Made In America - The Babies

One of the best things about the do-it-yourself ethic of the independent music scene is the camaraderie that exists between musicans and their willingness to work with each other for the sake of making good music. Often this leads to great side-projects and sometimes these side-projects turn into full time bands. If not for this we would've never had bands like The Breeders or Sebadoh.

The Babies are one of these types of bands, a one time side-project turned full time band. The Babies originated at Brooklyn house party meeting between Vivian Girls guitarist Cassie Ramone and Kevin Morby, bassist for the indie-folk act Woods. Originally meant to be another creative outlet between Ramone and Morby, they would later add drummer Justin Sullivan from Bossy, release a handfull of 7" singles on various lables and then a demos E.P. for New Images Records in 2010. 2011 would find the band releasing their self-titled debut on Shrimper Records. 

Their lo-fi jangly guitar sound with call-and-respond vocals would become more refined the following year while working with Los Angeles based producer Rob Barbato (Darker My Love, The Fall, Cass McCombs) and would lead to thier most recent album Our House On The Hill, released last year on Woodsist Records.

Ramone and Morby share songwriting and vocal duties throughout the album and deftly dish out songs with swirling meloncholic peaks that leave you wonderfully dizzy at times. Our House On The Hill is indie-pop to the core but gets you there through folk and punk rock territory with scatterlings of organ, piano and saxaphone used nicely to fill in that sound.