On The Verge

Brazos

Austin, Texas
Summer Camp Music
www.brazosbrazos.com

Martin Crane chose the band moniker Brazos because he likes the way it sounds. “I wanted a word that didn’t really have any connotations,” he says while winding through the snow-covered mountains from Seattle to Salt Lake City as the band wraps up its tour with fellow Austinites White Denim. “I wanted people to be able to create the meaning behind it.” In the last two years, the band has opened for Vampire Weekend and Grizzly Bear, played an episode of ACL Left Stage and performed at SXSW. Crane (guitar/vocals) previously operated as a one-man band, but Brazos has evolved into a trio for its first full-length Phosphorescent Blues. As compared to his 2007 solo EP, A City Just as Tall, Crane says, “Sonically it’s richer and has more of the live band feel. It’s warm and more hypnotic and lyrically-based—and trancy.” For this record, minimalist pianist Simeon Ten Holt, Cass McCombs, Fela Kuti and Hercules and Love Affair influenced Crane’s songwriting process. “I was also writing a lot of poetry [and reading] Adrienne Rich,” he notes. According to Crane, the record sounds like “summer camp music,” adding that “it feels like a quiet, serene place. It’s a contemplative.”