Looking for Shiny Objects with Courtney and Brad’s Debut, Our First EP
“I think we’ll stick with it as long as it’s exciting to us,” Courtney Swain told Wormbrain, of her semi-eponymous Providence, RI experimental duo Courtney and Brad’s improvisational and one-take approach to song-making. “We’re like magpies looking for shiny objects as we scavenge around creating.”
“Improvisation is an inherent part of the project for now,” claimed Bradford Krieger, of and about his self-named collaborative project. The so far quite enigmatic band’s debut Our First EP was released today through Philadelphia-based label Dear Life Records and crosses genres seamlessly. In the following ever-unpredictable breath however, he told Wormbrain, “In the future, I could see us taking a more typical and measured approach to songwriting, who knows!”
Across the band’s first five songs, Courtney and Brad attempt to bottle the pair’s diverse influences in off-the-cuff and raw ways, delivered in mindfreakingly polished and high-spirited walks through genre. The project pairs established, longstanding creatives with hefty resumes elsewhere — Swain being of Boston art rock band Bent Knee and Krieger of PVD math rock trio 14 Foot 1 and award-winning Lincoln, RI recording studio Big Nice — who find themselves clearly reinvigorated and channeling a lawless chemistry together, wringing perfected pop drops and rewarding new artistic experiences out of the sessions.
“We’re like magpies looking for shiny objects as we scavenge around creating.”
“This is also my first project singing in my first language, Japanese. I don’t know what possessed me when we were working on that first song to ask Brad if he’d be down for Japanese lyrics, but I’m so grateful he was.” Beyond (or in conjunction with) their choice to improvise, Swain finds herself singing in her base vernacular on Our First EP, a cathartic affair in line with the rest of the band’s modus operandi. “After the first few sessions, I was surprised to find how much it meant to me to get to write in Japanese. It’s been surprisingly healing to get to share myself as a whole, rather than one half at a time.”
“Brad and I are both very fast and very spontaneous with what we do, and I’m really excited by how we can fly by the seat of our pants and also be thoughtful and caring about what me make and about looking after each other,” raved Swain on her project’s partner. “This collaboration has been a dream.”
Echoing this, Krieger gushed to W.W, “This has been one of the most rewarding creative pursuits I’ve ever been involved in.”
Photo by Mel Taing
And, as for the near future? He told us, “We have another full batch of songs based off the same improv approach we took for the EP ready to roll. It’s really freeing to really just do whatever we want and not feel beholden to a group, a label, management or anything like that. Dear Life is incredibly encouraging and is happy to let us explore and be lil weirdos about stuff.”
“We’re not attached to having a traditional ‘band’ setup, per se. The writing and recording process has been very funny and exciting most of the time, so it’s important to us that the live aspect has that too,” Swain told Wormbrain. “Much like our creative process, I think once we’re ready to step out we’ll stitch together some weird way which makes it fun for us to share our songs live.”
Photo by Mel Taing
Speculating on the prospect of what a Courtney and Brad show might look like, Krieger said, “The freewheeling approach will spill over there as well. I think that we will tailor our performances to the setting and lineup of shows we find ourselves on. In my opinion, Courtney is a master of revoicing and reharmonizing music, and I love to react to what she comes up with, so I could see the songs as they are recorded acting as more of an outline for live performance.”
Will we ever be able to predict Courtney and Brad’s next moves? I think we’ll just have to wait and see.
W.W: What is Wormbrain?
BK: Wormbrain is when you kickflip a surfboard and the graphic is the dancing baby gif
CS: Wormbrain is my brain crawling around looking for the right words to put in that one lyric 😋
W.W: Thank you for sharing with Wormbrain.
Courtney and Brad’s Our First EP is out today, Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 through Philadelphia, PA label Dear Life Records.
