Earlier this summer, Brooklyn’s Vivian Girls released a video for their single “Take It As It Comes.” The song is off the trio’s third album (and Polyvinyl debut) Share the Joy. “It’s cleaner and more hi-fi than the previous records,” guitarist/vocalist Cassie Ramone says of the album, which the band recorded at Rear House, the home studio run by Jarvis Taveniere (of the Brooklyn combo Woods), who engineered the album. “The sound is more open, more free. I think that this album really shows our strengths as musicians, and shows us melding together musically. It’s more psychedelic and less shoegaze. There’s also a lot of organ on it, which is new for us.”
The album’s title comes from a tune by Burt Bacharach, one of Cassie’s biggest songwriting influences, which appeared on Bacharach and Hal David’s ill-fated ’70s musical version of Lost Horizon. “I was reading a book about him and I noticed the title ‘Share The Joy,’ and the blurb about the song said that it had ‘one of his most haunting melodies,'” Cassie explains. “I immediately thought that was so interesting-a deeply haunting song called ‘Share The Joy.’ I hunted the song down and listened to it and totally fell in love.
“Share the Joy has the most diverse batch of songs of any of our albums,” Cassie observes. “I feel like these songs are more expansive; a lot of the themes and lyrics are less direct than other albums. These songs focus a lot on the themes of alienation, reconciliation, identity, and trying to figure out what really matters in life. It’s a dark album, but unlike our first two albums, it has a happy ending.
“Our music continues to get more and more defined and developed, but it’s never going to be completely polished,” Cassie asserts, adding, “A thing I like about our band is that we seem to mean different things to different people. Another thing I’m proud of is that, while a lot of people may have initially heard about us through internet buzz and things like that, I think our audience likes our music because it’s honest and because we mean it. I think that people can pick up on that.”
Watch below and catch the band on tour this September (dates below). For more information on Vivian Girls check out their Facebook and MySpace pages.
VIVIAN GIRLS
Tue-Sep-06 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda’s *
Wed-Sep-07 Baltimore, MD Ottobar *
Fri-Sep-09 Raleigh, NC Hopscotch Festival / Slim’s #
Sat-Sep-10 Conley, GA Southern Comfort %
Sun-Sep-11 New Orleans, LA TBD *
Mon-Sep-12 Jackson, MS Sneaky Beans *
Tue-Sep-13 Memphis, TN Hi-Tone *
Wed-Sep-14 St Louis, MO Billiken Club *
Thu-Sep-15 Chicago, IL Empty Bottle *
Fri-Sep-16 Toronto, ON Parts and Labor *
Sat-Sep-17 Syracuse, NY The 219 Takeover! *
Mon-Sep-19 Boston, MA Great Scott *
Tue-Sep-20 New York, NY Knitting Factory *
= w/ Widowspeak
# = w/ Coliseum
% = w/ Black Lips