Local psych-folk band Village of Spaces’ latest album Shaped By Places has a much crisper, more intimate tone to it than the group’s first seven releases, with a sound that is rooted both in traditional folk and psych-pop.
“It was all recorded at home. There was a lot of close miking and a lot of hushed vibes,” says guitarist/singer Daniel Beckman-Moon. “In the past, I’d found lo-fi records to be more intimate than hi-fi in general, but for this record I feel like we achieved a more intimate feel, in part, through a higher-fidelity lens.”
The record is the group’s first in five years. The members started making music in 2001 under the moniker Uke of Phillips and have changed the band name periodically. They’ve been Village of Spaces since 2010. The group has always been Beckman-Moon and keyboardist/vocalist Amy Moon Offermann-Sims, with other members rotating in and out of the group. They moved from Maine to Santa Cruz about four and a half years ago. Rather than grabbing a bunch of friends and quickly recording some tracks, they took their time, polished their takes and sent tracks to friends over the internet to overdub.
“I think we were more careful with this one. We were taking our time with it rather than just grabbing recordings while we were having practices,” Offermann-Sims says.
This is also the group’s first official California record, which is covered in great detail in the lyrics.“It is a lot about moving to California,” says Offermann-Sims. “Where we lived changed us fundamentally.”
9 p.m. Friday, May 24. Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $5. 429-6994.
