Interbabe Concern
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| Interbabe Concern | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | July 1996 | |||
| Recorded | 1996 | |||
| Genre | Rock, power pop | |||
| Length | 57:34 | |||
| Label | Alias | |||
| Producer | Scott Miller | |||
| The Loud Family chronology | ||||
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| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
Interbabe Concern is the Loud Family's third full-length album, and their first to be produced by Scott Miller instead of Mitch Easter. With the exception of keyboard player Paul Wieneke and Miller, this was a new line-up of the band.
After touring in support of the 1994 album The Tape of Only Linda, three members – bass player Rob Poor, guitarist Zachary Smith, and drummer Jozef Becker – left the group for family or career reasons.
For Interbabe Concern, Scott Miller took over the lead guitar duties that he had ceded to Smith on prior Loud Family albums. Paul Wieneke remained on keyboards and occasional lead vocals, and Kenny Kessel and Dawn Richardson joined the group on bass and drums, respectively.[1] Becker remained as drummer long enough to record several tracks on the album.
As credited in the CD booklet, the members were:
- Kenny Kessel - bass guitar and backing vocals
- Scott Miller - most guitars and vocals
- Dawn Richardson - most drums and all vibra-slap
- Paul Wieneke - synthesizer, unearthly rackets (beginning of "Sodium", "Chokehold", etc.), guitar, backing vocals, lead vocals on "Uncle Lucky"
Guest musicians included Ken Stringfellow of The Posies on guitar, and Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt. Gordon provided backing vocals on the co-written song "The Softest Tip Of Her Baby Tongue". Stringfellow is credited for co-writing "Sodium Laureth Sulfate" and "I No Longer Fear the Headless," and also played on "Not Expecting Both Contempo And Classique."
Former Game Theory drummer Gil Ray and keyboard player Shelley LaFreniere also appeared as guests; Ray would join the Loud Family as a member for their next album, Days for Days.[1] Richardson left the band in 1996, and was replaced on the concert tour by drummer Mike Tittel, who currently leads the Ohio-based band New Sincerity Works.[2]
Thematic notes
According to the Los Angeles Times, the "prevailing mood of frustration and loss" in Interbabe Concern sprang from the "collapse of Miller's marriage to Shalini Chatterjee."[3] Critic William Ham, writing in the 2005 book Lost in the Grooves, called this a "harsh, difficult album" with "dizzying mood-swings," drawn from a dark period in Miller's life.[4] Ham noted the twin departures of Miller's wife and his longtime producer Mitch Easter, and inferred that "since Chatterjee is [in 2005] married to Easter, we can assume that the two events were not mutually exclusive."[4]
The result, according to Ham, was a "jagged sonic mosaic" adeptly fashioned by Miller from the "shattered pieces."[4] The Tulsa World's Thomas Conner identified it as "sort of a concept album... an overanalysis of a divorce ('recorded in cold, passionless digital') by one very intriguing artist."[5]
