was in distress and texted me: ‘Emotions are like weather. This will pass.’ Something in that phrase stuck with me and I took that energy into writing this song.”
And while Spear describes that “Linden Street” is “probably the angriest song” on her forthcoming album, set for release next year after this string of singles and EPs, she also knows that it’s a decisive and pivotal one. Taking influence from early-’80s jangle-pop and power-pop and distilling it down into her own creative cocktail – and a songwriting evolution from the musician who released an Alex Lahey covers album called I Love You Like A Cover in 2018 and her debut EP Greetings From Rocky Point a year later – the infectious “Linden Street” has the gentle urban awareness of a veteran busker with just enough polish, and structure, to appeal to the indie-pop crowd.
“Linden Street” features Spear on vocals, ukulele, and a thumb piano known as the kalimba, with Gwendolyn Fitz on U-Bass, and Christian DeKnatel on drum programming. DeKnatel mixed the track, which was mastered by Joel Edinberg. She’s excited to perform it live when she plays Jamaica Plain’s Wenham Street Cinema on September 17 with Beautiful Headquarters and Hilken Mancini & Chris Colbourn (no small thrill for someone who used to sneak into T.T. The Bear’s Place with a fake ID as a teen to see Mancini’s band Fuzzy).
“I see it as a step forward in a lot of ways!” Spear says of the single. “Many of my songs are long and don't really adhere to the length that verses in particular should be, mostly due to my own need to say everything and get it all out of my system. When I sat down to write ‘Linden Street’, I knew I wanted the verses to be four lines and the chorus to be two, and no pre-chorus, just so I could really get to what I needed to say. I also wanted to have a riff at the top of the song and a solo, and I was able to include both of those. As soon as I wrote the song's opening line, it all came together in about 20 minutes.”
And the pieces of Spear’s puzzle continued to fall into place. Her upcoming album is inspired by Elif Batuman's 2017 novel The Idiot, which takes place over the protagonist Selin's freshman year at Harvard, not too far where Spear once busked.
“The title ‘Linden Street’ came from one of the cross streets Lowell Hall was on, and I took some of the general ideas from The Idiot of feeling disappointed in someone and made it into my own thing. While I was writing this, she announced that she'd written a second novel about Selin's sophomore year, and because The Idiot is very autobiographical, I assumed Selin would end up in Lowell House, where Batuman lived for the balance of her undergrad years. I looked at Lowell House on a map to see if any of the cross streets would make for a good song title. As soon as I saw ‘Linden Street’, I knew it had to be the one.”
Plus, it certainly lended itself to being used in a song. “I liked the way the word ‘Linden’ rhymed with itself,” she adds, “and the phrase rolled off the tongue in a way that's helpful for a song title.”
Media Contact: Please direct all press inquiries to Travels With Brindle at travelswithbrindle@gmail.com or Michael Marotta at michael@publisist.co.
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‘Linden Street’ single artwork:
Art Credit: Chance Brown
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‘Linden Street’ production credits:
Chelsea Spear: Songwriting, vox, ukulele, kalimba
Gwendolyn Fitz: UBass
Christian DeKnatel: Drum programming, mixing
Mastered by Joel Edinberg
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Travels With Brindle short bio:
Chelsea Spear has been a music critic, a show promoter, a college radio host, and a video director… but all she really wanted to do was start a band. Not long after learning to play the ukulele, she formed the bedroom recording project Travels With Brindle. Her melodic original songs and wry, poignant lyrics have attracted a growing audience at open mics and busking pitches in the Greater Boston area. Spear is inspired by lo-fi songwriters and jangle pop acts of the 1980s and ‘90s, and her work has been compared to the Marine Girls, the Raincoats, Courtney Barnett, and Liz Phair. Currently Spear is recording her first full album of original songs, which she hopes to release soon.
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Media praise for Travels With Brindle:
“Chelsea Spear makes her ukulele rock throughout a collection of six poignant tracks.” – Jersey Beat
“Once a busker on the streets of Boston, Chelsea Spear is now performing in venues, and she’s not afraid to get a little spooky.” – The Lynn Item
“The [‘I Want U’] video, directed by Vanessa Mark and shot in Central and Harvard squares, is inspired by Spear’s experiences busking – ‘You run into a lot of interesting people, folks who maybe need a therapist as well as people who are very enthusiastic about music,’ she says – and proves that things go more smoothly with a dinosaur by your side.” – Cambridge Day
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Press Contact: michael@publisist.co or travelswithbrindle@gmail.com
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