Album Notes

The Sutras are Upstate New York's forever burgeoning indie rock quartet, complex, moody and here with a new album.

Founded in 1992, when they couldn't find a guitarist for their college band Grandma Mapplethorpe, then-teenage classical piano student AJ Strauss was forced to learn the electric guitar, and the Sutras were born. With the help of two English majors (Paul Mauceri and Michael Madon) on drums and an anthropologist (Jarrett Mason, soon to be Derek Tripp, another anthro major) on bass, this union culminated in 1997's Pox Records release "A Prize for Whitey." Known then for their high energy and clamorous Sonic Youth like shows, the guys played Northeast gigs for a while, got depressed, said their good-byes and chalked it up to a good time.

After six years of bitter break-ups, divorces, and cutting edge medications, Gen-X indie rockers the Sutras emerge from basement hideaways and bi-polar obscurity in rainy Ithaca, New York, with a new line-up and a delicious new CD. Founding member AJ Strauss (guitar, vocals, keyboards) and Derek Tripp (bass) enlisted Jeremy Allen (drums) and Kevin Denton (guitar) for the recording of "Thousandaire." Produced by Upstate NY studio mastermind Matt Sacuccimorano and the band at Newfield NY's Electric Wilburland Studio (a converted 19th Century church), the CD showcases the band's complex, psychadelic arrangements, harmonic complexity, and melodic sensibilities without being a simply a rehash of various classic rock eras. Gone are the days of worshiping Sebadoh and My Bloody Valentine's approach (as 1997's "Prize for Whitey" suggests), yet the healthy spirit of indie pop and rock experimentalism is still somehow very much alive and utterly contemporary in this slick recording, from its Moogs to its vintage tube amps and phasers, to sampled Baptist preachers and drum machines, to all night naked freak outs.

Since it's December 2003 release, it's been getting compared to Pavement, Rufus Wainwright, Flaming Lips, Brian Wilson and early David Bowie. Just listen to the first 45 seconds of "Pregnant Again", their symphonic emo-glam opus offered on this site. Or the moody and Radiohead-esque "Montenegro". Or the elated punk strains of "Nepotism". Each track seems to illuminate a new facet of the band. Music lessons, my ass! No one can teach you how to make albums like this.